Doing your hair at home. It always
sounds like a good idea. Do some highlights. Maybe a little trim.
Next thing you know you're leaving the house wearing a hat because
you fucked yourself up. This 19 year old from Paris named Estelle
decided to dye her hair at home and ended up looking like what she
describes as a “light bulb head.” I prefer Garbage Pail Kid.
You'll see. By the way, these are those kinda things that do not
happen often or have these extreme results but folks like to panic so
everyone is gonna be racing to their hair dyes to see if they contain
anything that can turn you into the Toxic Avenger. She started with a
patch test and left it on for half an hour. All seemed well so she
put it all over her head even though the box says to wait 48 hours.
That seems weird. Do you just walk around with this one colored spot
or something? Either way, she could feel that something just ain't
right like a Keith Sweat lyric (if you got that joke marry me) and
took some pills and anti-itch shit and immediately rushed to the
hospital.
Kidding. She went to bed.
When she
woke up her whole head was fucked. The chemical that got her is known
as PPD (paraphenylenediamine) that can cause some reactions in folks.
Like her. She rolled that shit hand of the dice and turned into Large
Marge. “I could not breathe. I had a lightbulb head. Before
arriving at the hospital, you just don't know how long it will take
for you to suffocate, if you have the time to get to the hospital or
not.” Personally, I would not have even been able to go to sleep
with my head feeling like shit. I have lived with Black women who had
the shittiest nights' sleep because of their perm, braids, or new
weave. Not from pain so much as not wanting to mess it up.
