This past new year , I decided to do something "wild and crazy", for me, anyway. I decided to dye my dark brown hair blonde. Well, after two attempts with a box of blonde, and my test strand coming out a weird shade of red, I decided against it. That was not the end of it. Researching online, I found out about a hair dye made from henna.
Since I have been going gray since I was 14, I decided if I could not go blonde, I would at least cover my gray that has been becoming more and more noticeable all the time. Strangers had made comments about it, like the lady cashier, "I know you're too young to have gray hair!" Or the older man on the street, "You look too young to have gray hair, but it's beautiful, though!" And proceeds to offer me his phone number...
Getting tired of the comments, I decided to opt for "Black" henna. A supposed mix of regular red henna and indigo, something natural and safe, an answer to my prayers! The first time I used the dye, my hair was super black, shiny, and looked amazing, just like I'd hoped for! When the gray started growing in, I'd dye it again, always leaving it in for a long time, thinking since it was natural, there was no reason to worry about washing it out fast.
Things were going great until this past April, when I dyed my hair, and woke the next day with conjunctivitis. I had a TV shoot that very morning, and I was going to be a featured belly dancer!
I rushed to an urgent care clinic because my eyes were SO red, and itching. The nurse practitioner on duty saw me for just a few minutes, and said something about the possibility of "herpes of the eyes", something I'd never heard of! He said I needed to go to the emergency room right away; I said I had a shoot in just a few hours, and asked if it could wait until after. His response was that I should not put it off. I was pretty scared by then, and I was thinking my eyes were going to fall out of my head soon.