Birthday edition: Surviving hair mishaps

Life comes at you fast. One minute you’re blowing out candles on a cake, and the next you’re extinguishing fire out of your hair.
A moment before Nicole Richie’s hair caught fire
A moment before Nicole Richie’s hair caught fire

Life comes at you fast. One minute you’re blowing out candles on a cake, and the next you’re extinguishing fire out of your hair. I am not being dramatic, merely retelling the story of what happened to Hollywood actor Nicole Richie on her birthday a few nights ago.

There she was, surrounded by loving friends and family, as she craned her neck down to blow out the candles. One disgruntled sparkler had other plans though, quickly setting fire to a chunk of her hair. Chaos ensued and it momentarily looked like the flames went out as she started moving back. On the other side of her head though, the flame grew bigger. There was screaming and bedlam, as she tried to put the fire out with the edge of her top. Nicole was generous enough to share the footage of this wild moment on her Instagram, and I honestly and truly, cannot stop watching it.

You can add “Possible Hazard” to my long list of reasons why I am not the biggest fan of birthdays, but let’s focus on the bigger picture here: her hair was on fire. Not dyed-it-red-and-hates-it-fire, but the old school, life-taking fire. For the sake of authentic journalism, I scrolled down into her comments and found one from her hairstylist, Gregory Russel, which said “STOP!!! AGAIN?!” leading me to believe that this has happened before.

Dearest Nicole, I must ask, are you okay? The fact that you’re posting this leads me to believe that you are, but is your hair okay? Has this happened before? How did you recover? Are you traumatised by birthdays as well?

It is time for the moment of truth: once your hair catches fire, it doesn’t get completely burned away, it just singes — aka damage you can’t fix by yourself. It is time to call up your stylist so they can figure out how to trim around the  damage. As tragedies often happen, not getting a haircut may actually cause more damage to the healthy hair around it. Sad to report that the horrors and repairing process doesn’t end here. Investing in some intensive hair treatments and conditioners might be a good option to soothe your damaged hair at home. This is also recommended if your weapon of choice has been curling rods and not fire.

When all else fails, just remember that hair fortunately grows from the scalp and not the ends, and that this too shall pass. When you’re in the thick of a situation, it is often easy to lose perspective, especially because your instinct may not be telling you to do so. It is just hair, it’ll grow back! Worse things have happened.

Saumya R chawla

 @pixie.secrets

(Beauty behaviour with a side of dessert)

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com