Very funny, today I got three nice comments about my hair. I did get a haircut last week, just a trim - nothing dramatic, and this weekend I colored it as I do once a month. Okay, I confess - I’m grey! So I color my hair back to my natural color, which is a medium blonde. Maybe today it was just the combination of the haircut and color, rarely do the two happen at the same time. Or maybe (quite likely) it was a little secret my new hair stylist gave me last week, which if I told you, well it wouldn't be a secret then would it?
I’m very hair challenged. Each summer when the humidity starts hitting around 60 percent, I frizz. I have tried every de-frizzing product produced by mankind but nothing works. I simply resign myself to pony tails, top knots and baseball hats for most of the summer. Even in the winter, I still need to douse my head with a variety of products then spend an inordinate amount of time blow drying strand by strand with a huge round brush.
I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to leave home without doing my hair and putting on some makeup. The thought of not being able to do these things on Camino was a real concern. I very seriously considered toting along at least a small hair dryer, my special brush and some hair care products so I would at least look presentable in the evening. But maybe for the first time in my life, good sense prevailed.
When my Camino companions and I went on our training hikes, we worked our way up to packing the kind of weight we would carry on Camino. As the Camino got closer and we had more of the gear and clothing we would need, we got a much more realistic feel for the weight. I decided one day to pack everything I wanted to see if I could handle the weight. May I say it was the longest, my agonizing nine miles of my life! After that, I got a bit more serious about sorting out the wants and the needs for my Camino.
More on packing at a later time. But I realized that my beloved hair care products, most makeup and skin care items would have to go. I really struggled over this. The thought of spending the entire Camino looking pale and frizzy was not a pleasant concept. I could mask it during the day with a hat and sunglasses but in the evenings, there I would be, au naturale, from the neck up anyway! I tried to reassure myself that all the other women on Camino would be in the same place and I would fit right in but it was no real comfort. Being blonde, I don’t even have visible brows or lashes on my milky white complexion!
But, it was just something I had to get used to. The week before Camino, I started washing my hair in the morning and letting it air dry. It looked bad. But not as bad as I expected. At least by the time I left for Camino I would be used to it, kind of like how it is after you get a bad haircut or a bad color job. You just get used to it.
I did wind up wearing my big brimmed hiking hat every chance I could or sometimes I wore a little pink scarf around my head. I was never fully comfortable though until we got to Santiago where I picked up a nice baseball hat. With that and a ponytail, I looked almost civilized again!
I did learn something from the experience. When the humidity is off the wall, as it often is here in New Jersey in the summer, "Camino" hair really does look better than anything I try to do in my losing battle to fight the frizzies. So this past summer, I did wear my "Camino" hair quite a bit! It was actually kind of liberating! This was the first time in my life I've ever tried wash and wear hair!
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