I haven't posted anything over the past month as one of my dogs got really ill and passed away last week and I have also started a new job. I now work for H&M its only part time for now I am hoping to get a few more hours and maybe even work my way up to work in the visual department rather than just a sales assistant.

Anyway I have been getting quite a few new items of clothes from work which hasn't been good for my bank balance! I shall do a haul of these hopefully over the next few days when I have a chance to photograph them all.

I have also slightly changed my hair, it is still ombre but slightly darker. I had recently reombred my hair which made the ends become really 'barbie' blonde which I didn't really like. I felt like because it is winter I wanted it to look more natural and maybe add some lighter ombre parts to my hair when the weather gets hotter.

I had done my roots a few weeks ago with the hair dye I usually buy which is the Nice n Easy in dark blonde, I normally go for a dark blonde or dark cool blonde. However sometimes this dye can turn my roots into an orangey blonde for some reason. I don't see why it does as my natural hair colour is a dark blonde but I can never get my dyed hair to be the same colour so I always do my roots as well. The dye did turn my roots into an orangey blonde, it was quite bad as I had about 2 inches of this orangey blonde which then went into a dark ash blonde then onto my ombre. It was very weird!

As there is a boots next to my work I decided to pop in and have a look at other dark blonde shades from different companies. I decided to try the Schwarzkopf Color Mask in 700 dark blonde. I had looked up this product and read some good reviews about it, saying that the colour that the hair came out as matched really well to the colour on the box. This was actually on offer for £4.50 which I didn't realise until I went to the till!

This type of hair dye you have to mix into a pot and apply with your hands. It is a creme hair mask type of hair dye which I have never used before. Instead of applying it with my hands I decided to use my tinting brush as I find it easier applying hair dye like this. 

Last night before I dyed my hair I was looking for hair inspiration, I knew I wanted to use the dark blonde for my roots but I wasn't 100% sure if I wanted to do something with the light blonde ombre as well. I came across this image of Cara Delevinge: 

She has dark blonde hair but then with a lighter blonde towards to bottom, a more natural looking ombre effect than what my hair looked like at the time. So I therefore decided to put the dark blonde dye all over my hair, but I would do this in sections. 

With the hair dye I had to empty the colour into the pot which already had the mixing creme in it, then put the lid back on and shake it 40 times. The hair dying process is meant to be left on the hair for a total of 30 minutes so I worked it out that the top section of my hair near my roots would be left on the longest and the tips of my hair would only have a few minutes with the dye on. So it would just tone the blonde down a bit to look a bit more ashy and natural. 

I started from the roots and sectioned my hair adding the hair dye only to about 2 inches of the root section (the bits that had become a weird dark orangey blonde colour). Then after a few minutes I put some more dye on my hair from the 2 inch section to about where the top of my ears were as this section of hair was a darkish blonde already though it had started to fade a bit. I waited about 5-10 minutes after I had finished this section then went onto the next section of hair only doing about 1-2 inches at a time. After each section of hair that I had put dye on I would comb through it so there wouldn't be any harsh lines. Once I had done all of the darker bits of my hair and was on the lightest sections of where I had ombre'd it I put the dye on the same amount of hair 1-2 inches but I only waited a few minutes before going onto the next section of hair. The very last 1-2 inches of hair I only left the dye on for about 2 minutes before I washed it all off. 

I still wanted the ombre look but to look more natural rather than in your face barbie blonde at the bottom. I do love the look of having it a lot lighter at the bottom but I think how my hair came out was more of a summer ombre than a winter one. 

Before: 

As you can see in this image the light blonde bits of my hair which I reombred had come out a very barbie blonde which I didn't really like. I felt like as I am even paler now because of the winter the harshness of the light blonde didn't go well with my pale skin. I feel like it made me look quite washed out, I was having to apply more blush and more colour to my face so it didn't look as bad. 

After: 

(image to come as my hair is currently wet!)

(18/12/13)

I found the when I had washed off the hair dye my hair didn't seem as dry as it normally does when I have used other hair dyes. Now it is dry part natural part blow dried it is so smooth! I can't believe the condition of my hair, I didn't even put a hair mask (I have been using Bleach London repairing mask) on like I normally do each time I wash my hair. Normally when I dye my hair I wash it two times with shampoo then a normal conditioner then I wash it again the day after. My hair is always in a weird condition after dying it normally doesn't style that well so I always wash it again the next day. I do plan on washing my hair again today and letting it dry naturally. 

Colour wise, it does look like the colour on the box it is very very close to it and my roots are no longer orange. I think the colour is slightly darker than what I wanted but it normally is but then it will fade hopefully it will match my natural colour more. I shall take a photo later on tonight before I wash my hair again. It has made the barbie blonde ombre bits a lovely shade of light ash blonde this will fade a little as well but it still does look ombre which is what I wanted but just a bit more natural looking. 

I think for the spring/summer I may add some highlights to my hair but not right at the roots, still make it ombre but to have a bit more colour to it. Or I may just lighten all my hair to a medium blonde with some highlights. I haven't quite decided yet but I do love the colour it has turned out as it is great for winter! 

blonde dark blonde hair life update ombre

05:22

I decided after months of growing out my fringe to cut it back in. I kept on seeing girls with messy wavy hair similar to how I do mine with fringes and it just looked beautiful! I do feel a little weird when I look into the mirror and I see a fringe but I guess I will get used to it!

Apparently now I look younger?! I don't know if thats a good or bad thing!

Fringe & extensions ^_^

Along with the fringe I brought myself some extensions, which I have been altering the colour. When I first brought them they were an 'ash blonde' apparently... They didn't seem very ash blonde to me as they were quite yellow! I needed to ombre them, I know that you can buy pre-ombred hair extensions but I preferred doing it myself. I dyed the top of them a dark blonde like my natural colour (I worked out how much was needed to be dyed before I did this). I then put a bleach on the rest of the hair and used purple shampoo to tone the yellow down. It is now very close to my very very light blonde ends but it still needs another purple shampoo just to take out a bit more of the yellow.

As my hair is quite thick I have a full head and a half of human hair at two different lengths, 14inch of a full head and 18 inch of half a head, I got them off ebay. However I have trimmed these as the ends weren't very nice and also layered them a little to match the layers in my hair. I also realised after that the 18 inch were a bit too long for me, however because they were slightly cheaper than buying 16 inch I am still glad I went for the 18 inch as I saved a bit of money. When I wear them I make sure that I curl my hair along with the extension hair to make sure it blends in better.

I used to wear extensions every single day when I went to 6th form, college and part of university, however now that my hair is much longer I only wear them occasionally. I may do another post about the different types of hair colours I have had as there has been a few!

I wear them when I feel like my hair just isn't looking right, I also like to wear them when doing a half up half down as I feel it makes the hair style look a lot better as most of my hair is in the layers not in the length. I am growing out my hair, my aim is to have long hair probably just a bit longer than the length in the picture above with the extensions, perhaps another 6-8 inches. I did have to cut quite a bit of my hair off when I used a purple on my ends which then stained my hair blue and refused to budge! I had to cut off about 3 inches which made me so sad! At least my hair is slowly getting to the length I want to to be!

To help with the hair growth I am still using the Lee Stafford for hair that never grows past a certain length I used this every 2-3 days when I wash my hair. I normally leave it on for about an hour while I do a deep condition as well. Since going back to ombre just over a month ago it has grown just over an inch which is the same rate it has been growing since using the product, my hair defiantly does grow a lot quicker! As I only use the hair mask I don't know if using the shampoo and conditioner will make it grow even faster? I may try it!

bangs blonde blonder hair fringe hair hair extensions hair growth treatment lee stafford new hair cut ombre

10:55

For a couple of days now I have been wanting my ombre hair back, I have only had the all over light blonde for about a month. My roots are annoying me, although I do have naturally blonde hair its quite dark. I did put some low lights through out of my hair but it was still annoying me. So I decided to put a dark on top and lighten the ends a bit more to create a more ombred effect. The ombre starts lower than it had done before and there is more of a contrast between the two shades of blonde than there was before which makes the lighter colour stand out.

I was thinking about doing some balayage on the top section of my hair, it is a technique where you paint on highlights without using foil to make it look like natural sun kissed highlights. I think I will do this in a few weeks as I want to give my hair a rest for a while. The good thing with these types of highlights is that they are further down rather than at the roots so you don't have to worry about regrowth.

I want my hair to end up like this, where there are a few highlights further up going down to a lighter colour.

blonde blonder hair ombre

10:56

So a few weeks ago I said that I wanted to go blonder, I wanted to not have ombre hair anymore dark blonde to light I wanted to have all-over light blonde hair. I had tried with normal hair dye but because of how many times I had dyed the top part of my hair a darker shade of blonde to try to match my roots the light blonde dye just didn't take very well. I decided that I would buy some bleach from Boots. I brought the Jerome Russell B Blonde kit in medium lift which is best to use on Blonde hair. It is £6.99 I think, it is not on the website for some reason so here is what it looks like:

In the pack you get:
brush
mixing tub
instructions
plastic gloves
developing hat
lightening powder bleach
medium lift cream peroxide
conditioning shampoo

I highlighted my hair using a boots tinting brush as the brush that the pack gave you was tiny and a bowl with foils. I just sectioned my hair off and using a comb selected bits of my hair that I wanted to highlight. I had the bleach on for about half an hour, I only mixed up about a quarter of the bleach with some of the powder as I wasn't sure how much I would use, when I needed more I mixed more up.

The results were good, although I did realise that I had to go back over some parts of my hair that needed more highlights. I also put some low lights through my hair to make it look more natural and toned the light blonde with purple shampoo to make it less brassy. When my roots grow through I will be able to use a light blonde hair dye to highlight these as they won't have had any dye on them perviously.

Here is the finished result:

Before:

After:

I would defiantly recommend using bleach if you have had a lot of colour on your hair that is darker than what you want to be. I am no expert this is just what worked for me. I had used light blonde hair dye before but it didn't go the colour I wanted it to be therefore this is why I decided to use bleach on my hair.  The bleach may also make your hair go slightly orange, which is why I use purple shampoo to fix it. I have bleached my hair before and so I knew what I was doing, but if you are worried and haven't used it before I would go to the hairdressers just in case anything goes wrong.  

at home blonde blonder hair hair dye highlights jerome russell

08:12

I have had ombre hair for 9-10 months now, I think this is the longest I have kept the same coloured hair! I did try to go lighter before but it just didn't work. I redyed my dark blonde the other day because it had faded, I decided to go for a brand that was on offer instead of the normal nice n easy I go for. This was a mistake, my hair which was meant to come a dark blonde went a medium brown. This did not look good for my skin! I am really pale anyway so by going a darker colour it completely washed me out. I left it for about a week hoping that it would fade but it didn't, so I got a really light blonde by nice n easy and stuck it on all of my hair. So now my hair is about the same shade of blonde it was before.

The main reason I went ombre was to let my hair grow, which is has done a lot. I no longer need to wear my extensions which I haven't touched since about christmas. The plan was to allow my hair to grow a lot until the summer and then go back to a lighter blonde but to still let it grow. As I don't really use heat on my hair, my hair is in great condition, so dying it a lighter blonde won't do too much damage hopefully!

This is the sort of colour I am hoping to go for:

I love Gwyneth Paltrow's hair in this photo, I don't want to go platinum blonde as it doesn't suit my skin tone but a lightish blonde like this shade I love.

I don't know who she is but she is beautiful! 

Knowing what I am like I will probably go out tomorrow and get some dye... I think I am going to dye it lighter and then put some low lights in to give it dimension. The low lights I would want to be close to my natural colour so then I could just put in some highlights every so often and let my natural colour grow through as well. Or put in some highlights and then if I want more dimension I could put in some low lights later on. I would still have some variety of colour going through because half of my hair is darker than the rest. 

The bottom image is the type of colour I want, the darker colour is close to my natural colour, so the shades would go well for my hair. 

So... after ages looking at hair dye I couldn't decide what colour I wanted to be. I know that I do eventually want to go back to all light blonde but for now I will just stick with my ombre hair. The one thing I did do was I did lighten my light blonde of my ombre so now it is very very light almost a white blonde which compared to the dark blonde on top of my hair I think would look quite nice! I am going to let my hair grow even more and then go to the hairdressers and get it done professionally as I want more than one colour in my hair. 

blonde hair dye hair ideas

11:32

I think it has been about 8 weeks now since I started using the hair growth treatment. I am still on my first pot so it has lasted 2 months! I have only about one treatment left in the first pot so I am glad that I stocked up on it when Boots had its 2 for 3 offer on.

The longest layers of my hair is now touching my bra at the back so in the past 2 weeks it has grown 1cm-2cm. I hadn't put it on every time I had washed my hair over the past two weeks because I didn't have time to have a long shower where I can wait around for about 10 minutes with it on my hair, and sometimes I have just forgotten! I plan to get back in the routine tomorrow though when I wash my hair.

So over the past about 2 months that I have been using this product it has grown about 2 and half inches to 3 inches maybe. I am really pleased with the results as my hair looks longer and feels like it is a better condition. My fringe is getting really long as well, I am now able to wear it down but curl is slightly so it stays out of my face.

I am looking forward to the next few months where my hair will be getting even longer as my ideal hair length is about another 6 inches. So hopefully this wont take that long to achieve! I am hoping that by my birthday which is in September I will have my ideal hair length. Fingers crossed!

blonde hair growth treatment lee stafford update

09:57

I think I am on week 6 of the update but I am not sure as I have been really busy with uni work. Not much to say really about my hair, I was going to take a photo of my roots but then I decided to try to make my hair lighter last week, which didn't work so I don't have any roots anymore.

I have noticed that the length is a lot longer again, I think it has grown about nearly 2 inches since I started using this product, so it is working out that it is doubling in length almost. I haven't trimmed my hair since I started using it, it really needs a trim because of how fast it is growing so I plan on trimming my hair later on today, just to even everything out.

My hair is nearly to my down to my bra at the back now it is about a cm off which is great! My fringe before I was having trouble wearing it down because it was at that awkward stage, however now I can wear it down. A few bits of my fringe are still a bit short but it is getting really long, most of it is nearly to the end of my nose and some of it is even longer.

My hair seems really thick as well, I used to have thick hair when I was younger which I used to get thinned out a lot because the hair dresser just used to thin it for me without asking, I wish I had said something now! My layers are getting really long I think it feels like they are growing faster than the rest of my hair, but I just think that is because I have a lot of layers in my hair so it is making it seem like that. The shortest layers are to my shoulders now whereas when I started this they were about to my chin.

So there has been a lot of hair growth! I am still doing the same routine when washing my hair with the product. The only thing I have changed is that I will put conditioner on my ends when I have put this on my roots and then I tie my hair up and wash my body etc. Then once I have done this I will wash it off. I have found that this is a lot easier so I am not waiting around for 5 minutes until I can put my conditioner on which I normally leave on for a few minutes. I have about an inch left of it in the pot now so I am glad I brought the other two pots.

blonde hair growth treatment lee stafford update

00:40

I decided that I would try out the Garnier Olia hair dye in Light Golden Blonde. I wanted to go a bit lighter for the summer and it said on the side that dark blonde would turn up quite light. I had heard from a friend of mine who had used it before that it was good hair dye and smelled nice. So I was looking forward to using it. I brought it from Asda where it was on offer for £6 I am not sure the original price I can't remember how much it said it was.

It comes with 5 things in the box, developer, colour, bottle to mix everything in, conditioner, gloves and instruction leaflet.

I mixed the developer and the colour in the bottle, there is a circle on the back of the box which you can pop out and you can put the bottle in this. I guess this is so its somewhere safe where you can empty the developer and colour into. 

(colour chart is lighter in person)

It did smell quite nice, it wasn't as strong as other hair dyes I have used, normally my eyes water quite a bit from the scent but this time I didn't have that problem. It was quite weird putting it on my hair as it is quite creamy, like a hair mask rather than a dye. I decided that because the top half of my hair was darker than the bottom I would put the mixture on this first before putting it on the rest of my hair. In the instructions it says that if you want to touch up your roots to put it on the roots for 20 minutes and the rest of your hair for 10. I did this for my hair because of it being darker on the top than the bottom. 

I did notice that my hair was going lighter while the dye was on my hair so I did have high hopes for it. After 30 minutes I washed it off in the shower and I dried my hair to see what colour it had turned out as. It hadn't turned out as light as it said it would, my dark blonde was still quite dark it had only lightened to about a medium blonde. My roots however lightened a lot it went to an almost orange colour, and my light blonde ends hadn't changed much at all. 

I was expecting the dark blonde to lighten a lot more than it had done because it said it would on the box. I could of used bleach to lighten my hair even more but I am trying not to damage my hair as I want to grow it quite long. I decided that I would put a dark blonde on my roots to cover up the orangeness and brush it through to ombre it even more so the medium blonde would match my roots again. 

In all this product smelt nice and other people I know who have used it have had good results. It just didn't take to my hair as well as it could of done. 

blonde garnier olia hair dye review

07:42

I used to dye my hair quite a lot which was very very bad for my hair and it ended up being so so short!   I have been nearly every colour under the rainbow at one point but I decided to go for a more natural colour since I have been at uni (so for the past 3 years). For the past year maybe I have been growing it, hardly dying my hair, not putting heat on it being a good girl and so on.

However yesterday I had the 'bright' idea of going lighter for the summer. Well technically my hair is quite light, I mean half my hair is light blonde the other is medium blonde to dark blonde but I wanted it all light blonde. So I hopped off to Asda with my boyfriend to get a few bits and pieces and ended up picking up some hair dye while I was there. (I shall do a review on the hair dye on another post this is just my 3 hour hair crisis). I decided I wanted to go a lovely light golden blonde to look like the sun had blessed my locks. I even checked the colour chart on the side of the box and it said that on dark blonde hair it would go pretty light, to about the same lightness as my light blonde ends! This was not the case.

About 4 hours ago I put on the hair dye, I was excited and nervous as I have had some bad experiences with hair dye. Such as my hair going pink when it was meant to be blonde, and the green hair dye I just wanted on a section on my hair leaking out onto my white blonde hair turning my whole hair green. Yup, bad experiences indeed. I made sure I had done everything right, I decided that I would put the dye on my darker section of hair first then put it on the rest of my hair after a period of time. On the leaflet it said about 20 minutes if you was doing your roots and 10 for the rest of your hair so I basically followed these instructions.

At first it seemed like it was going well, my hair looked like it was turning lighter, brilliant I thought! So when the 30 minutes was up (it was maybe actually 40 I forgot to check the time) I jumped in the shower and washed my hair.

I decided that I would dry a section of my hair with my hair dryer just to see what colour my hair had turned out. 'Oh my god' I thought. My roots which was just over an inch I'd say had turned bright orange. Yup bright orange. I have nothing against orange hair, I have often wanted orange hair but when I was trying to get blonde hair orange is the last colour I want to be! My dark blonde that had been dyed dark blonde (because my roots are slightly different colour to my dark blonde that I dyed the light blonde hair when I ombred it) was still a dark blonde, maybe a medium blonde. It was darker than the rest of my hair, the light blonde on the other half of my hair was fine, looked lovely sun kissed B E A U T I F U L  if only the rest of my hair had gone the same way. 

Now I had a few options here I'd like to think
1) go in total panic mode and cry (which I have done before)
2) put some bleach on my hair and purple shampoo the crap out of it which would be even more damaging to my hair 
3) live with it 
4) dark blonde on top again and ombre it up 

I decided to go for option 4 which I think was the best choice. I often highlight and lowlight my moms hair, she has the same natural dark blonde I do and so she did have some dark blonde hair dye in her wardrobe which is the same that I normally use when doing my roots. She lovingly let me use her hair dye which she had about half a bottle left which was just enough. So thankfully now I am back to my ombred hair. 

I know that I could of turned my hair into a lighter blonde with some purple shampoo and bleach which I have done before, but it would mean spending more money which I don't really have. The hair dye at the end of the day didn't mix well with my hair which can sometimes happen, its how my hair turned pink before when I used a blonde hair dye. I know I am not the only one that this has happened to, my nan's hair for instance sometimes used to go green or pink depending on the brand of hair dye! Maybe its a genetic thing?! Who knows! I am not saying that the hair dye was rubbish because I know other people who have used the hair dye and it has worked brilliantly for them. It just works differently for different people. 

What have I learnt from this experience? Well I know that not always your hair can go the way you want it to, from my many bad experiences I know that it can sometimes go wrong. I would still rather do it myself though than go to a salon because I have had bad experiences at salons as well and it's pricey! I am not telling anyone out there what to do when it comes down to your own hair, I am no expert. This was just my experience that I found quite funny and thought I would share it to who ever may read this. 

blonde experience hair dye

12:20