That Time I Unintentionally Rocked Mermaid Hair...

With the current popularity of “mermaid hair,” I am reminded of that time I unintentionally rocked it (before I even knew it was a thing). Since I still haven’t posted details or photos from our wedding (which was 9 months ago), I certainly haven’t gotten around to posting about our honeymoon which would have included this gem of a story…

I have always had healthy, relatively un-color-treated light blonde hair. I have had it highlighted from time to time (mainly home-dye jobs by my SIL), but nothing extreme or frequent. While on my honeymoon, I noticed that the bottom part of my hair was darker than normal…upon further investigation, I realized that it was DARK GREEN! I went ahead and partially dried it in hopes that it just appeared green because it was wet…nope, it was definitely still green. Five washes later and I still, unfortunately, looked like Katy Perry circa 2014.

 Once I could get a few words out between sobs, I decided to call the front desk of our hotel and ask what might have caused it/if they could fix it. They didn’t seem too shocked to learn that my hair had turned green, in fact they immediately knew what caused it—the hot tub. Apparently this wasn’t the first time they tried to turn their blonde hotel guests into punk rocker mermaids. They told me to call the on-site Salon and schedule an appointment (free of charge) to have my hair chemically stripped. I decided to schedule my appointment for the day before we left and suffer through the rest of the week with green hair (no point getting it done immediately then have to avoid pools/hot tubs for the entirety of my honeymoon).

To survive the week, I rocked a bun during the day, then did my best to disguise the green at dinner each night. The most difficult thing to do, however, was to not have a completely disgusted look on my face when people got brave/drunk enough to ask me if I did that to my hair intentionally. Some people might pay big money to look like this, but I am not one of them!

Ignore our stupid expressions in this photo and the horrible lighting--look at the hair

Luckily, the hotel staff was able to remove/lighten about 60% of the green, so I returned to Oklahoma with a light green ombre. My mom (who has ALWAYS been against me dying and/or cutting my hair) was horrified. We tried every home remedy we could find on google—I can’t even remember them all, but I do remember vinegar, baking soda, purple shampoo, and ketchup. It helped a little, but I still had to go to work the following Monday (and every day after that for the next month) with mermaid hair. I washed my hair constantly in hopes that it would magically disappear like that hair-color-changing Barbie I used to have, with no avail. I must say, considering that I usually only wash my hair once a week, that month was probably the cleanest my hair has ever been! Haha. At that point, the only thing that I could do to make myself feel better about the situation, was to be thankful that it happened AFTER our wedding.

Moral of the story? If you want mermaid hair, don’t pay a grip to your hairstylist only to sit in a chair with foil on your head—instead, go to an all-inclusive couples resort in Nassau and sit in an over-chlorinated hot tub with a frozen daiquiri in your hand while enjoying the beautiful ocean view. Just make sure to leave your hair cascading down your back so you can manage to get that “I accidentally dipped my hair in a bucket of green paint” look...