Hairy Canary

Oi I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged in a good long while again. How boring – I seem to start every blog this way. It’s kind of bad because today too I am going to be regaling my stories of the hair show…and I’m already going for a new dye job next week. Bad Erin! Let’s snap to it…

I was at my house one day…



…The end. Next story.

April 12 I headed into Vancouver for the model call for the annual ABA Show to model for the company KPSS. As usual, they wanted us there obscenely early in the AM for a Saturday and proceeded to make us wait for an hour while they debriefed the “real” models. Eventually they lined all us regular people up and started picking us like they would for a soccer team, Goldwell on one side, KMS on the other. Last year I modeled for Goldwell, who are known for their wild styles and outrageous colour. I was all ready for some outrageous when the nice man from KMS, Edwin, breezed up to me and thought I would be a good candidate for their California “natural” look. Um, what?! I guess so. I was thankfully the second one picked from the lineup, so I didn’t have to have the shame of being picked last. I was somewhat surprised to say the least, but I was happy to be chosen so I shut up and sat down on the KMS side.

After the picking, they started right into the prep work and I got my (non) lustrous locks dyed into a deep shade of brown. After over 10 years as a fairly consistent blonde, it was gone like that. After my stylists decided they received remote perfection (after six dye attempts), I was released into the wild, to return to BC Place tomorrow for the show where I was to get my hair lopped off during an on-stage segment.

Now free, I called up Jen to locate her whereabouts as I was going to be hanging out and crashing at her palace to get up at another obscene hour to make it downtown for the show. After an hour on the road from Coquitlam to Kitsilano Beach, I parked several blocks away and began to document my afternoon/evening adventures.








Kits beach!






Found you!

The day was basically amazing and warm and breezy so we lounged on the beach for hours (we being me, Jen, and her friend Harmony). We were near some super-annoying B’s who just talked on the phone with people about clubbing and how to land men – loudly.




My new mop-top.




Harmony and Jen















Eventually Chris came by after work and we headed back to Harmony’s apartment to briefly refresh before heading up to West 4th for dinner.






I’m not exactly sure what this is about. I don’t think Chris is either.


Oishii desu yo, ne? NE? Hai. Shimasu.

After a brief stop over at Capers, we headed back to Jen and Chris’s so I could get a bit of sleep for the real reason I was in the ‘Couv – to show my hair off in a grand fashion.


I was an official mannequin.

The companies usually request every model be inside the convention at 7 AM; as you may have guessed, I am a rebel and like to show up later since we aren’t going on until at least 10:00 AM anyways. I showed up around 8 and I still sat around for several hours as my segment only began at 11:30. Around, I bummed. The back was yammed full of model-types and one particularly douche-y girl (who I had first encountered last year and had some (extremely) inane conversations with) who brought her homie-lite styled boyfriend. Who ate our catered food when there was barely enough for everyone else….but I digress.




The Goldwell stage


On stage with my wet mop and my stylist, Josh.




There she is!! The ho-bag on the big screen is the bimbo with terrible lip liner who has haunted me two years in a row!


Horrifying “Mom” hairstyle and nasty Mariposa dress…but the cut was great with some Erin-style tweaking.

Josh was great enough to let me leave early (I think he felt sorry for me as I was antisocial with the young, brash crowd…and for good reason) so I hit up the various shops and purchased many a hair product for dirt cheap and packed up and headed on for another year.






A very obvious advert that men should be fixed. By Quantum.

So there you have it. I think this may have been my last go round…but I think I say that every year. I don’t think there is an age cap either…there was a lady chosen by Goldwell that was well into her ‘50s. Oh well. I have a year to think about it.