I love college. High school dress codes were (and still are) so restrictive to the point where you felt suffocated, especially when it came to coloring your hair. According to Frisco ISD's Student Dress Code, a student must dye their hair a natural color. Three years after graduating, I have the freedom to dye my hair whatever color I so-darn-well-please. I've been dyeing my hair blonde since high school and wanted a change of pace.

It was the middle of September when I wanted to dye my hair blue. I was browsing through Pinterest at my old job and thought how cool it would be to have blue hair. However, I knew my boss wouldn't allow it and didn't dare ask. Besides, he would only give me a snarky reply anyways. I let that dream slip away from me as I continued with the semester. However, I still thought about dying it from time to time.

My chance to dye my hair came to me in the loss of my job. Now that I was unemployed, I could do whatever I wanted to my hair. I decided to dye it over the Halloween weekend when I went home. My parents were going camping in Texarkana and asked if I could watch my sister over the weekend. I decided that I would buy the hair dye somewhere in the metroplex and get my little sister to color it. I found my choice of color at a Hot Topic in Arlington. It was a beautiful aquamarine color, or what I hoped was aquamarine. I bought a bottle, as well as $50 of Studio Ghibli merchandise that I didn't need, and my sister and I headed home to transform myself from a bubbly blonde to a badass blue.

The process of coloring my hair was a lot harder than I thought. Since I was horrible at even braiding my hair, I needed to convince my little sister to help me out. I knew that she was meticulous with just about everything and would be perfect for the job. I also knew that she was stubborn and knew it would take a lot of convincing for her even to consider it. To my surprise, she agreed and did a pretty good job of it too. The next morning, I excitedly texted my mom that she was in for a surprise when she got home. I couldn't wait to see the look on her face when I showed her my sister's work (Knowing me, she thought I had brought home another animal). When she got home, she wasn't surprised at all. She loved my hair! She loved it so much that she wanted to straighten it. So I went back to Lubbock with straight, blue hair.

When I got back to school the next day, people were surprised to see me with blue hair, but they liked it a lot. In fact, some people didn't even recognize me without my blonde hair! Because I had outrageously colored hair, I had to keep up with myself more than I did with the blonde hair. Usually, I would walk out of my apartment looking like a basic, white girl: norts that were too small and a t-shirt that was too big. With my blue hair, I looked more put together because, for once, I made an effort to.

My hair stayed blue until Thanksgiving, when it was starting to fade at the top and looked unkept, as much as I tried to hide it. Because my mother is such a badass, she surprised me with a trip to our stylist to touch up my blue hair. Which was perfect because it was just in time to shock my mother's conservative brother and family members and strike wonder in the eyes of my younger cousins.

In all honesty, I'm glad I decided to take this risk. Because of my blue hair, I learned how to make myself presentable with outrageously colored hair. Is it easy for me? No. Because putting on eyeliner and curling your hair is hard. Is it worth the pain? Always.

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