GOODBYE BLONDE HAIR

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Looking back at my Instagram history, I struggled to find any photos of my pre-blonde days – in fact, there were none. I can’t believe I’ve been blonde for such a long time. I’m sure you’ve become as accustomed to seeing with blonde hair as I am, so this new colour might take some getting used to. The original plan was to go back to my natural colour: jet black (much to the delight of my boyfriend, who just wants me to look Asian for once!). However, true to my signature non-committal style, I could only stomach going half way. After all, I’ve invested so much into my blonde hair that I just couldn’t bare to see it disappear just like that. But what presented was a perfect opportunity to go ombre, albeit in reverse. I think everyone gets tired of their natural colour and wants to try something at some stage, especially us Asian girls, whose deep black hair can appear so one dimensional. As for the latter, being blonde has made me realise quite a few pros of black hair. For one, bright lippies really pop. I’ll be looking forward to rediscovering all my bright shades. I’m also going to have to get a new eyebrow pencil… Hair Colouring by Hair Flair Dickson, Canberra

Achieving ash blonde, attempt two!

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I’ve been saying for ever that I wanted to get my hair bleached and dyed to ash blonde. I finally bit the bullet and did this in May. I was so happy with the results, but I wasn’t able to get a true ash on the first attempt. Here’s a photo from back in May.

This is what it looked like a month and a half later, when the tone faded out. I’m told that for ash tone to hold, I’d have to get it retoned a few times.

To restore my colour, I went to what I think is one the best hair salon in Canberra, Hair Flair, in Dickson. So here’s what I was able to achieve. Stylist Teresa further lightened my hair several levels and toned it to a true ash. I was so happy with the colour!

A couple of washes later, the colour has become much warmer, and I really like it!

If you’re looking for the best hair dresser in Canberra:

Hair Flair

Dickson Place, Dickson ACT 2602

(02) 6248 0845 ‎

She’s finally gone blonde!

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I think everyone thought I was all talk about planning to go blonde. I don’t blame them! For the past year and maybe longer I’ve been making the claim that I would go blonde, but being weary about the damage it would do to my hair and the cost and effort in maintaining the look, I just couldn’t commit. 

This Friday I was in Sydney getting my eyelash extensions with my coupon courtesy of Groupon, and afterwards I walked by Minty Styles, a really cool looking Koean hair salon. I think the tell tale sign of a good hairdresser is when the hair stylists themselves have gorgeous hair styles. Also, one of the girls had the exact colour I wanted.

On the spur of the moment I asked them about bleaching. It’s been pretty much dejavu with every hair dresser warning me not to bleach, or plain refusing to do it, but this time the head stylist, Sunny, took a real good look at my hair, and told me ‘yes!’. The price was reasonable ($220, with bleach, tone and treatment) and they happened to have an opening right that moment, so I said to myself, ‘what the hell!’ and I got it done right then and there!

So this was my colour before. I had bleached tips and then a brown gradation.

And this is my colour now! It’s still a bit warmer than you would want with ash blonde, but it’s difficult to get a perfect ash the first time you tone, as Asian hair bleaches to an orange undertone. Also my ends did not bleach as light as the roots, but I think it ads a bit of dimension.

The Process

For anyone else who are considering bleaching for the first time, I just wanted to talk through the process and what I learned.

For black hair, especially coloured black hair, it’s quite difficult to bleach it to blonde and you usually have to bleach twice. To further complicate things, I had bleached ends, which were not the right tone anyway, and had to be matched. So first Sunny put the bleach through just the middle sections of my hair, leaving out the roots and ends. I asked Sunny why she left out the roots in the first bleach, and she explained that, as heat accelerates the bleaching process (and btw if you can see in the photo I’m actually under a hair heater), and as the roots are kept warm by being close to the scalp, this part of the hair will bleach faster than the rest.

So here’s the colour after the first round of bleaching.

Then bleach is applied to the whole head and left to lighten again. I did feel quite a bit of stinging on my scalp when the bleach was applied through my roots. Tada~ My hair gone completely blonde!

You wouldn’t really want to go out with this cartoon character colour though, so you usually put a toner through it. However, as Sunny explained, the first tone won’t completely take away the orange undertone, and so people usually get retoned after about a month. Also, the toner will fade pretty quickly with regular washes. So it’s really important to wash bleached and toned hair with the right products. Sunny suggested that I use purple shampoo, which is basically a shampoo with purple colouring, which will tone bleached hair gradually as you wash with it. The reason you use purple for bleached hair is of course, because purple is complimentary to yellow on the colour wheel, and when mixed with yellow, dulls its vibrancy!

Starting to come together now with a blow dry!

The end result! I was really relieved to see that my hair was still soft and healthy looking, and not dry and brittle as I had feared.

Care for bleached hair

Sunny also gave me heaps of excellent advice about how to take care of bleached hair. She emphasized that it’s absolutely essential that I put a high moisturising mask in my hair every time I wash. This is because bleach has already damaged my hair follicles and it’s now important that I ensure there is no further damage. She recommended L’oreal Expert Series Force Vector hair mask, which is formulated to intensely moisturise and condition specifically to take care of very damaged hair.

For shampoo, Sunny recommended that I wash with L’oreal Expert Series Silver Gloss Protection System shampoo every second wash (every other wash should be with a good colour protecting shampoo, like L’oreal Vitamino Colour, which I am already using). Already when you open the lid you can see that there is a very vivid purple colour through the shampoo. This will gradually and naturally tone my hair.

Sunny also suggested that I use a good hair oil, like L’oreal Mythic Oil. I usually don’t like using hair oils because they seem to weigh down my hair and make it extra oily. But L’oreal Mythic Oil is very thinly formulated that you can use everyday. I may consider picking this up as well.

Maintenance of bleached hair

I am so happy with my new new colour, but it’s bitter sweet knowing that it will look great maybe for the first few weeks, and it’s all down hill from there with the colour getting dull and the horrible black roots growing out. Sunny commented that she thought I would become addicted to this colour, and that I would definitely want to maintain it for a long time. She’s totally right. So for maintenance, Sunny suggested that I get my regrowth redone about every 1.5 months (about 7 weeks), and also put a toner through at that time, to deepen that ashen colour. The good news is that maintenance is not nearly as expensive as the initial bleach, and will set me back about $90 each time. For the hair that I love, at this point I think this will be worth it!

So if you are looking for a good hairdresser in Sydney, I really hope you guys check out Minty Styles! I’ve looked them up online and it looks like they’ve received great reviews from other customers as well.

Details:

Minty Styles, Sydney
SHop 5, 123 Liverpool St. (Horden Arcade)
Sydney, NSW 2000
World Square

Phone: 02 9268 0389

Cheap Thrills Thursdays: Save money on shampoo with LUSH Shampoo bars!

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Thursday was yet another uneventful un-beauty and un-fashion related work day, with the only highlight being my first visit ever to the LUSH store during my lunch break. I had heard of the LUSH 'shampoo bar’ concept from one of the other lawyers at work ages ago. Then I got a sample of LUSH sugar scrub in my February Lust Have It! box. I absolutely LOVED this product, and couldn’t wait to get another one.

I picked up the Fennel body scrub, American Cream conditioner and Govdiva Solid Shampoo bar.

Having learned a little bit about the Solid Shampoo from speaking to the sales assistant and doing some research on the interwebs, I realized how much money I could save on shampoo if this works out – I mean if LUSH shampoo is really as great as people are saying! LUSH Solid Shampoo is made concentrated and slow dissolving so it’s said to last 2-3 times longer than bottled shampoo. Also it only costs $13.50! That’s like $5 cheaper than pretty much any shampoo you can get at the drug store.

In my particular situation I could stand to save even more as I’m currently using Loreal Vitamino colour, which costs me total about $75 every two months or so.

So having established that LUSH Solid Shampoo is definitely good value for money, I guess all there is to determine is whether it actually works.

I bought the Godiva bar because my dyed hair desperately craves moisture. Godiva contains cocoa butter for extra moisture, which, as a down side, apparently makes this bar ‘melt’ faster than the others in the range. This bar sure looks pretty handmade and ‘natural’. However, if you look at the list of ingredients, it turns out it contains all the usual ingredients contained in common shampoos, and is not free of chemicals despite its appearance. I’m fine with this, as I’ve tried ‘natural’ shampoos before, and even made my own, and they just don’t cleanse well enough for me. I’ve seen some bad review of LUSH products because people are disappointed that the ingredients are not 100% natural. However, lets not forget that LUSH’s gimmick is ‘hand made cosmetics’ and do not claim that their products are chemical free!

It appears that the structure of this bar being made from millions of little granules of product allows it to dissolve more slowly.

The thing I was concerned about most was whether or not this product would create sufficient lather to thoroughly clean my hair. That’s a yes! This cleaned my hair so so well.

While the solid shampoo is marketed as a ‘shampoo and conditioner’ bar, I suspected that I would still need a conditioner, so I also picked up super moisturising American Cream conditioner ($13.95).

There is a sticker on this bottle that tells me my conditioner was made by Josey…I’m not sure how I feel about this. Seriously? Does every factory worker at LUSH have their own personalised sticker?

Ok so, totally satisfied with the cleansing aspect of the shampoo bar, but it definitely did leave my hair incredibly dry. I slapped on a huge squirt of American Cream, especially on my bleached ends, but it took a second application to feel like my cuticles had been sufficiently smoothed down. After showering I was really dubious as to whether my hair has been conditioned enough.

But when my hair dried, it was so so soft! For now LUSH hair products get a double tick from me.

 

Finally I wanted to say a few things about the LUSH sugar scrub. I’ve read that a lot of people find this product hard to use. Why not try breaking it up and putting it in a jar…

…like so! So all you do is pour out the amount you need, wet it a little bit, and scrub away.

Friday Review–my first home dye job with Fresh Light Blythe Bubble series

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I’ve been tweeting recently that I’ve never home dyed my hair…literally never! My mum used to dye my hair when I was young – get this, because she dyed her hair so to make it look consistent she had to dye mine as well!! – and I remember it always turning out quite streaky and uneven. Then I just avoided dying for ages, until I started working and had enough money to go to the hairdresser. I was paying up to $350 every 3 months to get my hair dyed. But it was worth it. The colour always looked perfect.

So when Kean from Vanitybox.com.au asked me if I would like to review their new Fresh Light Blythe range of hair dyes, I had to sit on it for a week. I thought, maybe there are other girls out there who are afraid to dye their own hair, and maybe I’ll take one for the team and test it out.

Just to be safe, I picked a colour quite close to what I have now, so that if I messed it up, it wouldn’t be too obvious!

I picked ‘Melty Cherry’, a warm light brown colour. I was really interested in the ‘mochi mochi’ bubble series, especially because it promised to be really easy!

As with all Japanese hair dyes, this one has the cutest ever packaging. The colours are supposedly inspired by Blythe dolls. Personally I find Blythe dolls a bit freaky! But I like the colour range.

The pack comes with the dye liquids, a pump lid, rubber gloves and after colour treatment shampoos.

I’m not sure why it wants you to put the bottle in the box, I suppose it’s to keep it from tipping over?

The black bottle contains the colouring agent. It has a very nice fresh apple fragrance, but once mixed, the scent is completely overtaken by the chemical smell.

The foam is nice and thick and holds my hair in place without any pins while I wait.

Setting the timer for 30 minutes.

30 minutes later, I can see my colour is changing…

I did use the after colour treatment included in the pack, but I still prefer L'Oréal Professionnel Expert Serie Vitamino Color Treatment. The Schwarzkopf treatment left my hair a little heavy.

Before:

I’ve been avoiding the hairdresser to try and save money, so I had some pretty bad regrowth going on!

After:

The colour I used was quite similar to my current colour, only a little lighter, so there wasn’t a huge difference ^^* but you can see how wonderfully well it covered up my unsightly regrowth! My No.1 fear about home dying is that the colour would go on unevenly, and everyone would be able to tell. But my fears have been officially dispelled. Fresh Light Blythe Bubble dye gave me a colour job that is almost as good as the hairdresser! Of course the there were things it couldn’t do, like match my original colour and regrowth.

I do have to comment that the colour started fading from my blond tips from the first wash after dying. I’m not bothered, but if I was, I would just redye because it’s so cheap!!

• So easy to use. Just add the black bottle to the white, shake, pump out foam, and apply to hair! So quick compared to my 2 hour colouring sessions as the hairdresser!
• No need to bleach!
• The range features several natural dolly brown colours
• Only costs $ 16.50 AUD at vanitybox.com.au (and it’s 20% with the discount code ‘HNY’)

• The chemical smell is very strong, so you’d want to sit in a well ventilated room while waiting. While the packaging claims that the dye has a fresh apple smell, this smell pretty much disappears when you mix the two bottles.
• Vibrancy of the colour begins to fade after a few washes, even when using colour protect shampoo. But this reflects its price!

 

This review is sponsored by Vanity Box (http://vanitybox.com.au). They are based in Australia (yay!), but they ship internationally as well! They are still quite new, having only been around since 2010, but with their amazing products, excellent customer service and super fast shipping, I can tell they are going to be the next big thing. But there’s definitely something special about this retailer that gives them an edge against other more established online stores. Unlike some Asian fashion retailers, Vanity Box doesn’t ‘cattle drive’ their stock. You get a feeling from the effort they put into their well built website and excellent product descriptions that they are passionate about everything they sell. Also I might mention that the store owner is a dear!

This description on their website:

Beginning in mid 2010, Vanity Box is an online boutique store focusing on chic and trendy Korean fashion wear and Korean cosmetics. At Vanity Box, we aim to provide a pleasant shopping experience. Our motto is to provide quality yet affordable products without compromising our service. Vanity Box is the only foreign supplier of Ameli cosmetics, a new contender in the Korean market with a strong following online.

Good news – use discount “HNY” to get 20% off everything in store!

A new hair cut finally!

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I’ve been putting off cutting my hair for the longest time because it’s so expensive! My last hair cut was in July, when I went back to Perth for Maria’s hens’ night. So it’s been 4 months, and my hair has been going out of control. A girl at work was talking about cutting her hair and I was like, screw it, I need a hair cut, I don’t care how much it costs! I called up Kelvin at 02 Hair, the only hair stylist I trust in Canberra to cut my hair the way I like >.<.

While I was there, we revived my idea of dying my hair ash blond. I’m going back to get this done next month – so exciting!

I realized I hardly ever do FOTD anymore. So here it is!

I used, as always:

• Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua foundation
• Dolly Wink No.1 False eyelashes
• Dolly Wink Liquid Eyeliner
• Lower eyelashes from ebay
• Napoleon Perdi Colour Disc in brown
• Ameli eyeshadow in Charcoal Brown

Some of you have asked me what contact lens I’ve been wearing lately. It’s Princess Mimi Almond Brown, sent to me by http://www.shoppingholics.com/! My review of these lenses and a second pair they have sent me is coming up~ I promise. I’ve been so behind with all the blogging I have planned!