Hello all, hope you've had a good week! Time seems to be flying my end, what's that all about? Anywho, I've been meaning to do this post for ages as I've had quite the mare getting my hair from brown back to my natural ash blonde. Along the way, I have made some discoveries and several mistakes, all of which could have been easily avoided. As I used a lot of products, I thought I would do one big post and review everything I've used, what worked well and what didn't.
You can see my changing hair over the years above. My natural hair colour is a dirty blonde, which goes really blonde in summer and darker in winter (I call it mood hair, haha). I always loved brown hair because I thought it was so feminine and on one of my girl crushes, Cheryl Cole, it always looked so amazing. I remember walking back to my digz at uni with my friend Pippa and telling her how much i'd love to dye my hair brown. Her reply was 'Well why don't you already?' and so I went and bought the dye and did it that day. We went out the following night, pictured top right and I loved it. Over three years, I went slightly darker and then decided I wanted the old me back, here's the products I used.
1. John Frieda Go Blonde Highlighting Kit/ Here
I'd used a Colour B4 Hair removal kit (from Here) to get rid of a lot of the brown dye. Because I had been dying my hair for over 2 years, there was a lot of brassiness. I asked around a lot of hair dressers for advice which I always recommend as they know what they're talking about. They advised that I highlight my hair to gradually lighten the colour. I did some research and found this little kit by Jerome Russell with good reviews. The application itself was fairly straightforward but the results were HORRIBLE.
Above are pictures I took at the time. Surprisingly, I didn't go as ape s**t as you would think considering the state it was in. The highlighting kit had lightened my roots to a peroxide yellow blonde whilst my dyed locks remained a bright orange. Fortunately, you can't really see to the extent it was from this pictures. My Mom literally cried when we washed it out. Can I vouch for this kit, err probably not. I think if you're highlighting just your natural hair (hasn't ever been dyed etc) you should be fine, but seriously do your research.
2. Jerome Russell Powder Bleach / Here and Jerome Russell Cream Peroxide / Here
So after the s**t had truly hit the fan, drastic measures had to be taken. Believe me, I have never been one for bleaching my hair. But when it looked the state it did, I decided it was my only choice. Rather than full out bleach it to try and even out the colour, I researched and decided upon bleach bathing it. It's much more gentle on the hair and lightens it just a few shades. I used TRESemme' moisturing shampoo and conditioner in the bleach bath mix. Thankfully, it did lighten my hair and even my hair out so the extreme blonde areas were toned down.
3. Clairol Nice 'N Easy 9A Natural Light Ash Blonde/ Here
Once I'd bleached bath my hair a few times (oh the damage) and evened it out, I went back to my faithful hairdresser adviser, ignored the horrified gasps and got my next titbit of advice. That was to apply a ash blonde hair dye all over to neutralise what was left of the brassiness and even out the hair which you can see in the bottom left picture of me. This hair dye did work and gave me a more even all over colour. I would definitely recommend this hair dye but I warn you, it honks to high heaven so dye in ventilated areas!
4. Revlon Colour Silk Dark Ash Blonde
So I had been dying my hair ash blonde until I found this shade, which was much closer to my natural hair colour. I dyed it terrified that my hair might go back brown (which had happened once before) luckily, it worked a treat. The bottom right picture of my shows it just afetr I'd dyed it. I bought this hair dye from Savers for £2.99 (hence no link) and it's one of the best hair dyes I've used, my hair feels so soft and shiny after using it.
If I could advise anyone, think twice before dying your hair, I only ever used semi-permanent thinking it would just wash out but it really doesn't work like that. At last, I have come out the other side of my ordeal! If you're still here after probably the longest blog post in history, thank you! Until next time my little muckas!
Laura.
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