Vanity post #2

After writing this post I’m feeling really vain. If you’re interested in hair coloring and products and that sort of stuff, read on. Other wise, please do skip it. Perhaps I should be a little more embarrassed of publically documenting my trying to navigate the painfully confusing world of hair. Why on earth can they not get some good technical writers to explain this stuff?

(Read previous post first)

I think I fixed my hair, enough to go to church tomorrow without a baseball hat on. Colin sums it up pretty well when I asked him how I look “I can tell the difference from how it just was, but maybe not before you started.”

 

Before

During

After

 

From the pictures, it looks like I’m back where I started from. I can tell a difference and my hair isn’t as dark and the color is more even. I have got to figure out why, for not being a red head, there is sooooo much red in my hair.

There’s some products I am now more familiar with as I try to navigate the world of hair products and processes. I don’t know how dorky this is going to seem, but I’m going to do product reviews on these.

• Color-Opps
• Cost-about $10 at Walmart, $13 Walgreens
• Meant to take out dye leaving you with lightest previous color. NOT your natural color necessarily.
• For me, it left a whole lot of red. My natural color is not that red. I’ve seen people where it takes them back to a very natural looking color but many of the people I read described the color they went back to as “strawberry blonde”.
• Product works by shrinking the artificial color molecules so that they can be washed away. You have to rinse your hair out for 20+ minutes left to get all of this product out or else it will oxidize and your hair will go dark again.
• Doesn’t damage hair like peroxide/bleahing does. Does dry hair out probably more from having to wash and rinse several times for 20 min+ to get it out. Used a deep conditioner for 5 minutes after and didn’t notice dryness after that.
• You can dye your hair soon (immediately) after using the product, but your pours of your hair have been opened and the hair will grab color and it will be really dark. (back where you started from or worse?) So it is recommended using a protein filler (See product review below) and only alowing dye to process for 5 minutes. I’ve read that the protein filler might be needed for several weeks after using the product to ensure not grabbing it too much.

• Neutral Protein Filler
• Cost-about $2.50 at Sally Beauty Supply, this is for smaller bottle (one use if you have long/thick hair)
• The purpose of protein fillers are to fill in those open pours of the hair and even them out. This is so the dye isn’t being grabbed in different levels in different areas in your hair.
• You can buy protein fillers with different color correction. I don’t understand these yet so I just bought a neutral one.
• I may use this every time I dye my hair from here on because I don’t want the ends of my hair to get so dark. On the bottle it says “hair dressers insurance”.
• I read where people mix protein fillers directly into dye (like the color corrector I talk about below) but the directions on the bottle say to come it through damp hair and then don’t rinse it out before using your coloring. The dye I used today said to do it on dry hair so I let my hair air dry with the protein filler in it.
• They say if you have chemically lightened your hair and want to go darker, you need a filler or else the color won’t hold and will wash away.

• Red Gold color corrector
• Cost – .99 for one packet @ sally beauty supply
• Meant to help prevent those red/gold tones when you color or peroxide your hair, perhaps by canceling out those colors??? Not sure of mechanism.
• Mix coloring product as directed and then add a packet of this purple liquid to it. It will turn your dye a pink/purple color, but don’t worry your hair won’t look that color.
• I need to look into if multiple packets can be used at once to really correct the red. Also, if they can be used at other times besides during dying/peroxiding.

• John Frieda precision foam color
• Cost – $12 at Walmart
• Permanent dye. Ash is to reduce the reds.
• I’m loving this dye.The foam makes it very easy to dye your own hair. They give you lots of product so you don’t worry about if you have enough (I have very thick hair that is longer than shoulder length). I had some produce left over in the bottle because I really didn’t need it. Great conditioner for after.
• Read everywhere that hair comes out darker than it says on box, which was true for me too. Not sure if my original crazy orange color affected that.

While I like the John Frieda product, I’m intrigued by the Sally beauty supply store. If I understand right, you mix a color with a developer. Developers come in 10 volume, 20 volume, 30 volume, 40 volume. Those numbers correspond to the lifting power. Permanent Box hair dye from the store is a 20 volume developer. Semi permanent developer is 10 volume. I’m guessing it will require a 30 volume to lighten my hair. Someone with very dark hair would probably need a 40 volume? Colors come in neutral, ash or warm. You can get toners to help reduce red too. Not sure if the red/gold corrector is a toner or a protein filler or what. They say to reduce red/gold, to get a blue or purple toner.

So you see, this is such a complicated world, but I determined to figure it out because I refuse to pay $80 a month to maintain my hair color.  Not to mention the time it takes sitting in a salon.

So what’s the next step in my hair journey?!?

I have got to figure out how to get rid of the red in my hair. I honestly don’t care if I’m blonde, light brown or a brunette, but the red is killing me. I think I may have to finally use a bleach and use lots of that red/gold corrector. For now, I’ve probably expended my “beauty budget” and have to live with reddish hair for a bit longer. Maybe someday I will figure out how to get my color like this someday: (The girl, not the dog)