They always say that “college” is meant for you to make mistakes. They say, “live a little,” “do something wild.” Yeah, sure, clearly those people have never done anything they regret. So I will confess to you the choice I decided to make and the consequences that followed me. I dyed my hair. I know what you are thinking, “how dare you, you heathen!” Well, let me explain myself; also, sorry mom.

I have admired the red hair trend — not necessarily the bright red, “wow you are fire,” hair, but more of a nice, low-key maroon. The red on its way to purple, but not quite purple. I felt I could totally pull it off, I mean it is wild but just wild enough to not be crazy.

One evening my roommate says to me, “Why don’t we die your hair tonight?”

And I was like, “yeah, that sounds like a great idea!”

So, we went to Target and got some box dye, which my roommate assured me she had used countless times before and knew exactly what she was doing. We then reach home and I commit to letting her dye the bottom half of my hair, because, you know, hombre is super in, and I want be hip. I wait the allotted 20 minutes and then I hop into the shower to rinse out and step into my future. My roommate then proceeds, out of the goodness of her heart, to blow-dry and straighten my hair. And the entire time, I was hoping for comments along the lines of, “It looks so good!” or “wow Kenz this color really works for you.” But instead, I received, “When it hits the light in a certain way it is… nice,” and “I’m not sure it’s what you were looking for but it is nice.”

I pick myself up and brave looking in the mirror and it is purple. Not a nice, “ah, that is sweet” kind of purple. I’m talking purple on its way to black. I looked like a witch. It didn’t help that the top of my hair was still brown, so it looked like a terrible light brown to purple/black hombre.

Sole panic sets in.

I was not going to go into public like this. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. We start brainstorming how we are going to get out of this. There were comments of, “We could dye your hair back to brown but it won’t look natural.” And, “We could bleach it and then try to dye it red.” All the while my hair is crying out, “please don’t do this to me, I’m too young to die.”

So I look on Pinterest for anything, anything, that will make this better. And praise the Lord others have gone before me because someone found this “OOPs Color Treatment” and they gave a very positive review, so it was worth a try. I then threatened my roommate into driving me to Walgreens because technically, she did this to me. (Small shout out to Walgreens for being open 24 hours). We find and go to buy it enduring an awkward conversation with the cashier as she tries to encourage me with all her “hair color gone wrong” stories but nothing at this point is going to change the way I feel.

We reach our dorm again and go on to mix the bottles together and lather the magic potion into my hair. I wait for another 20 minutes and then get in the shower for another 20 minutes to rinse it all out. This means I had 40 minutes to sit and regret and ponder all my decisions that evening. I get out of the shower and it is yet again, another moment of truth. I step in front of the mirror and all the angels begin singing praises to God as I find that the purple has washed away and my hair was back to normal. I have never been so relieved to be back to my normal self.

All in all, I would advise to really take a look at your life before you make any decisions that could possibly be life-altering. Because there is a chance you will regret it and spend multiple hours trying to undo it.