We’ve all been there: We’ve had the same hair for a while—what each individual considers a while may vary—and we get an itch to make a major change. And sometimes, despite learning hard lessons about things like bleach damage, we make that major change with the faith that it will go better this time. But the decision isn’t made lightly or without a whole lotta hemming and hawing, which Emma Chamberlain has perfectly exemplified in a new YouTube video documenting how she reached the conclusion to chop off her long, healthy brown hair and go platinum blonde.
“I’ve felt boring for a while now. Not like boring on the inside, of course, but boring on the outside. When I look in the mirror, nothing excites me and I’m kind of sick of it,” she says. “I think it’s time for a haircut.” But spoiler alert: Turns out it’s time for much more than just a haircut.
Chamberlain takes us through a hand-drawn history of her haircuts and colors since 2019, when she had “natural, healthy, long, brown hair,” much like she does at the start of the video. She reminds us how she dyed the underside blonde, went fully platinum blonde (leading to a lot of breakage), went back to brown, went back to blonde, briefly took an orange detour, accidentally dyed it black, and lost clumps of hair when a colorist tried to lighten it up. That last experience led her to commit to growing out her hair to get it back into a better condition. But despite multiple bad bleaching experiences, the call of the blonde seems impossible to ignore.
“There’s something energizing about having a fun haircut. I plan to get sort of a risky haircut. I want to get something ballsy, something that people might not like,” Chamberlain says, introducing us to the Pinterest photos she’s narrowed down for her hairstyle idea—pretty much all of which involve chopping it off and lightening it up.
“You would think by now I would’ve learned my lesson, Emma. We probably shouldn’t do anything crazy to our hair anymore. We’ve had a lot of traumatic events. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just time to let it grow out and get really healthy again,” Chamberlain says. “Well, unfortunately, sometimes I can get really excited about an idea to a point where I don’t critically think about whether it’s a good idea or not, and that might very well be happening with this haircut idea.”