There I am, at my desk at work on my lunch break and playing around with this spiffy InStyle magazine online hair makeover program.

Discovering I look fabulous with a Cameron Diaz-do, circa June 2007, I immediately decide to go blonde, having spent the best part of the last four years nursing my chocolate brown hair back to a state of tolerable health after many years of teenage abuse.

Emboldened by the vision of cheveuxtory perfection on my computer screen, I call up a salon I’ve walked past a hundred times but never been into to book an immediate fashion-fix. Appointment confirmed for 5.30 that very afternoon, I spend the rest of the workday fantasizing about shiny golden locks.

I arrive at the salon at 5.30 sharp, bubbling with excitement, only to find the hairdresser I’ve been assigned to has accepted a walk-in client for a wash and blow-dry five minutes before I was due.

A tad impatient, but determined to go ahead with my blondifying project come hell or high-water, I chat vivaciously with fellow clients, continuously glancing at the picture I’ve printed off of myself in full golden glory. I show it to the arbiter of my fate, who smiles back and apologises for the delay.

6.30 rolls around and finally it’s my turn. I’m ready. I’m eager. I’m jumping out of my hair. The stylist barely hesitates as she grabs for a streaking cap – a rubbery instrument of torture – pulls it over my head and with a steely hook begins tugging strands of my shoulder-length hair through the tiny puncture holes.

The process is agony, and I am more than a little nervous as it is not the process I was expecting, but this seems like a very nice salon, the prices are hardly low, and I have to place my faith in the professionals…don’t I?

I leaf through a Harper’s Bazaar and Grazia, marvelling at the $35,000 price tag on a handbag, cooing over a gorgeous $1,500 Ralph Lauren dress.

The guardian of my transformation looms over me, painting my tresses with a strong lilac-coloured bleach and wrapping my head first in gladwrap and then tinfoil. I stare at my reflection in the oversized glamour mirror; a space-aged synchronized swimmer, ready for the plunge.

It can’t have been more than 20 minutes, I’m reading about diets for different body-types and trying to decide if I’m an “hour-glass” or a “cello”.

Suddenly – PAIN. My head is burning, like it’s on fire, like I’ve rubbed deep-heat lotion into a wound, like I’ve cut chillies and forgotten to wash my hands before going for a whizz…this is unbearable.

“Ouch!” I squeal, “This really hurts, it’s burning!” My mellifluous tormentor rushes over, rending tinfoil crown asunder.

Smoke billows from the chemical cacoon.

Directing me hurriedly to the sink, she hastily rinses off the poisonous concoction. I’m shocked, stunned – very nervous.

For about 10 minutes the stylist hovers over me at the sink, inspecting my head with an unsettling look on her face. I ask her if everything is ok. She continuously reassures me: “It’s fine, it’s fine.”

My ass it’s fine.

She leads me back to the chair; I can see my dark mane, splotched all over with streaks of bright yellow and silver. I’m completely speechless. She grabs some foils and starts randomly daubing yellow clumps with more bleach. I don’t know what to say.

The second rinse and a fluff dry to properly view the end result and quite clearly, it’s a total disaster. My hair is ash. The capping has interspersed my deep brown hair with strands of white so that I look almost gray. The fringe and several inch-wide strips around the crown are bright yellow.

Close to tears I tell myself that it’s not that bad. The pillar of incompetence standing over me with a hairdryer rambles on and on about how it’s my own fault, it’s my hair, how it would have looked just right if she had been able to finish the job, but now she can’t because it’s too damaged and to fix it will be nigh impossible.

Her unapologetic verbations barely register. I am in a haze. She leads me to the register to pay – PAY?

She tells me it looks fine, that I need to treat it heavily for a few weeks then come back – COME BACK? – for some foils if I decide I still want to be blonde.

I know I should fight, but my inner wimp lady-slaps her way through my paper-thin façade of self-assuredness and I hand over my credit card. It can’t be as bad as I think, surely.

In the cold light of the next day I can see I was right, it’s not that bad. It’s worse. Streaks of green and orange add highlights in sickly tiger stripes. I head to the local shops in search of a miracle conditioning treatment to rehydrate the straw-like remnants of my once healthy hair.

A horrified shop assistant glances at me and after a double take cries, “Oh dear God! Who did that to you?!” My nightmare is really real. Shit. I was still vaguely hoping it was all in my head.

The hairdresser at the back of the store is beckoned and an entire team of stylists gather around to umm and ahh at the devastation. “I have honestly never seen anything like it,” murmurs one astonished coiffeuse.

A miracle-worker named Maree manages to wave her magic curling iron and paint on some colour. Thanks to her I currently appear to be a human being once more.

The moral of this story? Price does not necessarily equal quality. If you’re going to tamper with colour, go somewhere you trust, or at least someone you trust trusts. I have since been informed no one should use a streaking cap on anything but very short hair. To be safe book your hair appointments earlier in the day rather than later – I’m pretty confident my initial hellish experience was at least partly caused by a “stylist” rush job – she just wanted to go home.

If you suffer a similar or – god forbid – worse fate, you can always contact your state Department of Fair Trading and/or check the CHOICE website for details about whether you have the right to expect a refund or other compensation.

Good luck!