Alina Gonzalez is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C. She's written for NBC and regularly contributes to Refinery29. In lieu of sleeping, she writes stream-of-consciousness entries on The Hyperbalist and on Twitter.
I am obsessed with celebrities. D-list. F-list. I really just have no standards. I would be equally happy spotting Angelina Jolie as I would the guy who played Peyton's stalker on One Tree Hill. In fact, I think I'd prefer to see the stalker. I’m aware this makes me desperate, sad, pathetic, unbecoming, etc., but I can't deny who I am.
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I read JustJared.com every single day. It is there that I once spotted photos of Rachel Bilson — my fashion and hair-color icon — coming out of the Andy LeCompte salon, where he noted she’d gotten her hair colored by Denis De Souza.
Her mythic colorist’s name was exotic and I already loved him.
I googled Denis De Souza and scrolled through picture after picture of his chiseled Brazilian face. The bio on his website literally read like a love letter: He talked about giving clients low-maintenance hair, hair that looked natural and sun-kissed, hair that was beachy and Gisele-like.
The timing was fatefully perfect because I already had a trip to LA planned for the following month. I took a Xanax and called to make my epic ombre appointment.
When I found myself face to face with Denis, scrolling through my giant “hair binder” spastically explaining what I liked about each image while he nodded sweetly and encouraged my OCD hair talk, I knew I’d indeed found my color soulmate. I sheepishly admitted how I’d found out about him and he didn’t judge me (out loud). We talked about Lady Gaga, penises, our love lives, and family. We bonded over being Pisces, Latin, and our shared tendency to narrate life through song. To this day we are close friends and my purposely faded blonde hair is completely part of my identity.
I sincerely believe that good hair color is the single most important aspect of a gal’s appearance (that she has control over). If you're born with it, congratulations. I'm really happy for you. If you're not, fake it. You can be wearing a paper sack with bare feet and look radiant and beautiful with the right hair. I adore clothes and shoes and jewelry and the memories you create in them, but your hair is something that is permanently connected to your body (unless you shave your head). There is nothing I own that I could ever say I love as much as my complementary dark-to-light hair color. It lasts forever, and makes me feel like the happiest, beachiest, summery-ist version of myself. Every time I see it — which is every single day — I am reminded of the friendship Denis and I forged thanks to my obsession with reading about the habits of celebrities who've had/currently have television careers on the CW. Ombre for the win.
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