Showing posts with label blonde. Show all posts

MAY

Change is as good as a holiday, right?




Remember way back when, when hope was high and life worth leaving? When I dreamed that love would never die? And God would be forgiving?
March 2015 guys, March 2015. Remember when I said I’d fallen in love? It never died. When it comes to chocolate brown hair, my HEART WILL GO ON AND OOOoooOOOooON. I didn't let go, unlike Rose #Jack5ever

 



So come May, my gorgeous friend @hairbyprue helped me take the plunge. 



And the cut. it was a tad Kylie J but I loved it, and still do! Going brunette was a little tricky considering how light my balyage and blonde were, but Prue did an amazing job getting the colour down. We went short because I basically said “cut off the dead hair” not realising HOW dead my hair actually was. 




In the end, I had a colour, cut and vibe that was very much needed for #kickass2016.

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MARCH

Silver Dreams & Silver Hair
March was a mixed bag this year. I went back to full time study (“WHY?” you ask, ‘I STILL DON’T KNOW’ I silently scream in my head) and that wasn’t exactly an easy transition for me, or my skin.

Suddenly the heavens parted, angels sang, the dream like candlelight like a dream you can’t quite place twinkled down, and I met ARgENTUM Apothecary. No literally, I got to meet the founder. Joy Issacs is exactly how I imagine the Faerie Queen would look and speak.




Her la potion infinie is also the stuff of the fairy realm. It’s magical. Silver is one of the most healing ingredients used in both medicine and skin care. In Argentum, silver is fused with DNA HP (a natural marine extract) in order to enhance the healing and regenerative power of the colloidal silver.
So… it’s a face cream?
No, little birds, it’s a game changer. More than that it’s a face changer. Moisture is locked down, skin is clarified and brightened, and it lifts and refines the appearance of the face and neck.

And also… Ok. Clear your mind, take a deep breath and think about your current crush. Or even like, Zac Efron. Leo. Think about that guy. Now imagine what he’d smell like. YEP. THIS SMELLS LIKE THAT.
Vanilla, sandalwood, Argan oil, and sweet almond oil. It smells incredible. Almost enough to make me forget I’m single. (HA lol jks)

ARgENTUM as a brand are also really fun, as they make the cream an experience. Each pot comes with its own Tarot Card. I got ‘The Rebel’ – prepared to challenge and change the forces that surround themselves – and I actually believe now, in hindsight, that card predicted how this year went. Don’t change yourself, change the game, and see how far you can take it.
But seriously my skin has had quite a few bad reactions this year, and nothing soothes or calms it like la potion infinie. I might not use it daily, but it’s a love that’s gonna last to infinity and beyond.




The silver obsession expanded into my hair, as my poor head had finally recovered from the Unspeakable January Incident, and I decided to play to my strengths – i.e., the cool, ashy, NOT grey tones of my natural colour. A really soft balyage with a ash bronde base, taking the cooler tones down to the ends. The change came about for two reasons; one, being a time poor and just y’know, poor-poor uni student, an easy-to-maintain colour was absolutely necessary. 





And secondly, after being bleach blonde for x amount of time I figured it was time to get a little dark. After all, I am a Rebel...







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P.S. Be sure to visit ARgENTUM Apothecary online, and in stores at Mecca Cosmetica x

JANUARY

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

Desperately, the week of my twenty-second birthday, I attempted to re-dye my blonde roots by myself. Me, with no hair experience – me, who is not a hair dresser, and does not have any kind of colour or toning skills, me who is impatient as all heck…. You can imagine what happened.

things could be better


So I literally rang in 2016 at my hairdressers on New Year’s Eve getting my blonde fixed, and New Year’s Day showing everyone a ‘new me’. So cliché, I know, but hey, gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do when HER HAIR IS PURPLE.

I don’t know entirely how I managed to dye my hair orange and purple, but there we go. See the pictographic evidence below and feel my pain friends, feel, my, pain.

 













My lovely colourist ran a toner through my hair, and essentially colour corrected the orange and purple. Little bit of a trim because I managed to fry my ends. (See when I say disaster it ain't hyperbole.)
 
The New Year inspires people to do a lot of stupid, stupid things – from drinking too much champagne, to making resolutions we all know we won’t keep, to drastic changes as a means of coping with life changing. Again, very cliché, but the lesson I learnt the hard way was that you don’t get to skip change or recovery and get right to the shiny brand new you after a tough break. You need to give it time, and space, and if all else fails, a colourist who really knows her stuff.



Tweet tweet x

THE 12 DAYS OF BLOGMAS

Hello little birds!

 A thousand, million, repeated, gross-sobbing, sincere apologies for being MIA this year. Turns out when you start a new job, and start writing a 15,000 word thesis, it gets a little impossible to do aallll the things you want to do. 

 So to make up for my shocking absence I've organised THE 12 DAYS OF BLOGMAS!
glitter
A blog a day, per month of 2016, with the best tips, things, lessons, fun facts and just cool beautyful things I've learnt this year, from January-December. Like a Calendar Girl! 

 Stay tuned for a-blog-a-day, and a Insta-post-a-day too, leading up to December 24. 

 FOR NOW, however, here's a few quick little updates;

 I'm now a full-on, unapologetic chocolate headed brunette, and if you've been here for a while you'll know that's a MASSIVE change after being a bubbly blonde for four-five years. Blonde was fun, but as we'll see tomorrow it comes with its own challenges and quirks. Being a brunette has been kinder to my hair, cheaper, and honestly just feels so much truer to my personality. 

 I work in beauty, specialising in skincare, and I am LOVING IT. Each day I work is literally living the dream. I've learnt so, so much this last year that I can't wait to share, and, bonus, I've made amazing amazing friends in the industry (like Natasha Ribeiro Artistry - go and follow her Instagram and be inspired! @natasha_ribeiro_makeup) and Centaine of glossco (glossco.com.au). Two amazing beauty babes to check out ASAP if you're serious about anything and everything beauty.

 Between livin' the dream and plain livin', I went back and completed my Honours year of study in Ancient Worlds (ancient civilisations, Greece and Rome, and Egypt and Mesopotamia) and experienced one of the most intense love/hate relationships between myself and the written word, in the form of my thesis. My brain baby/bane of my existence. Graduating this week and Imma need y'all to cross your fingers and hope I don't trip up, OR down the stage stairs.

 Aaaaaannd that is it! Please come back and visit these next twelve days, I promise I've put in the best beauty bits, lots of pictures, and as many puns as one human is allowed to get away with in a singular blog post. 

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Back to Basics (and a bit of balyage too)

I bit the bullet and went into my hair dressers last week. The re-growth situation was out of control and Mumma Sparrow let slip at her appointment that I was considering chocolate brown and my hairdresser suggested I come in straight away for a consult before making any major colour changes.

And boy am I glad I did!

I always try to arrive early for my hairdressing appointments, just to make sure I’ve given my stylists all the time I can to get my hair right. I’m also one of those people who prefers to be super early for something than running late, and usually I need to take my hair out of its bun/pony tail/braid and brush it out before my appointment starts.

The colour wheel I'm sticking with
Baby Sparrow - natural colour!
I sat in the chair (same one as last time I think?) and got a good look at all the colours available in the Nak soft colour range. Re-growth is a real pain for anyone, but I’ve reached my point over the last few months where as much as I love my blonde, and I love being a light, almost platinum blonde, I can't deal with REGROWTH. OH MY GOD. NO. Over it, so, so over it. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching (oh that sounds really douchey, I’m sorry) the last few months and it’s lead me to wanting to be as honest with myself as I can and, funny as it sounds, I want to get back to something like my natural colour, something I haven’t seen in, oh, about five years?




This time around a different team member took my appointment and I’ve got to say, he’s brilliant. All of the team are, and no matter who does my colour it always comes out looking superb, but the end result was so, so perfect, I couldn’t be happier. The base/root colour was a mix of 6.7 and 7.7 with 10 Vol, worked down and painted by hand. The light, almost white blonde my gorgeous girl Prue perfected during the pink period was left alone, and became the ombré tips to the darker shade.




The other wonderful thing about ditching the blonde foils and highlights is the time is cut in half! Anyone who’s ever had their hair colour treated or lightened to blonde will tell you that about three magazine’s worth of time is taken up with waiting, waiting… waiting…
This time around I was sitting only for about half an hour, forty minutes, before I was taken up to wash.

While my colour was being done my hairdresser and I had a good chat about life, relationships, and of course, hair. I was a little concerned about my colour, simply because I’ve done a lot to my hair over the last six months, but he reassured me that going darker would look great, but also wouldn’t do any more damage. I’d mentioned earlier on the blog that I’ve got very, very thick hair, and that has been my saving grace throughout all my colour changes. Whilst he had noticed some breakage, my stylist reassured me that my hair was ok, and would recover. He also talked about how porous some hair can be, and that I’m lucky mine isn’t too much so. The big problem with taking your hair down from a bleach-blonde shade to anything remotely darker is that your hair can turn green. Depending on how porous the hair is, what shades of blonde are involved, what type of dye, what amount of Vol is in the hair – it can all lead to a big, green-ish, unhealthy mess. Luckily when you’re working with an experienced colourist using good quality products, those disasters can be easily avoided!
Blonde hair mid. Jan 2015
Pink hair Feb 2015














As you can see in the above photos, although my hair looked pretty, the texture was quite dry and damaged near the ends, so it was really important to stop bleaching and colour treating my hair for a little while.


Let me tell you guys, it’s hard to feel attractive when your head is piled up with dye and you’re wearing what is essentially a high quality garbage bag.




Once the dye was washed out, my hair was thinned a tiny bit on the right side of my head (the heavier side of my part), as to the left of my part, my hair is that tiny bit thinner, and so much easier to handle! Having the two evened out has helped A LOT in the last two weeks alone. Then my hair was blow dried, and given a slight wave/curl, and voila! Done!




It’s actually quite a subtle change – I wasn’t greeted with the shocked gasps and screams that came with my first attempt at balyage, nor the squeals of going to back to blonde, but a lot of people do love it (including yours truly) and I couldn’t be happier, honestly. This colour is going to be so much easier to maintain, so much easier to style, and it’s got the right hint of blonde to be going along with. Stepping down to a darker shade for Autumn/Winter is also pretty exciting, and I feel a lot more confident going along with this season’s trends now that I have the hair to pull them off.

 




Until next time my little birds,

Tweet tweet xx

Going to the Dark Side

I've fallen in love.

I know, I know. I can already hear what you're all saying. So soon? When? How? Are you already over your last love? 

What can I say? When you know, you know... 


Ash blonde balyage, you will always have a place in my heart, and haunt my dreams, but I can't deal any more. 

I can't deal with the re-growth, the maintenance, the cost, the whole kit and kaboodle. I do love being a blonde and I think it suits me quite well, but a student budget and champagne tastes - and hair! - just doesn't work out. 

So I was trawling through Pinterest (don't we all) and minding my own business, when 
BAM!


Oh. Oh my. 

Luscious, dark, rich, chocolate brown curls. Goodness gracious me. 
I've written before about how ashy blonde-brown my natural hair colour is, and whilst I still believe an ash blonde balyage would have worked with my natural tones, there's something about the richness and depth of this brunette shade that I can't resist. 


Anne Hathaway is bae

Melbourne is quickly moving into more autumnal, wintry weather, and the less sun I see the less I feel summery, bubbly and blonde-like, and the more I'm attracted to auburn, brunette shades. I'm also loving pale skin against rich, mahogany and cocoa palettes, and as we move into winter and fake tanning becomes far less necessary, I think my own pale skin would 'pop' a little more against a brunette shade. 

I'll admit I'm a little scared. Stepping down from gold/blonde to brunette isn't as easy as TV would have you believe. That being said, last February my hairdresser managed to get me down from a brassy-gold to a quite dark, dark almost black-brown without too, too much drama or damage. Even if I have to first go down to a caramel-brown before I can get to the chocolate-auburn shade, I'm more than happy for that to be the process. 


More than anything, I feel I need a change. Going to pink a few weeks ago gave me a taste that I want more of - something different, something new, and something that will hopefully be a little less intensive than maintaining my blonde, currently. I'm overdue for a trim anyhow, so at my next session with my hairdresser I'm going to get her advice and tips for going down to such a dark, warm shade. 
In the meantime LOOK AT IT IT'S SO PRETTY 


I mean come on. And with Easter next week, it's never been a better time to do chocolate! 

I haven't been this obsessed since I found Sportsgirl lipsticks and that's really saying something. Also I'm planning to travel at some point this year, and I know that a darker, brunette shade is going to be so, so much easier to up keep while I'm away than any blonde could ever be. 

"BUT WHAT ABOUT BALYAGE?!" I hear you cry. I know, I know. I do still adore the soft, feminine feel of a well done balyage ombre, but as I said, I need a change, and I know the more that I try to do to my hair at once the more damaged it will be. And just because I'm not doing a balyage immediately, doesn't mean I can't or won't in future. This year's big hair trend is a new technique called baby lights, where, like balyage, whisps of colour are painted, free hand, through the hair, particularly closer to the face, to give them impression of sun kissed, youthful lockes. 

Baby lights with balyage 

And just to confuse myself that little bit more I found these gorgeous photos on Pinterest that have now got me, once more, considering a BIG CHOP



I MEAN IT'S ALL JUST SO PRETTY

I'll keep you posted my little birds, and whatever I decide to do with this crazy mane of hair, I just want it happy and healthy.

Til next time, 
Tweet tweet xx
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