DIY Blonde Ombre
Don't worry, this is definitely not going to turn into a beauty blog! But just to have a break from the endless baby baby baby posts, I thought I'd write about my new hair.
I've had my hair lightened for about 300 years now - when I was a child it was very bright blonde, but as I got older, it inevitably darkened and I think my natural hair colour is kind of filthy blonde/mousey brown. The least coveted hair colour on the planet basically. Anyway for years now I've had an all-over high lift tint done, which lifted my hair to a really light blonde - I swapped over to this from highlights because it was so much cheaper and I never much liked the stripey effect you seem to get with highlights. But as I mentioned in one of my pregnancy update posts, when I got pregnant I noticed that my roots were coming through really dark. Like, almost black.
Then my hairdresser told me that she was going to have to change my dye formulation as my roots were so much darker than before, so the levels (not sure what the technical term is?!) she was using wouldn't be strong enough to get the same result. And despite her doing this I started noticing that my once-bright hair was looking a little... yellow. Like properly yellow. Eeeuww.
I decided that change was in order, spent hours googling ombre and balayage (I figured if I've got dark roots now then I might as well go with it right?! even if it is very 2013) and then I booked an appointment at Trevor Sorbie to have a complete hair makeover.
This was the kind of look I was after... But with straight hair. And a fringe.
Unfortunately, that didn't really work out. The colour technician (lovely though he was) seemed convinced that I would regret dyeing my hair darker, and so he only put in one or two shades below my existing colour and the result was (as you can see from below)... exactly the same.
Five hours, £200+ and a glass of complimentary Prosecco down and feeling deflated and a bit pissed off (yes I know I should have complained but I'm far too British for that) I decided it was time for that old mantra 'if you want something doing, do it yourself'.
I should add here: I have never dyed my hair myself. Unless you count copious Sun-In
And that's what I did. I did spend about five hours first saying to Oli 'Should I do it? Maybe I shouldn't? I suppose I've already cried once today (the baby is being 'challenging' this week) so it won't matter if I hate it. Will it?', but anyway. I watched a few Youtube videos of terrifyingly young girls doing it far more professionally than I ever could, especially not at THEIR AGE, then very unscientifically plonked L'Oreal Preference in Florida Honey Blonde all over the top of my head, combed it through the lengths a bit and voila.
It's not too bad is it? A bit more subtle than I wanted and it hasn't totally covered my roots as I got terrified of how dark it looked when the dye was on so I washed it off a bit early (it says to leave it to develop for half an hour but given it took nearly half an hour to actually get the dye on my hair in the first place, I'm not sure when you count the half an hour from?). So I may redo it in a week or so. But anyway, it cost £6.99 and I don't hate it. Result.
Sidenote: Just noticed there are loads of brackets in this blog. Kind of like I'm continually justifying things to myself. Weird.