I can't leave well enough alone!

At the end of the summer Grace's mane was sun bleached. The more I looked at it the more it bothered me.

Yes, I know what you're saying; Grace is a "horse". She lives outside and the sun bleaching is natural. I should just leave it alone and let the color come back on it's own.

But Grace is not just a "horse". She is beautiful and her sun bleached mane was making me crazy! I tell her every day that next time I am going to buy and ugly horse, that way I won't feel the need to keep it beautiful year round.

These are the sun bleached ends of her mane, they were orange!

Her forelock looked like it belonged on a foal!

Since I cannot leave well enough alone, and I don't have children of my own to fake tan and enter in beauty pageants, I prepared to dye Grace's mane.

First I sectioned it:

Then I wrapped Grace's neck in a garbage bag.

Doesn't she look thrilled?

I pulled the sections through slits in the garbage bag. The whole intention was to prevent hair dye from getting on Grace's coat.

Now the hair dye. First let me say that I am a natural red head. I have never used a chemical dye on my hair. My hair color is more of strawberry blond, my particular shade does not come in a bottle. It never fails, every single time I am at the hair dresser, some stranger asks if I had it colored there. When I tell them its my natural color, they turn on their heel, storm off and never speak to me again.

So when it comes to hair dye, I am clueless!

Look at all that stuff! I had no idea that one needed a degree in chemistry in order to change their hair color. Impressive! I went with Lorel Excellence Cream, I knew I wanted a thicker formula to prevent dripage.

Ok, so here is the part where I really can't leave well enough alone. Remember the garbage bag?

I wasn't quite able to get up to the roots of Grace's mane with it on. The idea of the top of her mane not matching the rest of her mane was more than I could handle. So, I took off the garbage bag.

It was then that I realized that I did not have any Vaseline to coat her neck to keep the dye off of her coat. Right about that time, Grace shook her head. I'm still working to get the black dye off my white horse trailer.

Finished product:

Forelock:

Why I needed to keep the garbage bag on:

It's been a few weeks now and the dye has worked it's way out of Grace's coat.

Her mane still looks great! It should last through the winter.

When I showed my trainer, she said it looked great - followed by "what about her tail?"

Since I couldn't leave well enough alone, Grace's tail now matches her mane!