12

DEAR LAVENDER HAIR

You complete me. When I found you, I found myself. I am not exaggerating.

It might be hard to imagine now, because growing up I had hair like Goldilocks. It was always long, past my shoulders, and ever since I could remember, my parents were always asking me to swear on my life that I would never “fuck with it,” saying that I had “hair that people would die for.”

That is, until I was about thirteen and decided to take matters into my own hands.

At the time, my mum was managing the Smashing Pumpkins and had to meet the band in Ireland. She thought that this might be a nice opportunity to take Aimee and me along and let Jack and my father have some father-son time. The morning of departure, as teenage sisters do, Aimee and I got into a massive argument over something stupid, like whose T-shirt it was that was going into the suitcase.

That snowballed into an epic World War III screaming tantrum. This led my mum to realize that she could not survive the trip with the two of us there together with her. After all, this was a work trip and not a vacation. Since Aimee had been invited first, Mum decided that it was only fair that she be the one to go. Plus, my father and I always seemed to have fun no matter what state he was in, so I would be fine at home. I disagreed, however, and was so pissed off that I decided to dramatically stage one last grand protest, just in case she somehow still didn’t understand how I really felt about the situation.

My bedroom in our house had a balcony that looked out over the driveway. As Mum and my sister’s car was pulling out to head for the airport, I quickly ran out to the kitchen, grabbed the biggest pair of scissors I could find, and bolted back up to my bedroom and out the balcony door. As the window to the SUV rolled down, as if we were waving good-bye, I yelled, “Hey, Mum, fuck you!” (This was the first time in my life I had ever said “Fuck you” to my mum and felt like I meant it.) Then I chopped off the hair from one whole side of my head.

The gold tendrils that I’d just hacked off floated off the balcony and drifted through the air down to the first floor below, like some romantic suicide note from Rapunzel. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mum so shocked. She was not impressed. The car continued its course, out the driveway and to the airport, without another word being said, as the look on my mother’s face said it all: I had broken her heart.

When Dad got home, he wasn’t impressed, either. He took one look at me, laughed, and said, “Well, that wasn’t very clever now, was it?” I shook my head because no, no it was not. He took the scissors away so I couldn’t do any more damage and, as punishment, made me go to school looking like I’d gotten my hair sucked into a Flowbee.

Fortunately, he only made me go to school like that one day before he took me to the Maurice Azoulay Salon in the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Kay Lee cut it into a bob. That was the moment when I realized, Fuck it—it’s just hair. I’m not going bald anytime soon, and it will always grow back, so I started to experiment by channeling my creativity into my hair and makeup.

After that, there were no rules when it came to hair. I cut it down to a few inches and rocked the mid-nineties Drew Barrymore platinum-bleached-spiked daisy look. Then I added black and red patches and started London spikes, followed by a Mohawk because why not? I had already gone this short. I was like Toni & Guy’s wet dream. I’ve had Bettie Page bangs, Vargas-girl curls, and a 1960s-housewife bouffant. I’ve had every single hair color you could imagine, sometimes a few at the same time. The only color I wasn’t allowed to do was green because if I had to stand in front of a green screen for work, I would be nothing but a floating face! I’ve also always stayed away from bright yellow. Yellow was always a no-go zone for me. If I dyed my hair yellow, it would be stealing from Cyndi Lauper, who I love. The album cover of hers where she has the yellow hair and red hat is absolutely legendary, and I’d never want to do anything that would even begin to infringe upon that. But pink, black, blue, red . . . all have been fair game.

To be honest, when I’ve had “natural” colors, the kind of shades that are supposed to look like something you could have been born with, I don’t feel as much like myself as when I have a color pulled from the crayon box. When I was a brunette, I looked like my father, if he were a bloated cross-dresser or a lesbian. When I went back to blond as an adult woman, all of a sudden people I’d known my entire life—and I’m talking family friends who were practically relatives—started to hit on me. It creeped me the fuck out when men who could have changed my diapers suddenly sexualized me.

I finally landed on the shade I have now because I’m a huge Dame Edna fan and I love old ladies. To me, nothing is more punk rock than a prim little eighty-year-old with her blue-rinsed hair. When I was twelve, I snuck into my sister’s room to read her fashion magazines and saw a photo in Vanity Fair or Vogue—I can’t remember which—of several supermodels and one old lady, all sitting around a tea table. Each was wearing a different color suit and had her hair rinsed to match. If only I had known then how much that photo would change my life!

I loved it so much that I worked my way through all the hair colors in it, and lavender just so happened to be the last one I tried. Mixing it to find the right shade was like a chemistry experiment. I had seven different kinds of hair dye and kickers in every shade from royal purple and lavender to violet and gray. (A kicker is a final ingredient that gets added to the hair color to, as the name would imply, give a kick in one direction or another.) My colorist at the time, Judd Minter, was with me, and we mixed a new recipe in my kitchen, painted a bit on to test a strip of my hair, and then washed it out with dish soap if it wasn’t right. Finally, we hit a shade that was perfect. I knew it as soon as I looked in the mirror. I didn’t see purple hair—I saw the true Kelly Osbourne. I almost want to puke that I just talked about myself in the third person, but this was one of those moments.

At the time of this writing, I’ve had lavender hair for almost seven years, and it doesn’t surprise me that I finally landed on a signature look, considering that my mum and dad are both known for their hair. Can you imagine my mum without short red hair, or my dad without his long, dark, luscious locks? I’m proud that before me and my hair, people thought that lavender hair was only for old ladies and that I started a “trend.”

That said, as much as I like having a signature hair color, I haven’t stopped experimenting completely. After all, our hair is such a big part of our identity and how we choose to present ourselves to the world. That is why you see girls crying in salons when they don’t get the result they wanted. Hair can be very emotional!

There’s a direct connection between hair and self-esteem. The expression “having a bad hair day” is a real thing—you feel like shit when your hair doesn’t look good. And “good” isn’t universal; rather, it’s what you like and think suits you best. People often think that the fact that you are a woman means they have an open invitation to have an opinion about how you look. There will always be some cuts or colors that don’t work for you because of your complexion, hair type, or the shape of your face, but never underestimate the desire of haters who will want to take down a woman—aka you—who’s comfortable with how she looks and is having fun with it. This feeling isn’t relegated to women only. As I get older, I am watching the emotional toll it can take on a man when he starts to see his hairline recede.

When I first dyed my hair lavender, almost everyone (including the people I worked for) were really rude about it. Comments ranged from a simple “It’s ugly” to “You look like an old lady” (which, of course, I took as compliments) to “Your hair is shit and you should commit suicide.” I’m not kidding—I had hundreds of thousands of comments across all my social media telling me to kill myself because of my hair color. Thank you, Internet troll twats. That’s why I think it’s important to have a strong sense of self and drown out every single opinion except your own when it comes to how you choose to look.

If your mum is anything like mine, and all good mothers share some universal traits, you will find that she is almost as emotionally connected to your hair as you are. Every mother has a vision of her child in an ideal form. For me, my mum’s ideal version of myself was when I was somewhere around age eleven. My mum will always have a hard time when I deviate from her beautiful delusion of how she wants me to look because she wants the best for me. Mum is used to my hair color now, but she still hates it, and I can see that tiny flame of hope flickering somewhere deep inside her that burns with the desire for me to return to something a little more feminine. As I write this, I can hear her saying, “Oh, my darling Kelly, please will you change your hair?”

But for as much hate (and loving nagging) that I get about my hair, it also gets a lot of love. I get tweeted about twenty photos a day from girls who are over the moon because they’ve just dyed their hair and tried to do the exact same color as mine. I couldn’t be happier about that. Watching people become whole after taking a leap of faith against society’s standards is a beautiful thing to witness.

As serious as I am about my hair, I don’t take it too seriously. The great thing about hair, like I previously stated, is that it grows back! It’s not like getting a tattoo—any change you make won’t have to be something you live with for the rest of your life. When it comes to ideas for new hairstyles and looks, I can find inspiration from absolutely anywhere—and I mean anywhere.

For example, one of my previous haircuts was a bob, shaved just on my temples. It was inspired by old photographs I’d found of nineteenth-century mental patients who’d been treated with electric shock therapy. I also found less morbid and more buttery inspiration in New York one morning, when my stylist Ryan was eating a croissant, and I decided I wanted my hair to look like a French pastry for a show I was taping that day. A quick brainstorming session, and several bobby pins and curlers later, voilà—Ryan made my wishes come true and my lavender locks had been layered and rolled into what looked like a purple croissant stuck to the back of my head. I fucking loved it.

When I went to Chris Benz’s first New York Fashion Week show, I wore a yellow, orange, and pink wool dress and had my hair done in a knot of braids smack in the top center of my head because I wanted to look like a Teletubby. Take that, Jerry Falwell. I love playing with braids and once did my hair with all-over braids stuck with giant safety pins, an idea sparked by Annabella Lwin’s look in the Bow Wow Wow video for “I Want Candy.” I also love a good wig or throwing on some extensions when I really want to mix things up. A wig (okay, the right wig) instantly makes you feel mysterious and sexy, albeit incredibly hot, sweaty, and itchy. I recently wore a straight purple wig to Elton John’s Oscars party, but I’ve also been known to wear one when going to Starbucks, or just around the house, cleaning the toilet. The point I’m trying to make is that when it comes to your hair, you don’t need a reason. If you want to do it, do it.

I get that a lot of people want a gorgeous, flowy mane of golden beach waves, but that’s never been me. I’ve tried that look before, and my reaction was always, Why the fuck did I just pay you to do this? I could have just gotten in the ocean myself! I’ve never felt like I fit in at any point of my life, and my hair is a reflection of that. I don’t want to have the same hairstyle as anyone else in the room, much less everyone else.

My hair is one of the ways I express my individuality. You can’t change who you are—and I hope you don’t want to—but changing your hair can change how you feel about yourself. If you get dumped, get your hair done. If you get a new job, get your hair done. If you’re depressed, get your hair done. A good stylist is practically a therapist who makes you look pretty.

So, lilac locks, thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I will love you forever. And don’t worry—even if I have to stray for a brief time, I will always come back to you.

Love,

Kelly O

PS: Here is a list of hair tips from Frankie, who gives the most badass haircuts, and my incredible stylist Ryan.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO TAKE RISKS.

Your hair is a direct reflection of your personality, so have fun with it. Haircuts and styles are temporary, so go ahead and push your looks to the limit—add a little strip of hidden bright color by the nape of your neck, or undercut the hair above one ear to add a little rock ’n’ roll to your look. Your hair is one of the first things people notice about you, so make it something they’ll remember!

HAVING A COOL HAIRCUT IS THE ULTIMATE ACCESSORY.

If you rock a cool haircut, you can just wear jeans and a T-shirt, and you have a “look”! Confidence is the number one variable needed to pull off any look. That’s why it’s so important to stay true to who you are, so customize your look specifically for you.

WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR HAIRCUT, AGE AIN’T NOTHING BUT A NUMBER.

Always go with what look will express who you are as an individual—don’t let age dictate your style. If your hair doesn’t reflect who you are, your clothes and makeup won’t have the same impact!

WHEN IN DOUBT, GO WITH PERFECTLY IMPERFECT.

The chicest hair is undone hair. If your hair looks like you’ve spent days in the chair, you’ve done too much.

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A PONY!

From day to night, beach to Broadway, a ponytail is always appropriate. Play with texture and placement . . . there’s a ponytail for every statement you want to make!

GET YOUR GEAR RIGHT.

#Protip: Invest in quality appliances. Yes, they are more money up front, but your hair (and pocketbook!) will thank you long term. You won’t have to replace them, and they’ll be more effective and gentler on your tresses. Product formulation has come a long way, so do your research and get the right stuff for you. At-home conditioners, especially for those of you with fantasy colors of hair, can maintain your vibrant or pastel hues without weekly visits to salons. Ryan is never without his L’Oréal Elnett hair spray, Oribe Dry Texturizing Spray, and a Mason Pearson brush.