American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections Summer 2025 BREAKING NEW GROUND
Learning from the Pros: How My Federation Family Showed Me that I Can Dye My Own Hair
by Leslie Hamric
From the Editor: Leslie Hamric is a professional cellist, the mother of a teenaged son, and a longtime member of the NFB of Illinois. In this article she shares how her connections in the Federation helped her tackle a new personal challenge.
It was a cold evening in November 2024. A bunch of us from the NFB of Illinois were having dinner at a small restaurant after seeing Hand, Foot, Hand, a play written and performed by our very own Debbie Stein. I was telling a story about how a friend of my son, Michael, had seen me at Target and wondered if I was Michael’s grandma.
Until that incident, the fact that my hair is mostly gray didn’t bother me. However, after that episode in Target, I began to feel differently. Wasn’t I too young to be mistaken for a grandma?
Yes, I concluded, I was.
My first thought was to get my hair colored professionally. I mentioned this idea to fellow Federationist Patti Chang, who was sitting next to me at the table after the play. Patti commented that getting one’s hair colored professionally is expensive, and she assured me that I could do it myself.
My first thought was: a blind person dyeing their own hair? No way! I was sure to mess it up, since I could not see what I was doing. Forget it!
Then, as I listened to Patti describe the process, I realized how wrong I was. Patti explained that coloring hair is very tactile, so you don’t even need a mirror. She said it is easy to tell where the color is going because you can feel the wetness on your hair, including your roots. The color is all cream, so you simply start at your roots and work it through to the ends of your hair. Leave it in for at least ten minutes, or for the length of time specified in the package directions. Then use the provided shampoo and conditioner and, voilá!
Patti explained that it was a longtime Federationist, Carmen Dennis, who taught her how to color her own hair. I began to think that if Carmen and Patti could do it, I could do it too.
However, it would be five months before I felt ready to take on this new adventure.
In March 2025 I decided I would get my hair colored professionally to see what it was like. I received so many compliments on how it looked that I went a month later to get the same thing done again. My hair looked awesome, but I had spent more than two hundred dollars to get it dyed. Patti was right. It was frightfully expensive to have my hair colored professionally. There had to be another way.
On May 10, 2025, I finally took the plunge. I bought a package of hair dye. I called Aira, the personal visual interpreting service, and had the agent email the instructions to me. Then I transferred the instructions to a note on my phone for easy access. The time was now or never!
Patti recommended that I sit in the bathtub without clothes on. She said that the color would run all over, and that way I could avoid staining my clothes. I had decided to go with Loreal Excellence, since Patti also uses this brand. I proceeded to squeeze the tube of Natural Brown (N6) color into the bottle of developing cream. I shook the bottle hard to mix the two elements together.
Next, I began squeezing the mixture onto my roots. I was amazed to find how easy the process was. I was glad to find out there was more color in the bottle than estimated. However, I didn’t want to overdo it and put too much color on my roots. I ended up working the rest of the color into my hair, applying it as if it were shampoo. I squirted it into my hand, starting closest to my head and massaging away to the ends of my hair. Once the color was finished, the instructions told me to leave the dye in for thirty minutes.
When I had my hair done professionally in April, the stylist suggested I put on a shower cap to help even everything out, so I took her suggestion. Once my timer went off, I turned on the shower, rinsed my hair, and applied the provided shampoo. I was able to tell when my hair was rinsed all the way because it felt squeaky and not soft. It’s hard to explain, but something about my hair felt unnatural. That’s how it is supposed to feel, according to the stylist I had in April. The provided conditioner saved the day, and my hair smelled wonderful.
After leaving the conditioner on for five to ten minutes, I rinsed my hair again. Once I stepped out of the shower, I waited with anticipation to hear how I looked. All my husband, Andy, said was, “You did a very nice job.” That was all I needed to hear, and I was momentarily stunned. Once again, I had done something I thought was impossible for a blind person to do. Once again, I shattered low expectations!
The next day Andy looked at my hair again, and I had my mom look me over, using Facetime. They both said that I could have done more with my roots, but otherwise, my first attempt at coloring my own hair was excellent.
How will I know when my hair needs coloring again? I simply put a reminder on my phone to check in with either Andy or my mom every six weeks. One of them will tell me it’s time, or they’ll suggest I wait a week or two.
I could tell that my mom was ecstatic when I told her I had colored my hair by myself. I told her Patti had learned from another NFB member, and now she passed on her process to me. All my mom said was, “It makes sense to learn from other blind people. After all, they are the experts.” I look forward to coloring my hair with ease so it will look great at Convention in New Orleans!
Little did I know on that cold November night that I would see an inspiring play. Little did I know that I would be on the road to shattering expectations. I hope to share with others that coloring your hair is possible, even when you are blind.