“It’s not about the cut or the colour or the products or the style; it’s about the way you feel when you walk out the door to take on the world. It’s about confidence, intention, and ownership. Whether we want it to or not, our hair says something about us. Just like clothes and makeup, our hair sends a message. Hair can be heard, and there’s nothing quite like the power of knowing your hair says exactly what you want it to say.”
DeeDee’s passion for hair dyeing is a big part of her character arc in One for the Road. It leads her through a lot of personal growth, and it’s a big part of her personality and how she sees the world. It was so rewarding to explore that side of her while writing the story and get the full picture of Taverne Toulouse’s ‘pink haired princess’ that I’d come to love so much while working on the previous books in the series. It’s also been such an incredible experience to see readers loving her so much too!
DeeDee’s hair dyeing skills are not something that she and I have in common. One of my favourite parts about writing romance is that it’s so character driven, and through that, it allows me to experience so many different personalities and ways of seeing and interacting with the world. Not only do I get to research a huge variety of topics I otherwise wouldn’t know anything about; I get to feel the passion and love (or in some cases, hate) the people I’m writing about have for those topics.
I’m a firm believer in the ‘write what you know’ rule and always relate the new things I learn about back to some aspect of my personal experience I can connect them with, but it really is such an exciting and just plain fun experience to learn something totally new for the sake of my stories.
And so, to illustrate just how different an author can be from their characters, here are some photos of the one and only time I’ve dyed my hair:
Yep. Pretty bad, right? This was done in 2014, during the height of the ombre hair trend. Unfortunately, this was also a time when my hair was at a weird and awkward stage of growing out a shorter cut. Ombre was not a good choice for me to begin with, but it became extra bad when I did not actually manage the signature gentle fade of the ombre effect. Instead, I ended up with half my awkward haircut a brassy yellow colour that I’m sure would have made DeeDee gasp in horror and immediately push me down on the nearest chair available so she could fix it.
“Remember that time half your hair was blonde...” is still something my friends say to this day, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be laughing at these photos together for the rest of our lives.
For some much more skilled examples of hair dyeing, check out One for the Road here.
