So, when I was younger, about 6 or 7 years ago, I decided that my beautiful blonde hair was getting a bit dark at the roots. It wasn't really that bad but I was young and stupid then. So my mom and I attempted to use a blonde highlighting kit on my hair. Alas, the result was not what I had hoped for. I ended up with canary yellow roots:
I was extremely upset so I went to the hairdresser to get it fixed. When I emerged a few hours later, I no longer looked like a canary, but rather a zebra:
I was of course even less impressed than before. Not that I had anything against brunettes, I just did not want any brunette in my hair. I loved my blonde hair! The next day I went to a different hairdresser to fix this, and she did a fantastic job:
Sadly though, that was the start of my relationship with bleach and highlighting. My roots always grew out darker than before, so every 6 or so weeks I would need to get them touched up. For years after that I just did that. I was so particular about my hair and what shade of blonde it had to be. Btw, I kept all the above photos so that whenever I felt like doing something stupid to my hair again, I could look at these photos and hopefully be put off.
Fast forward a few years to the end of 2010. I for some reason had being thinking about going over to the dark side. I'm not sure where this idea came from especially because I was such a blonde fanatic. Without telling my family (as I knew they would have dissuaded me), I went brunette (professionally of course):
It was quite a big change and it took me a while to get used to it, but I liked it. I knew what a mission it would be to get back to blonde so I vowed to keep it at least a year. It faded and sometimes it looked nice, other times it was a bit too red for my liking. My hair felt in such better condition and many people said I suited the brunette more. The one thing that did bug me about it was the regrowth: because I had dark blonde growing out, it looked grey in comparison to the dark. I really did not like that. And I found it started looking like this very soon after colouring (my hair grows rather fast). So I was colouring my hair more often than I used to highlight my hair. Grey-looking regrowth is just not my thing.
About 10 months down the line I was done with the brunette. I (ms. blonde fanatic) missed my blonde hair too much. I started feeling like the brunette didn't actually suit me, and I never really quite felt like myself as a brunette. Now comes the fun part: getting back to blonde! Had I known just what a lengthy and painful experience this would be, I am not too sure I would have done the whole thing in the first place. Actually, I probably would have, otherwise I would have always wondered what it would be like to be a brunette. Anyways, thinking that all the bleach it would take to make me blonde again would immensely damage my hair, I cut my hair:
Stupid, stupid decision. Whilst it looked nice with the healthy brunette hair, as soon as I started going back to blonde, the short damaged look was just not working for me. I tried not to do too much styling as my hair was pretty damaged, but a bob with my semi-wavy hair requires styling. And of course I did not go straight back to the blonde I wanted, that took about 5 months. I was rather red/ginger in the beginning:
After some highlighting:
After some more highlighting a few months into it:
This last one was my worst. At least in the beginning it was a decent shade of red. In the above photo it was just plain ginger. I have nothing against gingers, I just don't think that shade suits me and it was not really what I was going for.
About 5 months down the line I finally got to a shade that I was comfortable with:
The above photo was taken towards the end of October 2011, and I had my hair highlighted that day. I have not done it since, and it actually looks rather nice :) The darker blonde regrowth is blending so nicely into the blonde. I am however going in 2 days to get some highlights and some lowlights (just so that it looks more natural) so that I my hair can look good for my graduation which is coming up this weekend.
My hair is still quite dry but definitely nothing compared to its condition when I did my first session of bleach bathing and highlighting. That condition was horrendous. I have found some wonder products that have helped repair my hair and I will do a blog post on those soon.
So I am finally happy with the colour, now I just want some length again Lol. Waiting for hair to grow is so frustrating! If you are thinking of going from blonde to brunette, maybe have a chat with me first ;)
And that is the life story of my hair! What are your hair stories/nightmares?
Lv M
xxx
