Lightening dark hair at home

One of my best friends has been dyeing her hair black from her natural dark brown for a few years, and after a few months of growing out her roots, decided she wanted to go lighter instead.

Much lighter.

She went to a hairdresser's for some foils, but, a significantly lighter wallet and half a head of blonde highlights later, realised that she wanted the bottom half of her head done as well. 

Now, I am well aware of the dangers of DIY hair colors, and also know how much more dangerous trying to lighten dyed black hair can be. I am also, however, somewhat of a risk taker (albeit not with my own hair, which is so fragile that just brushing it tends to be a major risk), and therefore begged her to let me do her hair. 

Before I get lynched, I would like to point out that I did do a ton of research first. 

Although, as one 'kind' soul in a hair salon/store pointed out to me: she had studied for four years to become qualified to dye hair and I should not aspire to equal her with my pathetic home research, done from the safety of my home/laptop. 

Despite her condescending tone and rude whispering with the other sales attendant, I managed to ferret some valuable information out of her, which is seriously the only reason why I restrained myself from asking her if she had also studied makeup, and if so, how she could justify walking around looking like this: 

Anyway. 

Armed with my new knowledge, as well as a:

• tub of blue Salon Smart powder bleach
• 30 volume creme developer
• 10 volume creme developer
• bottle of purple conditioner
• 8C Crema Color by Sol-Fine (toner)
• pair of latex gloves
• mixing container
• long-tailed comb; and,
• tinting brush

...and having firmly tied my friend Jaycee (not her real name) to her chair, I proceeded to torture her by "umm-ing" and "aah-ing" over her hair for the next few hours, as I bleached, washed, conditioned, toned blow-dried and straightened her hair. 

I made sure to throw in quite a few worried glances and panicked "oopsies"  in there for good measure too. 

The end result was really close to what she was after, and she has now asked me to start looking into how to tint highlight regrowth for future reference. 

The top left photo is Jaycee's (still not her real name) hair before I got my hands on it. 

The other three are "After" photos. 

Unfortunately, the sun set before I finished so I couldn't take photos out in the natural light, but I did not touch the top half of her head - which had the original foils in - so that can be used for color reference purposes from the top left photo. 

I will try to remember to take some more shots when I see her during the day next. 

The process: 

I decided to use blue tinted bleach as her hair was quite dark and black hair tends to go quite red/orange when bleached.

Knowing there was a good chance that I would be too scared to leave the bleach on very long, which meant her hair was more likely to turn out orange, I wanted to cover as many bases as I could to minimise it and the blue bleach was one of those steps. 

Bleach is mixed with a developing creme to activate it. 

Despite one of the ladies at Priceline suggesting that I use the 40 volume developer, I decided to go with  30, mainly because I did not know how fast I could work in her hair, and preferred to underprocess all of her hair rather than overprocess one side while applying bleach to the rest of her head. 

As the bottom half of her hair was dyed black from previous dye jobs (this is visible in the "before" photo as her natural hair throws off a reddish reflection in the sun), I first bleached that section for about 10 minutes to remove the previous dye and then spread the bleach upward toward her hair line. It worked quite well and the end result was quite homogeneous. 

After bleaching and towel drying her hair so it was just damp, I mixed the 8C Light Ash Blonde toner with a 10 volume developer and used this to tone Jaycee's hair back from a bright orange color down to a gorgeous caramel shade. 

There is a slight chance that the developer was not quite a high enough volume and it may fade, but I have a second bottle handy, so at the slightest hint of orange highlights, I will be putting Jaycee through another round of toning.

Obviously, DIY dye jobs require gloves to avoid damaging the skin, so I used some chemical proof latex gloves throughout the process.

I also bought the purple conditioner to offset the orange that I felt would inevitably come out of the bleaching over time. 

Although I used it when washing her hair out, I definitely did not leave it on long enough to achieve visible results, but I have seen girls with extremely orange hair use a purple shampoo mask to tone their hair rather than a actual toner so I know it works!

Other info: 

I used a simple plastic container to mix the products in.

Long tailed combs are handy for parting hair, and I used a hair dye brush, as well as my gloved fingers to apply all the products on to Jaycee's hair, taking care to rinse and shampoo everything well in between different chemicals. 

Jaycee loved the results, although she did mention that she would like to go even lighter soon, but agreed that we should probably wait a little bit and see what happens to her hair before we do anything else to it. 

I am really grateful that she trusted me enough to let me do this, and had so much fun doing it, plus I really enjoyed watching a ton of videos and learning about bleaching, dyeing and toning. 

If you are thinking of a DIY dye job, may I suggest enrolling the help of a friend who has a strong interest in hair (and is therefore more likely to take things seriously)? Doing your own hair can be extremely difficult even if you know what you are doing - I don't know about you, but I struggle to see the back of my head most days... and, as a starting point here are a few of the things to consider looking at:

Pink so Foxy's blog: Balayage Highlights At Home and YouTube videos.

Clairol Professional: Lightening and Toning Hair FAQs

Hair color shades - a selection guide

I would also suggest going into a hair salon and telling them what you intend to do and what you are trying to achieve. Yes, they will try to dissuade you and attempt to book you in to an appointment, and they are likely to be extremely condescending, but at the end of the day, that is their job, and whatever advice they give you may just help you avert a crisis. 

As always, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post! 

Love always,

Tatiana

Prime time drama

I was geared up for a pretty awesome weekend on Friday.

One of my friends just got engaged, and she indulged my hair and makeup addiction by asking me to do hers for her engagement party.

About 5 minutes in though, I realized something pretty important: knowing how to do your own hair, which in my case is equivalent to taming a lion’s mane (as evidenced by this video), does not mean that you can do someone else’s.

Especially if that person happens to have soft, fine and straight hair - pretty much the opposite of mine.

After about two hours of fiddling with curlers, hairspray and pins while panicking about wasting my friend’s time and/or ruining her party, we managed to create this, which I thought was pretty and my friend assured me that she liked.

As I thrive on feeling like crap and second-guessing myself, I nevertheless spent the next four hours obsessively trying to decide whether she actually did like it or was just being nice to me.    

I then somehow managed to go home, get dressed, and hightail it back to her party, where I proceeded to panic at the thought of her hair falling out, eat way too much delicious quiche, catch up with a lot of great people and succeed in only embarrassing myself a handful of times.

Overall, pretty much a win.

Of course, by the time I woke up the next morning, the combination of hangover from hell and tiredness led me into a spiraling vortex of self-hatred and despair, and I decided that I was an absolute embarrassment to nature and did not deserve to be around people.

So I did what one always does in these situations, I  went for a run, had a shower, did my makeup put on some yoga pants, made myself about six peanut butter and honey sandwiches and sobbed hysterically while watching sappy shows and trying to fish the sandwich crumbs back out of my sports bra, because well, my mamma taught me not to waste food.

The highlight of that day (other than finding a left over cereal bar in my handbag after running out of sandwiches) was finding a little package wrapped in a purple ribbon (can anyone say StrawberryNet??) neatly tucked into my mail box.

While I was really excited about the promptness of the delivery (I'd only placed my order about four days prior), it really brought home my anger over the fact that I ordered some stuff from Priceline Australia on 12 March which has STILL  not arrived despite them charging me $5 for delivery within 3-5 days.

Not impressed.

Anyway, I hear some people have had bad experiences with StrawberryNet and have received fake products, but so far, everything I have bought has been great. 

Which is why last week, when I ran out of my favorite Laura Mercier Oil-Free Primer and found out that the Laura Mercier counter at Myer was closed, I hopped online and ordered a new one from SN.

(As a quick aside, I have been asked quite a few times why one should use primer. There are a number of reasons: depending on the kind of primer you use, they can even out oily skin, prevent break outs,  help prevent skin from absorbing talc and pigment from your foundation as well as prevent the talc from drawing oil from the skin, and they make your foundation last longer.)

This is the primer I bought online:

1. Laura Mercier Foundation Primer · oil free

By far the best primer I have used, this is a water (rather than silicone) based primer with a very neutral scent - for some reason that makes me feel like it might be better for my skin.

It is quite liquid and the texture closely resembles a light, oil-free moisturizer.

I have combination skin - the areas around my nose tend to get oily whereas the rest of my face is quite dry and I find that this primer really evens everything out. It also keeps my foundation in place all day. 

My only issue with it, which I have discovered since using other primers, is that it doesn't make my skin look quite as smooth as the next one on this list.

On the whole though, it has never caused me to breakout and my face loves it, so I will keep it at # 1.  

2. Benefit - Stay Flawless 15-hour Primer $47.00

First, may I point out that I am all for people recommending things to me because they have tried them and  genuinely love them, but if a sales person is literally reading me the label on the back of the product I want and spouting things like “This is like a magnet for your foundation, it just sort of sticks and makes it stay on”, there is a good chance that my wallet and I will go wandering off to a different store. 

One where shop assistants assume that I am literate and can therefore handle the simple task of reading labels as well as understand the concept of a magnet...

This time though, the other stores were shut and I was out of primer. 

Which is why I handed over my credit card, muttered a quick thanks to the deity of Bank Account when the payment went through, and went home to complain about sales assistants and play with my new primer in peace.

Anyway, the primer:

Overall, it feels more like a stick of wax than a magnet, but having tried it on in the store helped me manage the unrealistic expectations that could have otherwise been implanted in me.

The stick sort of melts on to your skin when you try to apply it directly and you end up using way too much, which, as it dries really fast, is a massive waste of a really expensive product.

Once you manage to get past all that though, I have to admit the primer itself is not bad at all. It made my skin look noticeably smoother, and my foundation lasted a reasonable amount of time. It smells a bit like vegetable oil. Again, not great, but also not a massive concern once you apply foundation over the top.

3. Models Prefer - Perfect Canvas Mattifying Primer $14.99

For comparison purposes, I decided to also buy this primer. It is a lot cheaper than the two previous products and I find it does the job, although my skin was breaking out a little last week when I was using this, and in hindsight, I realize the change in primer was the only possible culprit. 

Oops. 

However, definitely mattifying and keeps your foundation in place.  It is a lot thicker than the Laura Mercier but does not dry too fast so it is quite easy to apply. 

I have to admit that coming to the conclusion that this primer is most likely the reason why I spent all week having to use concealer does not make me want to continue reviewing it... 

I might try it again this weekend and see what gives - water based products don't usually cause my skin any issues so I am considerably intrigued. 

4. Napoleon Perdis Auto Pilot Radiance-Boosting Primer $42.00

The only reason this is in last place is because it is not something I would recommend if you were only buying a single primer.

As indicated by its name, this is a shimmery primer which makes your skin look shiny and glowing. In my case, great for my cheekbones and forehead, but not so much on my nose, unless I want to look like Rudolph the greasy-nosed reindeer. 

At $42.00, the price is also a bit steep considering the tiny size of the tube and how much product comes out whenever you squeeze the tube, albeit ever so gently. 

I do love the effect of using this primer as a highlighter on my cheekbones though. Unfortunately, the one time I used it all over my face, I was so horrified by the oily sheen of my complexion that I didn't stop to find out whether or not my pores looked smaller in my rush to take it all off. 

Not planning on trying that again. 

That's all from me today folks. As always, thanks for reading, please drop me a comment down below if you have any questions/really want to...

Also - here is a lion I drew. Just because. 

(I don't know about you, but I can't help resenting it slightly for looking like it's having a better hair day than me.)

Love always,

Tatiana