I’m now officially 40 and I how I feel about myself today is no different from how I felt about myself yesterday. But compared to when I was in my 20s or even 30s, yeah, I do feel physically more tired. But hey, two young kids will do that to you.

I, however, learned something about myself yesterday when I turned yellow. But first, it’s story time…

Every time I walk from my home to the nearby coffee shop, I will inevitably go past a hair salon. It promoted really affordable prices to cut, colour and wash – $79 for extra long hair. I do have a regular hairdresser near my home but it’s an LRT away, longer distance to walk, and harder to secure last minute appointments. And considering my hair usually costs me over $200 to cut, colour and wash there, $79 felt like a steal.

I think you already get where I’m going with this but here’s a detailed timeline of what happened yesterday:

12noon: I walked past the hair salon and decided to check if it was easy to get a cut, colour and wash session without making a prior appointment. The hairdresser said it was easy and gave me a name card to call.

3pm: I had just managed to get both kids to nap and since I assumed I had loads of time before they woke up at 5pm or 5.30pm, I knew I could get away and quickly get my hair done. I called the hairdresser, confirmed I could be accommodated immediately and off I went.

3.10pm: I sat down and my session began. Cut first of course. But not before the hairdresser asked what colour I wanted for my hair. (some context: I have A LOT of white hair… it’s all in the genes) I told her that I don’t have a lot of time colour my hair so I asked what would be an ideal colour if I wanted the whites to be less obvious when it grows out. She recommended me the colour 833 as it was a light shade of brown.

It would be the lightest shade I’d ever try but I was open to trying. And now it was time to cut, colour and wash.

5pm: 2 hours later. When the towel came off… I was shocked. My reaction. Why is it such a bright yellow? Even the hairdresser remarked that she found it strange that it was so bright and didn’t come out the way she expected. She was embarrassed and offered to redo my hair colour for free.

Unfortunately, I had to go back home as my hubby had planned a surprise birthday party for me. The surprise was ruined of course because when I told my husband about the hairy misadventure complete with photos, he told me that I didn’t have time to change my hair colour and explained why.

His response? “It’ll be ok. A story to share.”

So at 5:10pm, I walked made the 7-minute trek home with bright yellow hair to attend my surprise birthday party.

Instead of my friends and family surprising me, I was the one surprising them. And boy was it a story to share.

When I got home, my eldest saw me and his reaction was the cutest. “Mummy’s got yellow hair!” And of course his little brother also echoed the same but with fewer words – “Yellow. Hair.”

I wish I filmed their initial reaction but all I got was this…

The hairdresser was surprised I was willing to walk out her door with neon yellow hair. And I surprised myself too. I was surprised that I was able to laugh about it and never once in the entire experience did I yell, or berate, or blame the hairdresser.

So I turned 40 as a yellow haired but it was ok. I took it in my stride on the promise that she could fix it for me first thing the next morning. And fix she did.

I learnt that I’m a very chilled out person. I’m happy; and either I am self-confident enough to walk on public with neon yellow hair; or I don’t care what people think of how I look. I also think my mellow reaction is because this is not the worst thing that could happen. It ain’t the end of the world so no use freaking out about the situation.

In the end, I paid $99 for this outcome, plenty of laughs, a memorable birthday story and children who are tickled by mummy’s strange hair colour.

Next hair adventure? A hunt for The Brat’s Hair Whisperer.

What do you think?
Is yellow my colour? What was your craziest hair adventure? If you have a great hair colourist or know of one in Singapore, please let me know.

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