I would usually, on such occasion's when my hair needs to be re-dyed, go to my favourite Toni & Guy Salon and get my hair re-coloured and cut at the same time. At least $250 later, and I walk out feeling invigorated and sporting a new colour and cut. unfortunately, due to lack of cash I'm forgoing my usual trip to T & G and plumping on DIY Dying!
I can live with my hair getting a bit longer but I MUST have it dyed. I went into the Chemist two days ago and looked at the L'Oreal hair colours. Oooo, which one to choose.... do I go bright red, copper, or back to brown? As much as I've wanted to go bright red in ages, there was a doubt in the back of my head that it could all go horribly wrong. My colourist has wanted to make my hair many shades of red in ages and what she had planned was a sort of patchwork quilt of all of the red shades. I saw a picture of what she wanted to achieve and loved it! If I could have made myself pay the money this time around then I would have had it done as previously work has held me back as I don't think it would look very professional. So due to my doubts and the fact that if I were to go that bold I'd want the patchwork version, I decided that bright red was not for me. Copper, a nice shade of red but would I turn out looking, well, Ginger? Probably, so no. Brown, my natural hair colour. I like brown but I like my brown with the copper bits that sparkle in the sun but the browns I saw looked, to be quite honest, boring!
So what shade? I went for L'Oreal Feria in Intense mahogany Auburn. The Mahogany part did put me off a little as I didn't want to go too dark as all the home dyes I had at home were always very dark and it makes me look pale. But the look of the hair on the model persuaded me to give it a go. Damn those packaging people!
I am not about to have a go about L'Oreal. I have always used L'Oreal hair dyes and have never had any problem, even the dye I have in T & G in L'Oreal, so I think that says it enough. However, my results didn't look as it did on the box. Or did it? You see, it was only after that I looked and the picture of the model again and realised that they weren't really lying, my hair kinda resembles the picture (not the hairstyle though). I realised that they had used a lot of light on the model to highlight the reddish colour of the hair, to make it look lighter, but if you look at some of the bits in the shade you see the real result - dark brown!
Yes I've gone back to my roots, so to speak, and I am now, yet again, a dark brown colour. But rejoice, I have lots of red happening! It may look dark brown at first sight but when the light hits it you see the redness shine through. I am happy with the colour but I had hoped that my blond highlights would have turned out a lot more brighter the same goes for my grey hairs. L'Oreal do warn you that you will get a much brighter colour on your greys but I was actually disappointed with that result. Though I'm sure that if I had have opted for a shade such as Intense Red that I would have been a little shocked at the brightness. As it was, I opted for safety but with a dramatic enough effect.
What is even better is the change it has given me personally. Most people feel better after dying their hair, I guess it's a case of the old adage 'a change is as good as a rest', but I actually, for the first time in a long, long time, feel more like me again. As much as it was nice to have highlighted hair and it did improve my skin tones, I have realised that I'm just not ready to be light headed just yet.
Here are some picture of the box and of my hair:
The Box
My hair result:
And not a single blonde highlight in sight!
This was the first time that I have dyed my hair at home. On previous occassions my mum has done it for me so I'm also proud of my efforts for doing it single handedly. I did create rather a mess in the bathroom though. It's not my fault, they put too much liquid stuff in it and they tell you to use all of it. I had more dye than I knew what to do with so it was inevitable that some of it would end up on the sink, the tiled walls of the bath tub, the floor, my foot (I now have a rather fetching brown little toe!) and last but not least, the actual sink vanity cabinet.
Of all the places to get the hair dye I would have to get it on the cabinet, a pourous surface. After applying the dye and letting it set on my head for the 30 minutes required, I set about cleaning up the mess I had created. Everything wiped up easily except for...... yep, you guessed it, the cabinet. Why put a pourous surface underneath the sink? Am I the only person to find this absurd? I walked rather briskly to the main bathroom to get the Easy Off Bam to see if that would remove my stray stream of dye. No. Not even a glimmer of hope, so much for Bam! Then I remembered the best product for cleaning bathrooms - Exit Mould! It's pretty much watered down bleach but after several applications my streak of dye doesn't look as prominant as it did and I'm sure with the help of Big Bad Dom tomorrow that I'll be able to remove all traces. But at least I have a head of nice dyed hair for my efforts :-)
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