Oh man. Here we go again.
I’ve been going back and forth for months now about whether or not I want to ever color my hair again—or at least if I want to color it again in the foreseeable future, and it basically changes week to week. It’s been 10 months. Sometimes I think it looks better than ever. Other times I think it looks blah.
And it should go without saying that when Alexandra colored hers recently, I had pangs of envy. It looks so pretty!
More recently, I’ve taken to neurotically crowdsourcing my friends about it: “Am I even blonde anymore? Like, objectively speaking. If you saw me on the street and you didn’t know me, would you be like, There goes a blonde girl? Or would you be like, There goes a brunette? Or maybe a dirty blonde, would you say?” Like a crazy person. And in the event I have to describe myself physically, like if I’m meeting someone in public for the first time—for a work thing, thank you very much—I’ve preemptively sent the “I have dark-blonde hair and I will probably be wearing black” email, whereas I used to say simply, “I’m blonde.”
This is a whole lot of navel gazing, I realize, but there is weird stuff wrapped up in hair color—not to mention we live in a world where people love to play the “Which one are you” game, which usually comes down to looks. Are you Betty or Veronica? Serena or Blair? Carrie or Miranda? (Or…Samantha?) Silly as it all is, there’s IDENTITY stuff (and stereotypes) that go with every hair color—even for a girl who has never felt particularly, well, blonde.
I’ve felt freed, though, is the truth. Shampoo, conditioner, the occasional trim, and that’s about as high maintenance as this mane gets. I feel good about it, in a weirdly deep way. It feels good that this is how it comes out of my head. That I’m not wasting money and upping my chemical exposure. That I’m saving bucks. And yet.
As if to torture me, an email just popped up in my inbox, from my beloved colorist, who righted my hair when it went horribly wrong that time I tried to get “nontoxic” highlights (see the hair chapter in the book, if you have it). This email was from the guy who fixed me. Who attended our book launch party. Who I have a total and complete friend-crush on:
“How are you? Hope you are healthy and safe after this crazy August.. I have moved into a great gallery/salon space! I know you’ve really weened down the hair color… however, when you’re ready to make an appointment, or if you’re in the area, stop in for some champagne! I would love to show you around the space and catch up!!”
Oh man. Seth. Highlights. A beautiful art gallery-salon. Champagne.
What do I dooooooooo?
You know how when you’re shopping you tell yourself: I’ll sleep on it, and if I’m still thinking about it tomorrow then maybe I’ll get it? I try to apply that to most things in life: the personal, the professional and the completely inane.
So that’s what I’ll do with this. I’ll sleep on it. Again.
Anyone else been there?
Image via
It’s been a week of excesses. Or, maybe make that a few weeks…
First we had our book party at Evolue, followed days later by the launch in New York with Jessa Blades and Kahina. Top those good times off with a blast of a birthday for our dear friend Anna then a wedding bonanza for beloved couple Katie and Matt. Needless to say it’s been a hoot—and we’ve been together—so double that fun.
But here’s a little secret about me, and I’m willing to bet some of you can identify: I tend to, well, over-celebrate. That’s not to say I end up dancing on tables, forgetting an evening’s events, or getting dragged out of parties by my afro. No no, nothing quite like that. I just don’t always stop when I should—especially when there’s an abundance of good food and wine on hand—and then I overcompensate by making really strict rules for myself.
Sound familiar to anyone else? In a blink of an eye I go from total party to total ascetic, often to the confusion of those around me.
There’s got to be a better way—like one that involves fewer rules, less guilt and fewer hangovers.
So this week, instead of making promises (usually broken) to myself about how I won’t have a sip of wine or a bite of cheese—how instead I will drink ginger tea, stand on my head and meditate every day at dawn—I’m going to try on moderation. A glass of wine, or even two? Sure. Some cheese and some hip openers? Why not.
Let the balance begin, yeah?
Image via
We are the excited authors of No More Dirty Looks: The Truth About Your Beauty Products, and the Ultimate Guide to Safe and Clean Cosmetics. That’s Siobhan O’Connor on the left, and Alexandra Spunt on the right. We’re best friends and we’re journalists—and we also share a way-too-long history of product obsession.
A few years back we went for the then-new (and very expensive) Brazilian blowout. Sold to us as a healthy keratin treatment for our hair, the Brazilian, we later discovered, was actually laced with formaldehyde. The eye-burning fumes probably should have tipped us off, but we’d be lying if we said we gave it a second thought at the time. We were just psyched about how great our hair was going to look. Anyway, you can read all about it in our book, but it was this experience (and the self-diagnosing Google panic that ensued) that made us wonder for the first time: What the hell is in our beauty products, anyways? And once we figured out that they were loaded with all kinds of sketchy chemicals, we wondered: Does anyone have our backs when it comes to safety? The answer to the latter is a big, fat no.
We wanted to write something for women much like us—that is, women who love products but who also care about the planet, and don’t want to sacrifice their health for their looks (or vice versa).
We’ll tell you now: Our year of experimenting with what we call “clean” beauty garnered better results than almost everything we’d tried before. And we’ve tried a lot.
In the book we look at the lack of regulation in the industry and try to make sense of some of the confusing science around long-term low-dose chemical exposure, because our bodies absorb up to 60% of what we put on them, and the cosmetics business uses over 10,000 chemicals in their products—many of them with woefully inadequate safety data written about them.
Over the last two years, we trolled countless scientific journals and databases, we spoke to experts, and we asked questions—over and over again—until somebody would answer us. But the book is not all serious! It’s also an exhaustive guide to the most effective clean products on the market, tested by us. (And in the few cases where we didn’t fit the guinea-pig bill, for aesthetic or racial reasons, we turned to trusted friends.)
This site will be done in the same spirit. We plan to post frequently about everything from the latest research, to the latest blushes. There will be beauty tips, and new clean-product finds. There will also be rants about things that piss us off, like the fact that there was lead in every lipstick the FDA tested not too long ago.
We’re excited to hear from you—whether you’re already a converted clean girl, or whether you think we’re full of crap. It’s the discussion that counts, so we hope you’ll take part.
