When I decided to come travelling, and in particular once I’d decided on South and Central America I had planned to dye my hair back to its natural colour….which I don’t think I’ve been since I was fifteen! So back in February I asked my hairdresser to go ahead and turn me back to brunette. She advised me that I would hate it, and she was correct! I lasted thirty-six hours before returning begging for the bleach bottle. Some people said the brown was nice and suited me, but most said I just suit blonde more…and so here I am blonde with hair maintenance issues!

I am aware that I stand out here for being pretty blonde, but I also stand out as I have relatively short hair, all the girls here have very very long hair! At the end of the day I am a tourist, it’s pretty obvious from the way I dress and everything. Yes there’s a little bit if unwanted attention, but I think that’s the case for most women here, and after a while it’s pretty easy to ignore.

The main reason to go brunette was to avoid the issues of roots, back home I’m at the hair dresser every six weeks. After I’d been here about a month it was time for me to find a hairdresser to get my highlights redone and I figured I’ve got a better chance of finding a decent hairdresser in a massive city like this. So after choosing a place having asked for some feedback, advice, researched on the Internet for hours…..I needed to make an appointment. This wasn’t something I felt my Spanish was up to, so between my Italian housemate who speaks a little English and good Spanish, his Argentinian English teacher and his Argentinian classmate the appointment was made all though it took ten minutes as they were transferred to a number of people. I felt pretty good things were in hand at this point.

I turned up the hairdresser for my appointment and the place was crazy! Busy was an underestimate, I later learnt eighty people work there. I was given a long piece of paper with my name on it and a list of treatments cuts on one side and somethings scribbled down and ushered down to a different floor. The place had five floors all together, a section for colour, cuts, just washing and styling and I don’t really know what else! Long story short, I saw eight different members of staff for different things from hanging my coat, to be led up to my hairdresser, etc etc. The end result was pretty ok, all though I think back home when I have highlights I have about one hundred sections, and here was about fifty so not quite as fine work, but the colour was good and not green at least! And then the bill……I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap but I had expected it to be at least a bit less equivalently to what I pay at home. It was more, not lots, but enough for me to think I may just have to suck it up and start deal with roots for the next ten months!

On the plus side I did have a very good and cheap pedicure today!!!

Below photos, me brunette for a day, and blonde the next, my colour here, and what I’ll probably look like in six months!