Hair we go!!

Hey, guys! Let's dye our hair tonight, okay? No time to make a salon appointment? NO PROBLEMO! I'll walk you all through the careful steps necessary to do it yourself in the comfort of your own home!

Start with a crippling sense of self-loathing and hair envy. I mean, you can use your own inspiration, but I started with spending weekend after weekend of staring at shiny, vibrant hair at weddings. Then go home, stare at yourself and your super dull hair in the mirror and decide that you'll do ANYTHING (under $20) to achieve your own luxurious locks.

On a whim, buy some hair color at Target. Don't ask anyone's opinion, and spend no longer than 35 seconds deciding on Dark Brown.

Now, it's important that you have proper hair-dyeing amenities. You'll have to rinse your hair in a bathtub, so SPACE is important. Because THIS is what I'm working with:

I called some pals to mooch some square footage off of them. But both Liz and Claire would rather do other things than watch me dye my hair. RUDE. So, I had to work with what I had.

Okay. So, now you're ready to get to work. Put on a $hitty t-shirt because you'll get dye ALLLLL over it, take off jewelry and then mix up the chemicals, making sure to splatter it all over your bathroom as a permanent reminder of this bad decision.

It's really awesome if you have long hair because there will NOT be enough dye in the bottle to color all your hair. It'll be SOOOO exciting to see what gets dyed and what doesn't! Oh, and if you steal shower caps from hotel rooms like I do?! SCORE. You have an easy-peasy way of keeping the brown dye off your back. So, once you use up all the dye on 84 percent of your hair, go ahead and wait.

Now, the 10 minutes it takes for the dye to seep into your hair is very important. You need that time to rethink your decision, text your fiance in a panic ("Just dyed my hair. Not sure I've thought this through.") and then really freak out about whether or not you should have done the Allergy Test, as recommended. Is my scalp itching? Am I going blind?! If you can talk yourself into thinking that it's NOT going to be that drastic of a change, that's great.

When the timer goes off, run to the bathroom and squeeze in between your sink and tub and start a-scrubbin' that stuff off of your noggin' under the tub faucet. The directions say to rinse until the water runs clear, so around the 5-minute mark of poop-brown water spilling down the drain, you can totally start crying a little bit. You can also take this opportunity to note the brown stains all over your forehead and hands and cry a little more.

Eventually, the water will run "clear-ish" and you can put in the conditioner, rinse and go ahead and tie up your newly-darkened hair in a towel to dry.

Now, your urge to unwrap and dry your hair quickly should be fought at all costs. You'll need another good 10 minutes to talk yourself into either thinking it's the color of your dreams or that it made no difference at all. When you're ready, go ahead and take the towel off.

What's that? Your hair is JET BLACK?! Try not to worry. It's still wet, right? Get to work drying it. Now, if you've followed these instructions, parts of your hair will NOT LIGHTEN UP as they dry.

It's about this time when you can toast up a bagel and pour a glass of wine because now you won't know WHAT to think about your 'do. You'll try and take picture of it, but no lighting in the world can truly portray the drastic change you see in the mirror.

Hooray! You've now dyed your hair like a true Square. Congrats! Also...sorry.