I will be so happy to see the back of 2013 tomorrow night.
Gone will be the mourning, bitterness and unhappiness that this year scoulded me with and
I really hope to start 2014 as I mean to go on, with happiness and a whole new outlook on my life.
So, after five minutes thought, I decided to go blonde.
Yes, you read that correctly – Hollie blonde? What!?
In a mere four hours I transformed from depressed, unhappy red head to 20 year old, strawberry blondie girl who who means business.
It really is amazing how a simple hair colour change can lift your mood.
If you want to find out how I went from this:
To this:
Then keep on reading…
I will be totally honest, I felt completely out of my comfort zone scouring the blonde hair dye section.
It’s just not my area however, I scraped straight past the red dyes giving them a small nod of apreciation and headed over to the blondie’s.
I am a comple rookie when it comes to dabbling with bleach, lighteners and toners etc, so I didn’t really know what I was going to have to buy or how I would even go about this process.
I started by thinking logically, surely it would be a good idea to firstly try and remove as much red from my hair as I could?
I threw the Colourb4 – Extra Stregnth Hair Colour Remover into my basket.
Next, I figuired I would be left with some serious ginge going on so I needed a bleach to lighten up my hair some more, it was this product that terrified me the most.
I was recommended the Jerome Russel – Bblonde – Maximum Lift, Blonding kit so I threw that in my basket also.
My final thought process was that my hair would be a very brassy yellow, so I found an ash toned, blonde dye and headed to the checkout feeling very sick.
For good measure I also bought the Elive – Full Repair – Deep Conditioner’ just incase I needed to slap the whole tub on my head forever more.
And I really did follow it in that order.. Here are some pictures to let you see the process..
I have to say that I was very plesantly surprised by the Colourb4 product.
I expected my hair to be much, much more red but it lifted my colour right out to a strawberry blonde.
The product itself is easy to use, you apply the first stage like a normal hair dye, as I was using the extra strength remover, I left it on for 60 minutes, with clingfilm over the top and applying heat via my hairdryer every 15 minutes.
The product smells quite foul, think rotton eggs but I guess that’s a small price to pay for lifting colour with a product that contains no amonia or bleach.
The second part of the process involves alot of rinsing and buffering using a specially formulated shampoo that is provided in the box.
I would certainly use Colourb4 again as I knew what I was to expect, a lot of people think that their hair will return to its natural colour, this isn’t always the case.
If your hair has been bleached in the past or contains a lot of stain and silicone, then the product will not return your hair colour because of course, if this were true, I would have my natural, dark brown hair back.
The next step was possibly the most worrying stage, applying pure bleach and peroxide to my hair.
I really believed it would all fall out.
The Maximum lift Blonding Kit, by Jerome Russell states it can lift your hair up to 8-9 shades.
I only dare to leave the product on for around 20 minutes in fear of chewing gum ends,
it didn’t really work as effectively as I anticipated it would and kind of turned me more auburn.
The typical colour that brunettes going to blonde turns!
After slapping on the Elvive Full Restore conditioner on my hair for another hour, I decided to go the entire way and apply the Superdrug Colour Performance dye in Medium Ash Blonde
And voila!
The ash blonde, evened out the colour transition and turned me into a vibrant strawberry blonde, a shade that I think is well suited to me as it’s a little bit different but still a huge change as I have never had hair as light as this.
I don’t think I will be keeping this colour forever, but for now it’s a bit of fun to play around with..I wanted to lighten it up some more to try some pastel ombre, that would be fun don’t you think?
Wow that colour really suits you!! I'm obsessed with pastel ombre… that would great!
Olivia xx
http://www.cookie–crumbles.blogspot.com.au
I agree, if I can lighten the ends up anymore I would love to try pastel! x
Well done beautiful! I would love to see a bit of pastel! X
I need to rid of the ginge first, what can I do to get rid of it? x
I'm naturally ginger and hairdressers wouldn't dye my hair blonde. Although I've now embraced my ginger colouring, but at the time a I wish I'd known about this.
X
http://www.heroineinheels.com
Natural auburn is beautiful though, mine has turned a strange artificial orange haha! x
Suits you loads – really makes your eyes pop Hollie! xxx
Awh thankyou so much! I thought it was certainly time for a change x
Wow, I love your hair color, its beautiful. I have wanted a strawberry blonde for a long time but I tend to go darker with my hair to not wash myself out. Currently its super dark brown/black. You look so natural though with this color. Great job!
Thankyou so much! x
That colour really suits you. Defo prefer it to the red! I hope you're happier now you've changed your hair 🙂
daisy//daisydaisyxxo
Thankyou, I am feeling a bit better yes x