Hair Stripping, Dying, Red, Brown and Ombre.

I rarely go to hairdressers - if I go its once a year to get a bit of a trim or a few inches off. I have only once let a hairdresser put dye on my hair I was about 13 and my mum paid for me to have blonde highlights in my mousey brown hair. It was a terrible experience and I left hours later with not very nice blonde streaks going through my head. Hairdressers have always complimented my hair, not in terms of its style or anything but 

I've always looked after it, used heat protection sprays, hair masks and rarely use heat at all mostly letting it dry naturally. 

The one thing I do do to my hair though is colour it at home. It's a quick change when I fancy it that I've become almost weirdly addicted to. I think I first dyed my hair about age 18 and it's been black, red and every shade of brown known to man since. The one thing I've never touched is blonde and bleach mostly because I have really dark eye brows and I just wouldn't suit blonde. So when the Ombre trend took hold I thought it would be a fun chance to try some blonde without dying my whole head or losing my brown completely. This is a story of complete indecisiveness and obsession with the speed and dramatic change dye can bring and an out and out damaged mane to end it. 

Stage  One: 

My 'red phase' had been going on for a good year and I was getting bored - my tips had really bad colour build up and the colour seemed to get really greasy really quickly. Reading about Colour B4 products you could do at home I decided to strip it off and go back to brown. 

Stage Two: 

I Colour B4'd and went a weird shade of ginger. 

Stage Three: 

I was brown for a little while - not long at all but for a little while I was a simple reddish brown. If only I could be satisfied with one colour for longer than a month ... 

Stage Four: 

After lusting over many lovely ladies with ombre hair I decided it was time to buy some bleach. Being my first time I didn't leave it on for long it left a very subtle (I wish I kept this) fade into a lighter brown. My hair didn't feel damaged at all so ... 

Stage Five: 

I bought another packet of bleach where I left it on for the full time possible and it only looked good on instagram. I cringe and hate any pictures from this time period. My hair was a horrible reddish dark brown into an orange toned blonde. It literally only looked good on instagram it was awful. I knew it was awful at the time but I didn't know how to make it right - my hair already needed so much hair oil and serums just to keep it from matting constantly. 

Stage Six: 

So after some horrible holiday pictures I came home and bought yet more bleach - I took it higher and blended it much more. Curled my hair looked ok here - I still hate the tone of blonde it was but it was passable curly. The problem I have is I never have time to curl my hair so I needed to change it yet again. 

Stage Seven: 

I Colour B4'd again in a vain attempt to lose some of the red tone to my hair and get it back brown. 

Stage Eight: 

I very carefully died the brown bit of my hair brown. You can't even tell the difference between stage 6 and stage 8 it was a pathetic attempt to make it better but it just looked the same and I had to endure the egg smelling Colour B4 once again. 

Stage Nine: 

So despite this lack of change what did I do - O yeah I went and Colour B4'd it again - twice. This took my hair back to the lightest its ever been. It was pretty ginger and by this point the ends had completely died. However it seemed like my only option to try and make my roots as light as possible to be able to gain some sort of similar colour throught the hair length. 

Stage Ten: 

I died the lot brown - without realising the brown dyes on bleached hair actually turn it a little bit green - great. It was not shrek green but in certain lights it was definitely tinted green. However for me this subtle colour change was what I wanted and without the harsh orange toned blonde seen previously I was getting happier ... 

Then finally Stage Eleven: 

Yes literally I have been through Eleven stages - it would have been cheaper to go to a salon if I'm honest. I shock myself at how fickle and indecisive I actually am. I spend hours choosing foundation which can be washed off yet when it comes to permanent hair changes I seem to pick up different colours alongside vegetables in the supermarket. The reason why stage eleven is here is because I need a strong and consistent shade of brown now - as my hair is so ridiculously damaged, knots like never before I spend so long brushing it that it's become thin and just not what my hair used to be. I will be buying clip in hair extensions for nights out and big occasions for a little while just because hair this thin and damaged just makes me sad. 

This is where I'm at now... 

In natural light it does still graduate a little bit and it isn't 100% green free but it is so much better - I am a happy brunette now knowing the grass definitely isn't greener. 

Part of me regrets doing all this to my hair but I kind of thing knowing what I'm like it was going to happen at some point and I'm glad I did it when the trend was only your tips not an entire head. I've learnt so much about hair and tones and what not to do that I'm grateful I'm still young enough to have weird hair for a while. .. I think :/ If you have any dye in your hair I don't think ombre takes very well it left me with a weird tone that just didn't work. I've seen lots of girls with naturally brown hair and it works and the blonde isn't harsh. Bleach is horrible it has changed the texture and life of my hair. It now mattes all the time the only way to combat this is to drench the ends in hair masks and hair oils every night then wash them out in the morning. With hair oil it is starting to get better but until it grows enough for me to have it all cut out it just isn't the same. 

I wanted to do this post because I feel like in the last three months I've drastically changed everything about my hair and it's just a reminder to myself to start thinking about my hair choices a little more. Will I follow my own advice next time hair dye is on offer in Boots? Probably not but hopefully I'll stick with brown toned dyes with no red in and definitely no bleach! 

Regular Strength ColourB4 - Before and After

I first did a post on Colour B4 in January (post here) it's still one of my most read posts on the blog so as I am undergoing a massive colour change at the moment I thought I'd begin documenting it with another chat about this product. I actually bought this one by accident in haste as the one that I need is the extra strength due to the darkness of my hair. My previous post was on this extra strength so thought it would be worth showing you what the regular strength one did. 

I actually wasn't expecting any difference or anywhere near the results that the last one offered me. It states that this strength is really for people with blonde to light brown hair trying to get rid of unwanted colours like red. As you can see though my hair was very dark and had a red tinge to it. 

I change my hair colour far to often and the red phase has lasted all of about 5 months and I'm ready to get rid of it and go back to brown for the summer. This was the result of regular strength ... 

I was actually so impressed with how it turned out considering the product wasn't designed for my hair colour at all. It took away all of the red and left me with a much lighter ginger colour. It smells a lot less eggy than the extra strength which I really liked. I left it on for the full advised time of 60 minutes and the results were perfect for what I needed. 

As I said before this product doesn't just take you back to your natural colour if you have a lot of build up but it does give you a brilliant base to add a natural coloured dye to and then you can leave it to grow out. I've read lots of peoples thoughts on this product over the last few months and think it gets a lot of unnecessary bad reviews - if you've been dying your hair dark colours for years without removing any of the colours in between there is no way you can get it immediately back to your original colour. I think maybe they could do with rebranding it a little and marketing it as product to give you a light base to add a natural or different colour dye to. It comes with a little shampoo that brings your hair back to the right pH level to dye straight onto so unless your loving a bit of ginger you can take it straight to the colour you want. 

I absolutely love this product and I now use it between all of my colouring even if I stay the same shade as it avoids that graduated into near black tips of the hair from over dying. It retails for only £9.99 which I think is a bargain considering how much a salon would charge. When I buy it again I will make sure I pick up the extra strength as it definitely gave me a lighter colour but this product worked so well considering my lack of concentration in buying it - glad it wasn't £10 that went to waste!

I'm currently playing around with some different things and my hair at the moment so posts will be following on going back to brown and my attempt to add a bit of blonde for summer - if it works tehe! 

Red to Red - Colour B4 Review

It's a little weird but I'm not a fan of hairdressers. I love having good hair but I just hate the whole set up of a hairdressers and have had a few bad experiences in the past. So I just don't go anywhere near as often as I should. I've made it a New Year's resolution to treat my hair with a little more love and attend the salon more frequently. However I'm also a student and as I only ever dye my hair shades of red or brown I've always saved money and used home dye kits. I think browns and reds come out really well this way. 

The red tones in my hair had started to get a little dull and my roots had started coming through strongly. I have quite a lot of dye build up on my hair due to a period of wanting to have pure black hair - wouldn't go there again. So my hair always ends up a few shades darker at the tips than roots. I can normally get away with this as my hair is really long but decided it was time to attempt an at home colour remover before dying.

I used extra strength colour B4 available here. It was surprisingly easy to do and used the same principles of hair dye. 

It says this on the box: 

Undo Home Hair Colour Mistakes with Colour B4!!

Colour B4 Extra for darker hair types reverses the effect of unwanted colour following application.

How it works? Colour B4 shrinks the artificial dye molecules embedded within the hair, enabling you to simply wash them away. Colour B4 does not affect your natural hair colour, meaning the result following use is the shade which lay beneath your artificial colour.

Safe: Colour B4 does not contain bleach or ammonia and it's safe to re-colour your hair immediately following the use of Colour B4. Therefore, you can still achieve the hair colour you desire.

It does smell awful like a cross between eggs and hair dye so do not do this if you're feeling a little queasy. 

I had to leave it on for 60 minutes and wrap cling film around my head - not the most attractive look but I wanted to get the best results possible. Apparently the warmer your head is and the more you keep the heat in the more the colour molecules can be shrunk. 

This was the after result! I was impressed - it worked a lot better than I thought it would and was so easy to do. It says it's safe to dye your hair straight after and due to the kind of orangey light tones it left mine it was definitely needed! However I did leave it 24 hours just because I was a little scared. 

I dyed it using Live Salon Style Intense Red 5-29 Available here. It was really reasonable at only £3.50 in Sainsbury's.  It's quite bright and I love it for now I'm thinking of using two colour B4 kits next time to try and get rid of the build up on my tips. Will definitely be using this between dye's to avoid future build up it was so easy to use!