A Year in the Life of my Hair

I haven't posted in so long!

The journey I've been taking with my hair has taken an unexpected direction, so I thought I'd do a little hair update. It's been a while! :)

Welcome to a year in the life of my hair:



As you know, I've been trying to get my very bleached hair back to brown, and back in February I used a few different products in attempt to return to being a brunette.

All of them failed miserably.

In THIS post I was having a little moan that the colour I'd put on was looking a little dull and washed out after a couple of days, and a couple of weeks later it had pretty much washed out completely. I ended up a blonde once again.

I got some advice from a few different people and did some Googling and basically came to the conclusion that as the bleach had removed all the pigment from my hair there was pretty much no way that any brown dye was going to take to my hair for more than a couple of washes.
I was also worried that the cool toned parts of my hair would end up a weird grey/green colour after reading some online horror stories (what Google does best).

The solution seemed to be to use a filler colour in a nice red to give the dye some pigment to hold on to and to add some warm tones to the blonde, and after reading THIS page I decided that Scott Cornwall's Colour Restore in 'Deep Red' (£11.99 £7.99, Boots) was exactly what I was looking for.

I wanted my hair to look nice for a night out on Saturday, so on Friday night I put on some old clothes and took out my hair dye towels and got started.
I had bought a couple of boxes as I always need two boxes of hair dye, but I didn't even need a full bottle for my whole head. It applies really easy and spreads for milesss.
Also, as it's not really a hair dye and there is no mixing you can store it and reuse it instead of wasting half a bottle. Definitely a product that had me at hello :)

Once blow dried afterwards my hair looked something like this:


These photos really don't do the colour justice; it is so bright! I'd only had the Colour Restore on for 25 minutes, so I was really surprised at just how vibrant it came out.
(Admittedly though, I didn't keep rinsing my hair until the water ran clear, as even half an hour later the water was still looking like Cherryade and I was bored).

On Saturday, once my hair had chance to get a bit oily I then tried to dye over this with a my lovely Chocolate Brown dye.

Between the ages of 14 and 17 I my hair was a range of red colours and just before I changed it to brown when I was 18 it was as bright as it is now. Because I'd had no problems at all going from red to brown back then I had assumed that I would have none now. I was so wrong.
The red was little more dull and more copper red than before, but that was it. The brown dye now wouldn't take to the red.


My hair at 15 years-old (left), and my hair now at 23 years-old (right).  

Actually, now it's more of a purple-red than it was then. Almost a kind of plum kind of colour.

It's been a couple of days now and I've decided that I'm going to keep it like this for the foreseeable, 'cause it's really grown on me again.
When I was 15 I got nothing but stares, snide remarks and bullying for having my hair the colour it was, but now that it's red again I've actually had more positive attention in the past four days than I have in the past four years, especially from the opposite sex. That's kinda pathetic, haha :')

I've seriously had nothing but compliments and I can't stop touching and looking at my hair, so it looks like I'm gonna be a redhead again for a while.
It's a really summery colour too, so it's worked out nicely :)

I've definitely not missed washing my hair with cold water all the time though! Urgh! Haha :)

Feeling old.

Now that I'm 23 I'm feelin' a little old, so with my birthday money I felt like buying a grown up outfit for a change.

New Look emailed me a 20% discount code for my birthday, so I had a browse and bought myself this girly little top and a lovely dark red skirt from their revamped tall range.


Top: £8.99. Skirt: £14.99. Both New Look.
It's nice to buy something a little more 'meet the parents' than usual, and I bought a couple of these hair bows from eBay to pin my hair up with. They're very cute, even if they're not so grown up :)


Hair Bows: £1.50 each, eBay.
I have a beautiful dark red lipstick, 'Couture' from Dainty Doll, that would look perfect with this outfit. It's a dark, sultry red and I don't have an excuse to wear it very often, so I can't wait to pair it with my pretty new outfit.


Couture Lipstick: £12.50, Dainty Doll.
I also bought myself some lovely little above the knuckle rings from RegalRose.
It's a look that I've loved for a while but I've never seemed to get round to buying any midi rings of my own, so it seemed like the perfect thing to finish off my birthday money spending.


Cross Ring: £8. Set of 4: £6. Both RegalRose.
The 'Hair, Skin and Nails' tablets that I mentioned in an earlier post (HERE) seem to have been doing their job, as at the minute I have fairly long nails and I can paint them all sorts of lovely colours to go with my new rings. I'm currently wearing MUA's 'Amaretto Crush'.
Long nails are a rare occurrence for me, as I'm not a girl who's particularly dainty or careful with her hands, so I hope I've not jinxed them by telling you that.

How cute would this outfit look with those Studded Pumps I bought from Primark last year? :)

Studded Pumps: £10, Primark.

Some early Birthday Presents

Next Sunday, the 17th, is my 23rd Birthday!

Cue the blink-182...

 

So this weekend my dad and step-mum came over to Hull to do a bit of shopping and while they were here they bought me some of my birthday presents a little early.

On our way we stumbled across a street performance outside St. Stephen's in celebration of Chinese New Year, and in Princes Quay there was a stand collecting donations for an owl rescue thing (too busy petting the owls to even read the signs, haha).

We were on our way to Primark when I spotted this amazing onesie on a mannequin in a shop window and it was reduced from £30 to £15! I can't remember the name of the shop but you can buy the one on the right, which is pretty similar (except navy, not black), from Missguided.co.uk for £25.99.


While we were in Primark I picked myself up this Las Vegas vest for £3. It's lovely and long and I don't have much grey in my wardrobe, so it's a nice change.

 Las Vegas Vest: £3, Primark.

And finally, we stopped in at Schuh and I picked out this gorgeous pair of grey and black Vans for my second present.

Vans: £47, Schuh.

I've considered buying myself them for a while, so I'm really pleased with them :)

I'm feeling a little old now I'm nearly 23 though. What age is it appropriate to stop wearing Vans? Haha :)

Hair Update 2 and Hull Vintage Fair

It's been about a month since my last hair related post, so I thought I'd do a little update.

On Friday night I got a little bored so I decided to dye my hair, as you do, and got out the boxes of Schwarzkopf Vital Colors in 'Chocolate Brown' that have been lurking around my room for the past couple of weeks.

I've never dyed my hair without help, so it was a bit of an adventure (and a mess).

The colour it turned out immediately after dying was absolutely beautiful. And, for me, that's a big deal. Usually after dying, no matter what the colour, I'm either not too sure about it and it takes a couple of weeks to grow on me or I absolutely hate it and start planning the next colour straight away.

However, after I used the Chocolate Brown it was a gorgeous colour. It turned out a dark, rich, warm brown with loads of lovely red tones and straight away I was totally in love with it. I didn't manage to take any photos, but it was pretty similar to this photo of Reese Witherspoon with dark hair.


I'm saying 'was' a lot because the colour just didn't take to the lightest parts of my hair. Where my roots were coming through and the parts at the top of my hair where there has been the least bleach the colour has stayed, but the hair lower than that has faded and washed out leaving this disappointing mousy brown colour.
I went out and bought some of Clairol's Nice 'n Easy Brunette Colour Seal Gloss (£1, Wilkisons), but even that didn't help save the colour fading.


The left photo is a couple of days after dying, and you can see that it's a pretty boring, dull, natural-looking colour. Not what I had in mind.
Also, you can see the difference in length compared to the pre-fried state in the right picture. My hair is curled in the left photo so it does look shorter than it is, but you still get an idea of how much length I lost from over processing my hair. Currently it's probably the length of the neckline of my top in the right photo.

On the upside, the condition is a million times better than it was and I guess that it's a tolerable colour for now, and I don't plan on dying my hair again until April/May (before Slam Dunk, basically).
However, Timotei have stopped producing their lovely Deep Brunette products! They contained my two favourite hair ingredients, henna and argan oil, so I'm really gutted. It means I will have to find a new colour/brunette product range that I like, so I'm sure I'll update you on that next time.


In other news, I spent my Saturday down at Hull's Vintage Fair. I had intended writing this whole post about it, but I still don't have a camera so I couldn't take any photos of the cute little stalls

I never really buy anything clothes-wise at the fair as, to be honest, I'm just not one of those people who has the patience to rake through rack after rack of clothes and people tend to really overcharge for anything 'vintage'.

I do love the cute little tea and cake stall though and some of the stalls do have some amazing finds!

There's this little stall that sells amazing old-fashioned little box cameras, usually priced between £5 - £10, and I'd love to buy pretty much all of them.

Another one had a set of genuine Russian Nesting Dolls, and a third had a gorgeous cameo necklace with a picture of the Mona Lisa on the front. I would have loved to have bought them both, but money's a little tight at the minute unfortunately.

The next fair is at the beginning of May, so I'll make the effort to write a proper post on it next time and take some photos of some of my finds :)

Was anyone else down at the fair? Did you buy anything amazing? :)

Retail Therapy

I've not been feeling too great the past couple of days, so today's post is mostly just a few bits and pieces that I've picked up online while I've been in the house feeling sorry for myself.

I accidentally stumbled across this cute little coat on eBay. It actually popped up on the sidebar while I was searching for something else, but my dad's been having a bit of a winge recently because I don't have a Winter jacket, so I had a closer look.
I really like Khaki green at the minute and I've been looking for a coat with a fur hood, so I'd already decided that I really liked it before I'd even seen that it was less than £15, including p&p!

I've also spied these cute little Pixie Boots on eBay. I haven't bought them yet, but I've been looking for some nice flat boots that I can wear out on an evening and that are also a little more practical on the ice/snow that we've had recently. These are only £16.99, but I can't decide between the black or dark brown pair :/

And finally on my journeys through eBay, I picked myself up a little brown satchel bag. It cost me a total of £3.19, and I really love it. It's the perfect size to carry around my little bits in so I haven't really put it down.

Over the weekend I spent some time shopping with my sister and I spotted this black shirt for £14 in Matalan, of all places.

The photo doesn't do the shirt justice at all, but the only camera I have at the moment is my terrible phone camera and the photo of the shirt on the website looks completely different. You can see it HERE.

According to the website it's supposed to be a full length shirt, but due to my height it sits pretty close to my waist, so I've just been tying it tight enough that it stays put and looks like it's cropped. Also, there are buttons on the sleeves to keep them folded up at a nice elbow length and I think they look better like than full length.

Finally, I bought myself a few bits from New Look.

Cardi, £17.99 £8. Ring, £4.99. Skirt, £7.99. All New Look.

This dark red cardi, that's extremely similar to the red studded Topshop cardi that I mentioned a couple of posts ago (HERE), has been reduced to £8. And since that post I've also bought some more of the sew on studs in a gunmetal colour, and I think those will go great with the dark buttons on this cardi. I'll post a photo of it when I've finished, assuming that I can find a reasonable camera. :)

I also bought this quirky little gold Buddha ring. I have a huge fascination with religious iconography and religious jewellery, and already have a little collection of rosary beads and crucifix necklaces and even a Saints Bracelet that has beautiful little images of Hindu gods, so this is a great addition to my little collection.

Lastly, I bought this dark red tube skirt. I've realised recently that all of my skirts, except two, are black and decided to add a little colour to the skirt section of my wardrobe.

It's not been an exciting post today, but it's cheered me up a little bit. Nothing like a bit of retail therapy :)