Aquamarine Rapunzel

I remember the time I gave myself a bit of a makeover. I was about two or three, old enough to have a train of thought, but not enough for it to be rational. Though I don’t recall much from this time, this is a memory that has always stuck with me and clung deep to the walls of my brain. Whether bringing back feelings of embarrassment or amusement, this never fails to pop into my head every so often. I suppose I’m dancing around what exactly this is, so let's get to it then.

My mother and I were in our house somewhere in the south, I believe. Honestly, we could have been living anywhere from Maryland to South Carolina but my mind fails to inform me, and the location of this story isn’t necessarily of importance. Though I forget where it was, I do faintly remember the house. It was medium-sized and homely, and had a large ungainly backyard. The tall uncut grass seemed like a jungle to younger me. I had a nice sized bedroom with a silk covered bed and a colorful bathroom. My mother’s bedroom was  giant and mysterious, or at least had seemed so at the time. 

To set the scene of this story, I was in this giant bedroom while my mother was unaware of the fact and looking for me. I had closed the door except for a small crack where a sliver of the hallway could be seen. I was doing anything a toddler in the forbidden fortress that is their parent’s bedroom would do: explore, make rash decisions, and create general mischief. Discovering things and covering new terrain,  I was like a hero in a story who had a secret cave. Somehow, I found myself in the also giant bathroom, opening all the cabinets and touching things I had no right to touch. In one particular cabinet I opened,  I found the villain of this story: Blue Magic Hair Conditioner/Hair Dress.

According to the website, Blue Magic is a hair product that “ is formulated to give effective hair conditioning for days without being greasy.” While that is a sufficient description of our antagonist, I do believe it is deserving of more than sufficiency.  There are many different types of it, some oil-based, some different colors. The particular kind that I was faced with that day was the original, which has a consistency thicker than molasses and the adhesivity of superglue.  Unlike other hair products that are known for how difficult they are to find, one is just as likely to encounter a jar of Blue Magic in the Chips/ Crackers sections of a Family Dollar as they are to find it on the shelf of a beauty supply store.  It’s almost fascinating abundance meant it was a staple in the hair care of curly-haired girls for years. Blue Magic was what kept my hair together as a young child. I can’t remember living anywhere without it for the first few years of my life. You used it to keep your hair up, to keep it down, make it smooth, make it spikey. Anything, everything. Granted, I haven’t used it in years, but back then it was what we always used.

It was as if a spotlight had shown on the jar, my eyes flew  to it and my mind began racing. I thought about how my mother always used it in her hair. How she always used it in my hair. That means it must be good for you, I’d thought. That it makes your hair long and pretty and healthy and soft.

Of course, this doesn’t accurately represent the thoughts I had that day. Being  two or three years old(let's settle on three to save time) my vocabulary and syntax were sparse and lacking in complexity. My thoughts were probably more along the lines of: Mom hair good long good me too! But it’s better to paraphrase for the sake of understanding.

Essentially, I came to the conclusion that because it was good for your hair, I should put some in mine. I took out the jar and unscrewed the top. I looked into the thick, rich gel and hesitated for a moment. Though I was almost sure it was a good idea, I still had a slight bad feeling. I pushed the pesky thoughts aside and took a small dab with my finger. I tested it in my hair, and was thoroughly disappointed. I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but an event magical and instant would be along the lines. I at least expected something to happen. Instead, all I felt was a cool sensation and a small tuft of sticky hair. I decided that it wasn’t enough and went back in. I got into a system, putting more and more into the small amount of dark-brown hair on my head. 

Any reasonable person would have found a place to stop. A place where they thought they had put a reasonable amount of dark-blue hair grease on their head and be fine. And though I regard myself as a reasonable person, I was certainly not reasonable at three. The jar was almost completely full when I first opened it. Instead of taking this as a sign that I could have put in a decent amount and still have plenty to spare, I took it as ample supplies to use.

Very quickly, I managed to put almost all of the grease into my hair. I felt very proud of myself, knowing I had taken a step to being like Rapunzel, all,  but that I imagined my thick, flowing locks would be more similar to ebony than gold. I’m not sure if it’s fair to make this statement, in that I’m quite sure I wasn’t aware of who Rapunzel was at this age, but what I imagined was most likely in her image so I’ll let it be. Oh, had it seemed nice in my head. I saw myself have braids that would trail after me, and enough hair for three styles at once. I had imagined my mother would be so proud of me, scooping me up and praising me for my splendid idea. We would both celebrate happily as we watched my hair grow at a rapid rate. Just as I do now, I lost myself to a world in my head. 

I pulled myself out of the daydream long enough to look into the jar and see the tiny amount left. My head already felt heavy and cold from the gel, and I had felt happy knowing I was almost done. Though putting grease in your hair may not seem like much, putting a jar of it in is a surprisingly taxing experience on a three-year-old. The next couple of moments seem to be pulled straight from fiction. Too funny to be true, something that would only be seen in a sappy comedy. I took a deep breath, and eased my fingers into the jar for the last remnants. I felt ecstatic, happy the deed was done, and relieved it was over. Just as I jammed the last sticky bits into my hair, the door to the bathroom swung open, revealing my mother behind the frame. 

It was at this moment that I started to seriously rethink my recent decisions. My mother and I looked at each other, both frozen and shocked beyond belief.  Her brown eyes boring into my doe eyed ones. The silence was deafening, if someone had dropped a pen in the room next door, we would have heard it. The empty jar dropped from my small, now greasy hands, rolling slightly before finally coming to a stop. It was as I sat there, having the staring contest of the century, that it dawned on me that it actually wasn’t a good idea to put a whole jar of hair gel into your hair. My daydreams suddenly turned to nightmares full of yelling, standing in corners, and two fewer hours of Dora the Explorer a day.  I was petrified, standing there wondering what would happen next. Finally, I wasn’t able to handle  it anymore, the silence had been too much and the staring had been too scary. With slimy fingers and head almost completely absorbed by gel, I started to cry, and at the same time my mother bent over, doubling with laughter.  

After this, my memory goes blank. I’ve tried and tried, but I simply can’t remember anything after my breakdown. I suppose my brain threw away the ‘sad’ part of this whole experience.

Luckily, the same isn’t true for my mother, whom I asked to fill in the blanks of the ending. She told me that she picked me up and rocked me around to help me stop crying, soothing me while trying not to laugh. I found out that apparently, putting a jar of Blue Magic into your hair doesn’t make it grow twenty feet long in the blink of an eye, but it does, however, help to dye it green-blue. It had also taken about a week for my mother to get all of it out. I can only imagine what it was like for her to explain why her daughter looked as if she had a head of seaweed.

So, in short, the lesson of this story is do not, I repeat, do not, put a whole jar of  Blue Magic Hair Conditioner/Hair Dress into your hair.  Though thinking back,  you could argue I did somewhat get what I wanted. No magical event like four extra feet of hair came about, but I would consider it some type of magic that I managed to color dark brown hair cobalt in ten minutes flat. Perhaps, I should be proud after all.