It was the 'in-between' time. You can only be an individual to a certain extent when you are still at high school, (a strict private school with regulated personal appearance) and you can only look so radical before your boss at your first job tells you to go on permanent unpaid leave. That is why when I finished high school, and I had planned a holiday, I decided to change my look in a radical way. So the first decision was to get an earring - no - an eyebrow ring. And that caused some shocks in the community. I had been growing my hair as long as the school permitted; well much longer over the exams period. So the hair had to change. What were the options? Move the part? Tapered? CrewCut? Shaved? Well everyone else was doing the short thing, and I wanted to be different. So I made up my mind to somewhat lash out and go bottle blonde while I had the chance to be wacky. You have to do it at least once in your life. Because I was away from home at Summer Bay on a surfing holiday, I wasn't all that nervous. Even though I'd been thinking about being a Blonde Blake for a couple of weeks, it was a bit of an impulse decision. I counted my dollars and walked "bravely" into the holiday resort hair salon that looked like they knew what they were doing and on their way to Y2K. "Make me blonde" The hairdresser looked at me and said "are you sure about this??" I wasn't but did it anyway. That was the easy part. Then came the decisions on how my hair should be cut and styled. Now this depended on how it should be coloured. If I kept it long I could have the options of going completely blonde, or leaving the bottom dark and the top fair, or fine streaks, or tipped, or severe "hot head" half and half. The shorter it was cut there were less options. If it was really short, it could be really blonde or just frosted on the ends. Since I had made up my mind that I wanted to be blonde, we settled on a sort of sculptured trim, not short, but certainly not too long, more or less brushed back, with a semi-false part on the right side and the fringe/bangs slightly over the forehead. This cut was styled so that most of the hair would be bleached and streaked, graduated down near the roots, but not all the way, about two thirds bleached. So I would be two-toned blonde. That sounded more rad than the full bit. While the cut took about half an hour, I was sweating to get on with the colouring in case I changed my mind. But I didn't. The haircut looked great and normally I would have been satisfied with that, but I hadn't even come for a haircut, just blonde hair. And now it was time for that Because my natural color is fairly dark, two lots of the strongest commercially available bleach were required as, well as a toner to remove the yellow (which is always a sign of a home done job). When the first bleach didn't work well enough and I was told I would need a second application I began to worry about my budget. But what could I do. I could be a half-baked (or half bleached) un-cool dude with a few bucks in my pocket, or a mega-cool blonde dude, half broke. Well I had to go for broke. Blonde is what I came for. Blonde is what I would get. Any way I had my unspent budget for this adventure, and the holiday was almost over, and what was money for but to spend it. That's what I told myself. Then I remembered a hundred dollars in my 'cunning kick', no two hundred. It was OK. I could go as blonde as I liked. There was a third big decision I had made since I walked into the hairdressers, haircut, bleach, and "surprise me". During all the operation I decided not face the mirror. I figured that if my friends and family were in for a big shock, I was entitled too. But I couldn't resist a couple of peeps after the cut, and did resist until well into the bleaching progress. But the mirror on the wall won the day. What did hey say in Snow-white? "Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" Soon the mirror was going to show me how fair I was. The total bleach time was one hour, half an hour of each lot of bleach, and then the toning. The biggest shock was seeing myself in the mirror between bleaches as my hair had turned an awful orange color, there was no turning back now. So that first lot of bleach was washed out and a second application brushed in and was covered up. All I could do was sit there patiently, looking at the hairdressing magazines with blonde hair, wondering if I would look like that. This time it looked a lot better but it was still a gingery shade. But then the toning was rinsed in. This looked more blue than blonde. What had I let myself in for. But all was well, and the blonding was well baked. There I was, a blonde at last; well nearly all blonde. The cut was just right and the two-toned effect really was "ahead on points'" That was the best part. The second best part was the reactions from people, "why did you do that!?". "Hey! Because I wanted to!" I planned to dye over the bleach when I returned from my end of year trip; but I liked it and I left it as was, leading to the nick-name "Blondy"; how original! As for the theory of blondes having more fun..... Well, why not try it for yourself. I wonder if Blue heads have more fun??? Blake