It's Not Easy Being a Blonde

Digital art collage by Stella Kalaw

As a little girl, my sister had big brown eyes and golden ringlets. My mother coaxed her hair into curls either with a hot iron or large curlers with spikes that kept my sister (and therefore me, given we shared a bedroom) awake all night. Usually, during summer school break, mother would give my sister and me a perm, and the smell of ammonia would stink up the entire house for days.

Tonette - the home permanent made with the younger girl in mind!

Mother enjoyed uneven success as a hairstylist. Sometimes we emerged from her protracted ministrations looking exactly like the adorable little girl on the side of the box. Other times, we came out looking like Elsa Lancaster in The Bride of Frankenstein.

I was not a fair-haired child, so on Sunday evenings after bath time, my mother would braid my long black hair, pulling it so tight I ended up with a headache. She reminded me that the braids had to last the entire week. Actually, the braids usually loosen sometime midweek, leaving my tangled mop wild and free until it's washed and yanked again into two precise lines on Sunday night after the bath.

My sister and I considered ourselves lucky. We knew of other mothers who did even more drastic things with their daughters’ hair. Our friend Susan told us about the mysterious "conditioning" treatments she received from her mother every Sunday night. They stopped when Susan learned to read the word "peroxide" and realized the desperate measures her mother had resorted to in order to preserve her daughter’s blonde curls.

How awful it is to be a blonde child, especially a blonde girl child? People fawn over you until your hair turns mousy brown. I was always dark, so I escaped the fawning part. The biggest compliment I remember is one Halloween when I dressed up as Elvis Presley and a neighbour said I would have made a handsome boy. Dark-haired children are lucky. We have nothing to lose.

When my sister hit puberty, her hair darkened. I thought it was still beautiful—a golden brown that was superior to my black braids. My mother pronounced it the colour of shit brindle. Puberty is hard enough with hair sprouting in weird places along with pimples and unfamiliar and unpleasant body odours and emissions. On top of that, to lose your crowning gold glory and all that adulation you enjoyed as a young child. What a blow.

My sister dealt with the loss of her blonde hair defiantly. Starting at the age of thirteen and lasting through high school, she changed her hair colour regularly. One week she was a raven-haired Elizabeth Taylor and the next a honey-blonde Sandra Dee or occasionally a blazing redhead like Ann Margaret. She made wardrobe changes to match her diverse and colourful personalities, ranging from the demure to the sultry.

Eventually my sister embraced her shit brindle hair. She was too busy to spend time trying to recapture her childhood glory and unwilling to support a multi-billion-dollar industry that peddles toxic chemicals. For me, nothing changed. I remained a steadfast brunette until my hair turned grey one day.