DIY Ombre Hair on Dark Dyed Hair

Hi everyone

All this sun has made me want lighter hair so I decided to take the plunge and finally lighten the ends of my hair.

This is just a quick post to show you how I ombre'd my hair, despite having dark dyed reddish brown hair I managed to do it, despite what everyone says.

First of all I'll show you how I wanted it to look;

Firstly I whacked on this stuff, after doing strand tests I decided to leave this on for 55 minutes

And then I decided to tone down the reddish tinge I have in my hair by using a permanent ash brown colour from Garnier, I'm pretty sure it was this one...

I didn't use this on the bleached ends, only on the top half 

Then it looked like this,

Which I did like but it looked a little bit toooo ginger for my liking, so I popped off to Boots and bought some semi permanent dye, making sure it was a more golden colour after reading many scary stories about using ash tones on bleached hair and it going green, yeeeah no.

I didn't leave this on for the full 20 minutes as apparently bleached hair takes dye much quicker, (you can tell I did a lotttt of research right?!) and instead left it on for 15

And thiiiis is the final result, just how I wanted it

Here's a before and after for you

Before

After

 

As long as you get your timings right, I say you CAN ombre your hair even if it's dyed dark!

Just so you know, Boots have a 3 for 2 across allll hair products at the mo so this cost me under £15, much less than a hairdresser would ever have costed I say

Love Sophie xx

My Hair History (and Cheryl Cole Mahogany. . .)

I actually love these posts, so thought I'd do one too. I then realised how boring I am with my hair but oh well!

Okay for about 12 years of my life I had really long, mid brown hair with a centre parting. We don't need to see that. But then it all changed and I decided to get a side fringe;

Then I cut it all off (kept the side fringe though)

Had a very awkward regrowth stage. . 

But kept growing it anyway, discovering curling tongs and blackish brown hair dye on the way

Cut it a bit shorter, and decided to use Sun-In. On almost black hair. NOT A GOOD MOVE PEOPLE.

 Only sun in'd the top layers so ended up with a gross gingery brown colour with mousy brown roots and dark brown bits underneath. Oh dear indeed.

Dyed my hair dark dark dark (even though the instructions said don't dye pre-bleached hair, I'm a rebel like that) and stuck in some Primark hair extensions (yes really)

 Got my trusty side fringe back, only for the hairdresser to cut it in a really weird way, so that my only choice was to pull it over in to a 'full' fringe

Spent about 6 months wondering how to get this new fringe (that was supposed to be a side) to work

But gave up and got a full fringe. In summer. High maintenance or what!? (also I think I was pulling a weird face in this photo. . )

 Full fringe got too much so yet again started sweeping it to the side (vicious circle)

By winter got so annoyed at this fringe business I found new ways to keep it off my face (something which my 14 year old self would NEVER have done)

Oh and what do we have here, 5 months later, in the Spring of 2010 I got a fringe back.

And yet more awkward fringe business (september '10)

Most recently, I kept pretty much the hairstyle up there, but added in flicky layers which I LOVE. This is taken a few weeks after I dyed it with the Nice n' Easy foam. IT HAD NOT FADED and it's darker than this IRL. Beyond impressed. .

And then I decided to put the Cheryl Cole hair dye on (L'oreal Casting in 550 Mahogany)

on dark brown hair and it's given me a reddish tint which you can see in the light and I love it as it gives my hair an 'edge' and makes it look less flat and I may consider doing it permanently

And that's my hair history, I hope I didn't bore you to sleep, and please link me yours if you have one!

Love Sophie xx

Foam Hair Dyes - A Comparison

In the past couple of months I've used both the John Frieda and Nice 'n Easy versions of foam hair dye, and I thought I'd do a comparison for you

Nice 'n Easy £6.99

John Frieda £9.99

First Impressions

John Frieda's definitely looks like it costs more (and it does) and I might've got a bit too excited over the fact that it provides you with black gloves. To be honest, Nice 'n Easy's looks just like any other hairdye.

Mixing

 John Frieda's seemed to magically turn into a foam, whereas Nice and Easy's (sorry cannot be bothered to abbrieviate the 'and' in their name anymore) went foamy but also really runny and quite wet.

Application

 I only managed to get a  picture of the John Frieda foam (was stressing too much when trying to get Nice and Easy's more foamy!) but as you can see it looks like liquid and comes out like foam!

JF applies more like a shampoo, whereas the NE one applied just like a regular hair dye. Both were fine, but if you're going for the novelty factor then JF wins hands down in this respect.

Both had nice smells, however Nice and Easy's was very sweet, like sweets and it did have the tinge of ammonia smell that made my eyes water. I also think Nice and Easy's was a bit messier, probably because it was more liquidy than JFs.

John Frieda One Month On 

ie the night I used Nice and Easy's

I dyed it a 'dark chocolate brown', and it faded quite a bit, ignoring the roots! Despite it's promises to remove orange/red tones (put your hands up if you get those too!) you can see that they're still present.

This is the final result of Nice and Easy's, taken this morning

Not an orange hair in sight!

Which would I recommend?

If you want to treat yourself. . John Frieda

If you're not too fussed about the foam aspect. . Nice 'n Easy

If you'd prefer a (rather generous and lovely smelling) tube of deep condtioner. . John Frieda

If you have any more questions just ask

Love Sophie xx