Brunette discovers dark side of blonde
by Beth Teitell

Tuesday, July 10, 2001

It was hard to think of anything this weekend except the tragic Julia Roberts-Benjamin Bratt split, but I had work to do. Hard work.

Yesterday was National Blonde Day, and my editor had ``suggested'' I - a brunette - get to the bottom of the story by going blonde myself.

I'm not one of those women who's always wanted to be blonde, and yet I must admit there was something appealing about it. Who, after all, wouldn't want to have more fun, especially on company time?

My first move would be to take offense at all those dumb blonde jokes. ``That's not funny,'' I practiced saying in the mirror, giving a cute little pout (well, a pout that would be cute when its owner was blonde).

As I pondered shade - strawberry? dirty? bleached? - I imagined my new life: There I was flouncing down Newbury Street, horns honking, heads turning, doors being flung open. Hey, was that me being seated ahead of others - brunettes, of course - at the Armani Cafe? And look who's being fussed over at the Chanel boutique.

Did I detect a slight European accent in my voice? A golden tone to my skin? Was that an Hermes scarf around my neck?

When you're blonde, anything's possible.

That's what they tell you, at least.

Three days post-blonde and I'm still wondering where I went wrong. ``Maybe you lack an inner blonde,'' a colleague said when I told her about my experience. Perhaps she was right. The sad truth is that after a lifetime of brown, I couldn't handle blonde.

It's not like I didn't try. Last Thursday, giddy with anticipation, I drove over to PK Walsh in Wellesley, a non-surgical hair replacement company for women. The founder, a brunette who seemed to be having a lot of fun herself, offered to lend me a blonde wig. Thirteen hundred dollars worth of real hair. Blonde gold.

``Wait until your husband sees you,'' one of the employees called out as I left.

That sounded great, until I thought about it for a moment. What if he preferred me as a blonde? Where would we go from there?

``What,'' a friend asked, ``if you see a side of him you don't like? What if it turns out he's disrespectful to women?''

Luckily he wasn't home when my wig and I returned, so neither of us learned anything we might not want to know.

I put on my shag and looked in the mirror. A man in drag stared back at me. Afraid to go out, but with an assignment to complete, I called a friend, a brunette, for support. ``It doesn't matter if you look like a guy,'' she said, ``as long as you're blonde. That's all anyone cares about.''

``Why are you doing this, anyway?'' she asked. When she learned there was a National Blonde Day she turned bitter. ``What do they need their own day for?'' she asked. ``Every day is theirs.''

Yeah, what's next? National People Who've Had Books Published to Great Reviews Day? National People Who've Inherited Wealth Day?

Hoping no one I knew would see me, I slipped out my front door. A neighbor arrived at that very moment. Not wanting him to think I thought I looked good, I blurted out: ``Don't I look like a man in drag?''

``Yeah, sort of,'' he said.

Somehow, I pressed on.

I went into town. Except for my acute sense of embarrassment, nothing was different. Nothing. I was me, dropping off dry cleaning, going into the Gap, ordering an iced coffee, but with lighter hair.

By the time I got to the bookstore I couldn't handle the pressure, so I slipped into an empty section - self-help, as it happened - and pulled off the wig, leaving my own hair in a messy ponytail. But I didn't care.

Without my blonde wig, I felt sexy and zippy and confident. I felt so good I could have been . . . blonde.