What Your Hair Color Says About Everyone Else:Blonde vs. Brunette

As  Father Time marched on, he march right over top of me and left his snowy boot print in my hair. Consequently, by age 30 I began the fight against grey. By age 40 the troops were retreating and now at age 50 the troops have gone AWOL and I am now at least 75% grey.

I take after my father's side of the family which is Spanish, Italian and Irish/British. Every grandchild looks like my grandmother's side of the family...fair skin and eyes and very dark brown hair (with the exception of one cousin who is an exotic beauty but could never embrace it when she was younger). My grandmother was certainly the matriarch of the family and she prized blonde hair.  Where she got the idea that everyone looks better blonde I have no clue, but we all, with varying amounts of success, tried to go blonde. I started in my teen and could never get lighter than a brassy, strawberry blonde. The kind you see on hookers.

Then Father Time paid me that visit and as my brown hair turned white I was able to go blonder and blonder until I achieved what the hair color industry calls "banana peel blonde" (I kid you not, it's a real term). I was ecstatic! The battle with my hair was finally over, I was going to defy age by being blonde! (whoever fed that little pearl of wisdom to us  should be shot, its not true).

I remember the first day I was truly, finally blonde, with no hint of red. I bought new makeup (because I was fighting my cool complexion by having warm toned hair) and could have sworn I lost 15 years off my face.

It's been about 3 years now that I have been blonde and I still look in the mirror and wonder who that is staring back at me. I don't look younger, I look colorless and tired. My hair has no shine or life to it. I keep it piled up in a clip on top of my head most of the time. But the worst part is that I never felt like myself. I thought the feeling would go away after a while but even after 3 years, when I blow dry my hair, it is not me staring back out of the mirror. I am the quiet bookworm with the brown hair and occasional glasses. Not this bleached blonde who is trying to look younger than she is. I felt I belonged at the mall more than the library and that really messed with my sense of self.

While I was getting used to the new color I decided to make mental notes about how people treated me, to see if blondes really do have more fun.

I discount the first couple of months because I was so happy I think my upbeat personality changed how people treated me more than my hair color. So once I got used to it I began

my study. This is what I found:

Young Men: They may as well say "MILF" and put their eyes back into their heads

Older Men: A thought bubble appears over their heads that says "trophy wife"

Younger Girls: They have no time for anything but their own reflection so they are discounted.

Older Women: The ones with fully grey hair try to convince me mine will be lovely and it will not age me. Funny but no one my age has ever said that, the ones that say it have all been 65-80 years old and yes, when I am that age I will let nature take its course but stop trying to initiate me into the Grey Hair We Don't Care club too early.

Women My Age: Either tell me to stop fussing and let nature handle it or tell me the blonde is terrible on me. The opinion had nothing to do with what they did with their hair as far as I could see.

Children: Interestingly, children were much more open to coming to me when I was a blonde. If I approached a lost child as a brunette they shied away but as a blonde they held on to me like I was Mommy. I cannot explain this unless their mothers also dyed their hair blonde.

As a brunette, my little verbal mistakes, my inability to do math, my forgetfulness and lack of directional skills was always looked at as sort of the absent minded professor syndrome. People knew I was smart and allowed for idiosyncratic behavior. As a blonde? I got NO slack. Anything I did that was not perfect or at a genius level I got called "blonde" or "Are you having a blonde moment?" Not fair, and I am sure very frustrating to all the smart, naturally blonde women out there. I felt like I was constantly trying to prove I had a brain, that I was not some dumb bimbo. Stiletto heels on a brunette are sexy, on a blonde they are trashy. (Sorry natural blondes, I am calling them as i am seeing them).

I found the stereotypes are true. I was more apt to be flirted with, ogled, and looked upon as an object when blonde. Men would convey the same interest in me as a brunette, but with more class and more respect. As a blonde it was cat calls, as a brunette is was "pretty eyes". Even clerks, regardless of gender, were more friendly to me, as were waiters/waitresses. It's almost as if blondes are seen as stupid but warm hearted and brunettes are seen as smart and cold hearted. Neither of which is acceptable! Men have a habit, no matter how "liberated" they re, of talking over women but as a blonde, you cant get word in anywhere...and they ask why I am shouting. Oh and all these observations hold true

whether I had on makeup and nice clothes or was in my grubbies without makeup.

Today I went back to being a brunette. I feel like myself. I am comfortable in my own skin again. I can only explain it as I am me and I am sure if I was born blonde and went brunette for 3 years I would feel the same.

But let me speak for the unheard minority out there. The downtrodden who do not even realize it. We are women who are smart, creative, powerful and nurturing and, like our breast size, our hair color is no indication of what goes on on the inside.