Since I know jack shit about this sort of thing, demonstrated my laziness and deficient skills, and lack the ability to see the back of my own head to check my progress, I turned to the Internet for information.

Unfortunately Google was no help. People post their hair coloring woes on message board, and others tell them to go to a professional. This is of no use to me.

If you�re a MySpace friend, you might have seen a previous bulletin asking about my hair issue. Apparently when you dye your hair, you can go darker and darker all you want. But when you want to go any lighter than that, you have to make your hair really light before you can then dye it to the color you want.

And since my natural mousey brown is closer to the color I am going for and definitely lighter than Goth princess purple, I needed to figure out how to lighten it up safely before getting my mouse on.

Several MySpace friends helped out, and one in particular told me exactly what product to buy, what to mix it with, and what was going to happen. After some browsing of the hair dye aisle, a denial of the product I wanted since I�m not a professional, a replacement that costs three times the amount, and an impulse conditioner purchase, I whipped out my Sally Beauty Club card and saved $4 off the total order.

With my plans for the evening cancelled, I settled in to see what I could do to my hair. Mix this, mix that, put on gloves, slather, slather, slather, wait, lather wash repeat, lather wash repeat, lather wash rinse. With my hair in a towel and me with no clue as to what condition my head was in, I killed the anticipation by blow drying a bit and was impressed to see this great copper in the form of my stripped hair.

I was expecting bright orange, and instead I look very Irish. So instead of processing my hair with the natural-hued mousey brown, I�m now rocking the semi-blonde. Glancing in the mirror makes me do a double-take, and I�m reminded how much fun being a woman can sometimes be.�