About Us

🌸 About Ruby Keys

Hi, I’m Ruby Keys.

My whole thing with hair started on my grandmother’s porch the summer I turned nine. I had read somewhere, probably in one of those teen magazines my older cousin left lying around, that lemon juice could lighten your hair if you sat in the sun long enough. So I squeezed about four lemons into my braids, parked myself in a lawn chair, and waited for the magic to happen.

The magic did not happen. I just smelled like a lemonade stand for the rest of the week and got sticky residue on every pillowcase in the house. My grandmother thought it was hilarious. I was devastated.

But something clicked that summer. The idea that I could change my hair, experiment with it, make it into something different than what I woke up with? That stuck with me. For better or worse, it never really let go.

By middle school, I was sneaking my mom’s Aqua Net out of the hall bathroom and emptying half the can onto my head before school dances. I also gave myself “layers” with a pair of craft scissors from the kitchen junk drawer. They were not layers. They were uneven chunks that I tried to hide by wearing a low ponytail for three weeks straight. My best friend Jenny noticed immediately and was kind enough to only laugh about it for a few days.

Since then, hair has been my diary. Every phase of my life has a hairstyle attached to it. I dyed it jet black during a breakup at twenty-two. Went blonde one January for no reason other than boredom. Tried a pastel lavender in my early thirties that was supposed to look ethereal and instead made me look like a melted popsicle left on a sidewalk.

Some of those choices gave me confidence I didn’t know I had. Some were pure chaos. Most were a little bit of both. But they were always mine.

Why Hairideaster Exists

I started this blog because I kept having the same conversation with friends over and over. Someone would ask what I was using on my hair, or how I got a certain look, or whether some drugstore product was actually worth it. And I’d end up talking for twenty minutes about techniques I stumbled onto or mistakes that accidentally taught me something useful.

Eventually one of those friends said, “You should just write this stuff down somewhere.” So I did.

Hairideaster isn’t a glossy, aspirational, everything-is-perfect beauty destination. What you’ll find here is the real stuff. The 7:15 AM moments when you’re already late and your hair has gone completely rogue. The 11 PM decisions where a pair of scissors and a YouTube tutorial feel like all you need. The product experiments that sometimes work beautifully and sometimes leave you standing in the shower wondering what happened.

I cover hair care, hairstyles, makeup, and nails because those are the things I’m genuinely obsessed with and have spent years experimenting with. Hair is my first love and will always get the most attention, but I’ve also developed strong opinions about mascara, nail art, and whether expensive foundation is actually worth it.

What I’m Not

I want to be upfront about this because it matters.

I’m not a licensed hairstylist. I’m not a cosmetologist. I didn’t go to beauty school. What I am is someone who has spent a lot of years paying attention. Testing things on my own head. Making mistakes and figuring out what went wrong. Talking to stylists and colorists and absorbing everything I could.

I’ve had dye jobs that stained every towel in my bathroom orange. I own curling irons older than some of my playlists. I once burned a small section of my hair with a flat iron set way too high and had to cut out the singed part with nail scissors.

But I’ve also had those mornings. You know the ones. Where your hair just falls into place on its own, no effort, no product, and you catch your reflection and feel genuinely unstoppable. Both of those experiences matter. The disasters and the magic mornings. They’re both part of the same messy, ongoing relationship we all have with our hair.

The Salon Memory That Shaped Me

I still think about my first “real” haircut. I was fourteen. Brought in a magazine photo of some actress with perfect side-swept bangs. The stylist nodded, studied the photo, got to work.

Twenty minutes later, I did not have perfect side-swept bangs. I had these short, blunt, slightly crooked fringe pieces that started way too high on my forehead and made me look permanently startled. I cried in the car the whole way home. Posted a selfie anyway with some caption about loving my new look, because pretending was easier than explaining.

That experience taught me something I’ve carried ever since. Hair is never just hair. It’s confidence. It’s identity. It’s how you present yourself to the world before you say a single word. And sometimes, honestly, it’s comedy. Because looking back at that photo now, those bangs were objectively hilarious.

What My Life Actually Looks Like

These days, my bathroom looks like a beauty product yard sale. Half-used bottles I was testing and forgot about. Three brushes on the counter I swear I’ll organize “one day.” A drawer of hair ties that has become its own tangled ecosystem. Bobby pins in places where bobby pins have no logical reason to be. I found one in my refrigerator last month. I don’t have an explanation.

Some days my hair feels like a crown. Other days it’s a fight I’ve already lost by 8 AM. I’ve laughed at ponytail holders snapping at the worst possible moment. I’ve watched humidity murder a curl pattern that took forty minutes to create. I’ve also learned, slowly and sometimes reluctantly, to love the mess. The in-between days. The not-perfect-but-mine days. Those deserve more credit than they get.

The Part I Didn’t Expect

When I started Hairideaster, I thought I’d be sharing tips into the void. I didn’t expect people to write back.

But they did. And that became the best part of this whole thing.

Emails about first big chops. Photos of wild color experiments. Texts forwarded from friends saying, “That dry shampoo tip saved my hair before my date.” A woman who wrote me three paragraphs about finally stopping straightening her natural curls and how it felt like coming home to herself.

Those messages remind me this isn’t just my story. It’s ours.

So That’s Me

Welcome to Hairideaster. We’ve got wins, fails, and lessons hiding inside both.

If you’ve ever stared at your reflection holding a pair of scissors, whispered “here we go” to nobody in particular, and hoped for the best? You’re in the right place.

And if it goes wrong, we’ll figure it out together. I’ve got plenty of experience with that part too.