Hair dying 101: Sorting your roots

This goes for all colours really but prmarily for those wishing to bleach dark roots to obtain a bright colour. As usual, by bright colour I mean one of the semi permanent colour wheel colours not a toner or natural colour.

One of the things a lot of people worry about when dying bright hair is the constant bleaching and whether this will fry hair passed the point of repair. Well heres an easy way to get around this. Take a look at this post first as it will give you the basics on what you will need to have. What you essentially are going to try to do is bleach your roots evenly whilst leaving the rest of your hair untouched.

1. You will need to section your hair several times to get to the roots so have plenty of clips available. Start at the base of your hair (neckline) as it can take a little time to do this and this hair is the most healthy due to decrease sun damage, chemicals and general wear and tear so can take a little more bleach.

2. Once ALL your hair is pinned up so just the underneath is exposed and you have mixed up your normal bleach solution, get your brush and dip it into your bleach then run from the base of your hair upwards about 1 inch (Longer if you have more roots) Do the same along the whole hair line.

3. Once you have your first line done take down roughly 2 inches of hair (thats distance from hair line to where the next hair line will be) and pin back up the rest. In a downwards motion repeat the last action, stroking the bleach 1 inch down the hair and then repeating by going 1 in up the hair that is still tied up. repeat this action the whole way up your head.

4. You should end up with your hair sticking out like a scare crow with just bleach on the roots and normal colour on the rest. Leave for the set amount of time, best to try and remember how light you got the rest of your hair and go from there. It doesn't matter too much if its a little lighter but try not to leave it a little darker or you will end up with a sort of skunk effect after a few bleaches.

5. Rinse it out thoroughly and leave to semi dry for an hour or so. You can hair dry it but try not to unless you are on a time limit as it adds extra damage to hair that has just been treated. Once it is semi dry, add your normal dye to the whole hair and leave as normal.

You should end up eith evenly dyed roots and most of your hair will only get bleached once so should remain happy and healthy!

Hope you enjoyed my little blog, if you do add me! the more subscribers the more I post. And as always, any questions please just ask.

Going back to "normal" hair

if, like me, you've had times where you need to go back to a "normal" hair colour or just want a change of style and need to dye darker over bleached hair heres a few tips to stop it going green.

My first experience of trying to go back to brown after having blue hair was an unmitigated disaster and resulted in me wearing a hat to a party where I'd had my eye on a very cute man!*
The problem I encounted was trying to put brown straight onto bleached hair and coming up with a horrible washed out snot colour. The brown has cold tones in it and the bleach had striped any warm tones in my hair out (I was blue so had to go almost white to achieve the colour I wanted). The following day, I went to the supermarket and bought a wash in wash out red toner. They are about a pound but to the ever dying girl they are worth their weight in Wine!.

I ran it through my hair, as the hair is already bleached it absorbed much more than none treated hair, i conditioned the hell out of it for a few hours to give it a bit of strength back and then applied a warm toned brown. This meant the cold tones in the brown had something to counteract them and brown was achieved.

this was the result.


So in conclusion, always put a warm tone underneath, it doesn't need to be a permanent dye as this can add extra damage to already bleached hair.

*I did manage to bag him btw, the hat was very cute ;)


As always, if you like me postings, subscribe. Theres a wee button to the side thats says FOLLOW  :)

Models wanted

Just a quickie to say I'm looking for models for this blog, if you are

*someone who has had success or disaster and want to share your experience

*someone wanting to dye their hair and looking for tips who would be happy to go through the process with me and let me take or send me photo's

*someone who wants me to dye their hair for them in a simple, complicated or unique way and would be happy for me to record it in photos and blog.

Please get in touch, I'm happy to travel to you within reason or if you know of anyone who falls into those catergories.

Love of all things Lock like.: Taking care of dyed hair - Conditioning

Love of all things Lock like.: Taking care of dyed hair - Conditioning: "One of the main concerns of a lot of people who are thinking of dying their hair is the damage it may cause, and whilst yes there will alway..."

Taking care of dyed hair - Conditioning

One of the main concerns of a lot of people who are thinking of dying their hair is the damage it may cause, and whilst yes there will always be damage as you are changing your hair make up, this can be limited to be almost unnoticeable.

After a few disasters in my time, I've had to find good ways to bring frazzled hair back to life. The best way I found was the conditioner wash method.The basic premise is to wash your hair with conditioner rather than shampoo and then use shampoo once a week to remove the conditioner build up. The process goes like this:

1, Wet hair and use a cheap (you know the sort, 99p apply home brand conditioner?) conditioner in the same way you would a shampoo. Massage into hair from room to tip, there won't be a foam but pretend there is. Rinse thoroughly.

2, Use a thicker conditioner. Personally I love Treseme Antii Breakage conditioner. Most intensive conditioners will do the same job but make sure you get one that has silicone in it, the natural products like body shop and lush unfortunately aren't strong enough to give back the strength you need to repair.*

3, Leave the conditioner in your hair and wrap in a warm towel. Leave for 20-30 mins before rinsing. Style as usual.

4, Once a week use a good shampoo for colour treated hair to get rid of the conditioner build up.

Within a week or two you will notice a very big difference in the strength and condition of your hair. Obviously, you will never have the same feel hair as you would with non treated hair but you can still have healthy, shiny and fabulous hair.

*If you wish to use the non animal tested, natural products my suggestion would be to use them for longer periods (maybe an hour wrapped in a warm towel) but the results will not be useful on very dry hair but suitable for once or twice died hair.

Multicolours fringes, Part 2

Following on from earlier I though I'd share a piccie for you to see the after effects and explain how to achieve it.

This fringe was a three step process, involving three colours. Forrest green at the back, Yellow and orange at the front.

Firstly I bleached my hair to the lightest I could get, which was near white using the 40% vol Jerome Russell bleach.

Then I sectioned my hair using clips, seperating my fringe (about 2 inches from the hair line backward and from about 4 inches above my ears) keeping it folded over but facing forward.

Then I got my Manic Panic Enchanted forrest dye into my bowl, mixed it up to revive it a bit and used my brush to start at the hair line behind my fringe. Using the brush to make sure the edge was straight and no dye went infront I brushed backwards until the top layer was covered. Then I clipped up in sectioned to brush through the rest. This means you use less dye, get better coverage and can be more accurate with your finished result.

Then, the tricky bit. I got cling film and wrapped it around the part of my head that had the green dye on, from the hair line backwards. This means the slight head increase makes the dye last longer as it soaks into the hair more and also keeps it separate from the fringe.

Now the fringe, I separated again into two sections, length ways across my head. Using the washed brush I "painted" on the Daffodil Directons dye, brushing the hair backwards so it sits over the clingfilmed green hair. Then washed the brushed and repeated the process on the front section with Manic Panic Fire brushing it forward from the hair line then twisting small sections on top of themselves and securing with clips.

Theres no doubting that for the next hour I looked like a prize wally but not one said the price of fabulous hear was cheap to your dignity.

I left it for an hour before rinsing the front out over the bath with the shower head, before leaning backwards and getting a hand from my lovely other half to rinse the back. Making sure the back was thoroughly rinsed to avoid colour bleeding and bobs your lobster. Multicoloured fringe!!

Starting with the basics - Tools for Dying

Starting with the basics – Lightening before dying, what to use

The brighter the colour of hair you want (if you are going for a colour rather than a natural tone) the lighter your hair underneath needs to be. It’s a misconception that leaving it on longer will make it brighter, this may give the illusion of a brighter colour to start but it will fade very quickly and the underneath colour will start to make it look murky and faded. The only way to lighten hair is through bleach/peroxide, unless you just want a few shades lighter in which case use lemon juice and sunshine but it probably won’t give you a very bright colour afterwards if you dye over it like you would get with bleach.

Bleaches come in a few different strengths but the two main ones I will recommend are the Jerome Russell Bblonde Powder bleach and Bblonde cream peroxide. The powder comes in one strength whilst the cream comes in 40% or 30% vol. This indicates how strong the mixture will be and as a result how much of your hair colour it will lift. If you have light hair, go with the 30% for darker hair or dark colour treated hair such as reds or blacks go for the 40%.

For previously colour treated hair there are good rules of thumb to how strong you need it to lift off the colour. If it runs out easily and you need to keep reapplying regularly to keep colour then use a low vol bleach (usually blues, greens, yellows, pastel shades). If the colour stays for a long time and is a deeper shade then use a higher vol bleach, (usually reds, dark purples, blacks.)

Any specific questions, please ask :)

Multicoloured fringes.

Question:

Have got a quick question which I figured you might be a good person to ask about.

I'm planning on putting the colour in my fringe sometime today/tomorrow (fingers crossed it'll be second time lucky, lol) and am a little stumped about how long to leave it on for. Both pots are Directions (spring green and plum) and although it says 15 minutes, I'm thinking that sounds too much of a conservative estimate. Doesn't look like there's peroxide in there so should be safe to leave on for longer. How long do you normally leave your bright colours on for before washing out, out of curiosity? And have you found Directions to need longer developing than stuff like Stargazer?

The plum one should be fine with for 15 mins, as it's a rich dye it will go quite dark and you'll lose the purple tone after that in favour of nearly black with a slight tint if you leave it too long.

My suggestion would be to put the purple on and rinse out without the green first then put the green on and leave for as long as you can, overnight if you don't find it messy. The lighter colours have less pigment in them so take longer to dye. You'll see what I mean when you put it on, the purple will be an instant colour change but the green will be much less so. A good test is to put a bit on your skin, if it dyes it instantly then it will need less time than one that wipes off easily.

Also I'd say just bleach the bit you want purple and do that first then rinse thoroughly before bleaching the bit you want green so you don't get colour run when you rinse it out, it's so pigmented that it will dye any bits it touches so will be hard to rinse without getting it on the bit you intend to be green.

Hope that helps and I want pics!!  

Well hello there

Hello guys and girls,

I have been dying my hair for over 15 years now, which by no means makes me an expert, but I have picked up a few things along the way. I wanted to start a blog where by I could share my experiences about this love of mine, and now is the time.

A bit about me first, so you know who you are talking to. I am 28, recently married and work in web design. I have an insane cat called Eby who is a constant treat to deal with. I have a love of cupcakes, knitting, cooking, dying hair (obviously) a cheeky bottle of wine, my family and classy cars. I've had my hair in pretty much every style/colour going including rainbow, dreads, extensions, streaks and all over colours. Some are more simple to achieve than others and likewise some simple to maintain while others can slowly drive you to find the gin.

Over the last few years I have been asked by a number of people for advice, maybe some need a little reassurance, or maybe more help than the bottle they are about to apply gives. As a result I have articulated my years of experience into messages, emails and conversations. Don't get me wrong, I am not an authority on the subject of hair, if I were maybe I would be a hairdresser (hmm maybe I should?) but I have managed to figure a few things out on the way that have made each dye or cut that bit less difficult and giving a better result.

The way this blog will work will involve me answer, researching and sharing questions or concerns with you lovely folk. So if you have any questions, please get in touch and I will be as quick to answer as I can.