Aubergine...

We've all got a few lurking in our offices or on our blocks. I'm talking about the women whose coiffures bear unlikely hues not generally found in nature. (Or if they ARE found in nature, they're generally found on certain vegetables, see above.)

This has always perturbed me a little, as there seems to be a disproportionately high number of women in my office wandering around with hair that strange, dark, purplish-red shade that could never, ever sprout naturally from someone's scalp. Why, oh why, do women succumb to the strange desire to tint their heads with colours like this? I have no problem with dyeing and highlighting, so long as the effects they produce are in the realm of natural and the tones are complementary to the wearer. I'm sorry, but I have yet to meet a woman for whom eggplant is a complementary shade.

Here are some other common hair colour faux-pas that I spot on a daily basis:

1 - Fire engine red: there are some women who can pull this shade off beautifully - generally those with beautiful, pale skin. I have a friend who exemplifies the best in fiery red hair "from a bottle" - it looks more gorgeous and natural on her than her natural shade. Yet, there are SO MANY other women who go through some form of mid-life crises and decide that the fountain of youth or the key to beauty is found in a box of carrot-red hair. I have at times been guilty of this myself. Not so good. The effect can be incongruous at best; disastrous at worst if the offending party doesn't have the colouring to pull off the shade. And if you're going to go for it, you need to realize that it needs lots of maintenance, preferably from a professional. Red is notoriously difficult to keep up, and when it starts fading, it tends to look patchy and generally gross.

2 - Rainbow highlights: I understand that the combination of highlights and lowlights, when done well, can really add dimension and texture to a woman's hair. The problem is, I tend to see examples of this done poorly far more often than I see it done well. There seems to be an epidemic of harshly-striped, multi-hued hair in my office building. This looks particularly harsh on women with dark hair who show up with spikes of stark blonde, red, copper, etc. scattered across their heads. Not pretty. Harsh. If you want to do the multi-hued thing, go all the way and do rocker highlights in an unconventional colours like blue and green, because that almost looks more reasonable to me than these hideous highlights and lowlights (Definitely lowlights).

3 - The Root of the Problem: It seems the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, or in this case blonder, or more brunette. Look - if you're going to make a drastic change to the shade of your locks, make sure you can dedicate the time, effort, and cash to upkeeping it, because there's nothing more off-putting than seeing a bleach blonde with inch-long chestnut roots, or vice versa. I hate to say this, but in this case, the worst offenders tend to be those more mature women with silver or white hair. Generally, I think that greying naturally is far more foxy than covering up with another shade, but if you take the leap and decide to cover up, please ensure that you can keep it up. There is something terribly unappealing about a woman with dark hair and shocking white roots.

And so, gentle reader, I urge you to think before you tint. Consult a specialist and have your colour done professionally, if you can afford it. Learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of thousands of other women, and your mane will turn out to be the main event instead of having mane-tenance problems.