Stage 2: Keeping Up with the Kardashianz

For my entire life, my mother has claimed that my thick-as-hell dark brown hair was exceptionally unique. I therefore was banned from ever dyeing any portion of my luscious locks any color for any reason, ever. GASP.

I resented my mother’s stance re: hair dye deeply. 

I was an alternative-music-loving, angst-ridden teen, after all—and how would Conor Oberst ever fall in love with me if I was not sporting stylish, boxed-red hair? The prospect of simply NEVER fully fitting in at Vans Warped Tour was a first-world teenage tragedy I grappled with daily. 

Since then, my hair-dye-related resentment has abated significantly—in particular because I have seen countless Ukrainian women sporting ghastly bottle-hair-dye colors. (Further study:  this FB page entitled Eastern European women with badly-dyed red hair - over 1,000 likes. #FUN)

'Cause they love that natural~~~ look.

The major problem my people face is this: unless you got some ~~secret Polish heritage~~—you, Ukrainian woman, will have brown hair. It is likely very dark. In order to transition from very dark brown to any other shade of hair color and have this color-transition actually be visible with human eyes, your very dark hair needs to be bleached first. 

And then there comes the vicious cycle of very-dark-hair doom:

à Dark hair + bleach = bleach-orange

à Bleach-orange + (any color dye) = … a color that will likely fade back to bleach-orange

à Bleach-Orange hair + luscious, hirsute dark eyebrows of Ukraine = ...

à à à à OOF

 

à à à à OOF OOF OOF

à à à à GURL WTF HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE

But then the year 2012 emerged, and all of a sudden……. boom. The raven-haired game was changed. By the Armenians, no less! (Bless them.)

Indeed, the Kardashian sisters took the plunge: slowly but surely treating their famously-raven locks with ~~balayage~~~ until it was straight up 25-70% platinum blonde.

#### BEFORE

#### AFTER

An unusual truth of this contemporary life is that (despite having no known talent), Kim Kardashian is one of the most famously-raven-haired mavens in the world at this moment in time—and yet! For an extended period there, Kim K was actually a blonde.

And we were all not just okay with it, America. We effing loved it.

As did Kanye.

There is a veritable cornucopia of other celebrities that have adopted ~~balayage these days, but we all know who started the trend: Khloe; Kim; Kortney. The OGs of ~~balayage who championed very-dark-hair-exodus hope to all us fellow olive-skinned Eastern Europeans / Eurasians up in here.

Myself a phoenix from the yellow-fever flames: I held a strong desire to change in a very noticeable way.  Since my hair is, quoth my hair-styling bill, “Extremely Long + Extremely Thick” it is the feature of my physical personhood that most folks notice about me first. 

Thus, if I wanted to spring forth into the world as a ***new woman***: my signature long, dark hair simply had to ///go////. And yet a simple I-am-so-damaged-so-I’m-gonna-cut-my-hair-off bob situation was not enough. (+  Truth be told, I have already chopped my hair off thanks to deep emotional duress at least 5 times before. A heh.)

I wanted to invest time; energy; effort into my new hair! I wanted a hair-identity that pointed to my alternative lifestyle + youthful resistance to authority! I wanted to embrace the modern-hair age, my friends!!!!

& ~~Balayage was the perfect fit~~~

First - I enjoyed the concept of a coloring process; a labor of love that would involve dramatically restructuring the very physical entity of my big-ass hair. Gimme dat ~bleach////

Second—the chemical-restructuring of my hair follicles would, in turn, induce a dramatic identity shift: my eternally-very-dark-brown hair would become—partially—blonde. Thus I WOULD BECOME A (~~partial) BLONDE Y’ALL. My fellow, swarthy Ukrainian women have never known such a world to be true!!!!!!

Finally, I wanted to be ##ofthemoment. I do not kid myself into believing otherwise: this ombre / ~balayage~ hair trend will one day very soon die and go the way of the Jheri curl in the pantheon of regrettable hair trends. 

But listen—y’all, that blink-and-you-missed-it quality was part of the appeal of ~~balayage. When I am a mature and grizzled woman of the world (saaaayy—age 28), I want to look back at pics of my hair in the year 2014 and comment: “Wow, remember that one time during my long-lost youth when I adopted a ridiculous hair trend? More specifically, a trend inspired by a reality TV family of deeply-dumb / also-deeply-fine-ass Armenian sisters??? Was that really silly, youthful Liza~ who partook in such a fad?”

<<<<< YES, FUTURE SELF <<< YES I EFFING DID <<<<<<<>>>

... Thus: 4 hours and $300 later… the deed was done. 50% blonde!!!!!!!!!!!

///WOOHOOOOOO

Alright, alright; now for a moment of pause. 

Likely many of you are rolling your eyes at much of the content in this post; doubting that such a superficial shift in hair color could somehow / in any way actually tangibly shift one's sense of identity.

But—I am actually quite sorry to say—you skeptics would be very, very wrong.

Because the world is a superficial-ass place, friends! Indeed, I saw a dramatic shift in how people interacted with me; looked at me; general interpreted my physical presence. All because of my hair.

Illustrative anecdote: In the morning when I walk into my office’s elevator lobby, I regularly encounter a male security guard. When I had 100% brown hair, this dude would, day in and day out, stand in the corner and frown into space as I lugged an array of crap into the elevator; so it goes.

Just 12 hours after going blonde, I witnessed the first true effects of ~balayage~~ courtesy of this gentlemen. 

Specifically: When newly-blonde Liza opened the door to her office building, this dude not merely sauntered over to me but actually LEAPT towards me in order to open the door.  Then, he  grabbed my laptop and bag, carried it the supz-laborious 10-feet to the elevator, and pushed the “UP” button for me—because people who are 50%-blonde cannot viably push buttons, DUH. You know how it goes y’all. 

To add insult(?) to injury(??), when I reached out to get my laptop back from this oh-so charitable gent—he refused to hand it back to me until the elevator had arrived and I was “safe inside.” Unreal, friends. Unreal.

Immediately after this strange occurrence, I encountered my lovably honest/direct Hungarian co-worker; herself raven-haired. 

I retold the tale of what had just happened to newly-50%-blonde me, concluding aloud: “Does the fact my hair is 50% blonde now make the security guard / dudes in general think I’m 50% more attractive??? ... WUT RLY Y?”

Her all-too-rullll response: “It is not that he thought you were 50% more attractive.... More like he thought you were 50% more weak.”

LOLz. Harsh truths y’all. And yet the truth? When you drill it down, it is the truth.

It was at this exact moment that I realized that dying my hurrrr was not merely a silly youthful move, but indeed an essential reality-disrupting mechanism. 

My new hurr forced me to face a hard truth of this world: the truth of being observed by others (read: dudes) whether I like it or not; the truth of having an effect on the world around me (read: dudes) purely through being physically present; the truth of possessing a number of physical traits i.e. legs, boobs, hair, etc. that make me appear more receptive / worthy of attention (read: from dudes).

I mean, what can I say? Just: eughhhhhhh.

In this way, changing my luscious tresses made me realize that—YEP—people are paying attention to my body / hair / corporeal being and—YEP—certain shifts in my appearance really do make ///dudes take notice of me.

Admittedly, as a youthful woman walking the streets of any given metropolis, one almost expects a disproportionate amount of attention/heckling no matter what your hair color / body type / actual desire to be interacted with ( ← LOL WHO CARES ABOUT THAT YO///)

But the recent 50%-blonde-hair-induced uptick forced the question: what is the best course of action in response to such blatantly-superficial, unsolicited male attention? 

Do I ignore it and hope it goes away? 

Do I lash out and yell “FUCK YOU;” thereby running the risk of further retaliation from some bro who clearly has no idea how to act as it is? 

Do I distribute this handy one-sheeter in hopes that I have single-handedly influenced this gentlemen to change his behavior of disrespecting women forever???

At the end of the day, I truly do not know. It's the paradox of modern womanhood.

Alas, as one lone female, I do know this: I can’t really compete against the environment in which I live. That sexist shit predates me and will continue on when I am elderly and haggard and less-than-50%-blonde once more. 

What I can do is this: stop ignoring the attention and simply acknowledge it—'cause hey toots, they're lookin' at ya! On the streetz and in the muck, I am fodder for endless observation, discussion, and general uninvited fuckery. That's a truth I used to ignore, but I'm not going to ignore it any longer. 

And in a strange way, it feels like a step forward to look that attention in the face for what it is, what it represents, what it signals—rather than running away from it. I'm not sure if it's power, but it certainly feels like a step towards Liza 2.0.

And clearly I am not the only one who has reaped the ambiguous benefits(?) of owning the strange power of this 50%-blonde life. 

Let's be real: Kim K got pregnant with Kanye’s baby when she had black hair. Buttttt Kanye gave her a ring on a Jumbotron when she was 50% blonde. And is there anything a Kardashian wants more than that? Doubtful. If you got it, #OwnIt grrrl.

The harsh truth, and yet the facts. Another lesson learned.