Red Hair Update

It's been a few months since I've gone red headed! And let me tell you, I'm getting sorta tired of it.
I love the color, and when I see red on other people, it makes me appreciate it more but like I said in my previous post...it's a lot of damn work to keep up with.
I refresh (I call it refresh rather than retouch because my hair looks horrible before I redye it. So it's refreshing to see bolder color) my hair with semi-temporary hair color and conditioner mixed together.

Doing this makes my hair bleed much more than when I dye it with L'oreal. So when water drops fall off my hair onto the carpet, you can REALLY see it. With L'oreal, you can see it if you look for it.
I also hate having to refresh it every 3 weeks or so. 2 would be preferred but I'm lazy and I hate having to spend money that often, even though I knew I would have to spend money to keep up with it. Sometimes, I even let my hair get close to orange before I redye it. This does make it somewhat brighter when you refresh it but I don't really care to go all the way to orange to redye it, unless I wanted a brighter red.

I've been using Ion Brilliance Color, in Red and Magenta. One time, I tried Red. Liked it, but watched a YouTube video and the girl said she likes Magenta because it fades better. I tried just Magenta the next time and, to me, it still faded the same. It wasn't really much less yellow even though it is pink-based and not yellow-based like the Red dye. The next time, I tried Magenta and Red equally, and to me, it seems like the results are all the same. The only difference is that Magenta is a bit darker. This last time, I tried Magenta, Purple, and a bit of Red. It just came out Red. I was hoping it would come out darker, a more maroon color but it didn't really work. I also can see the purple washing out very, very quickly even though there's really no purple results. So all that for not.

This next time, I'm using Jazzing in Cherry Cola to see how this one works and how long it lasts. I'll probably do it this weekend, and if I remember, I'll update my blog on it with pics.

Also, for the past two months, I just stopped doing my roots. I get too lazy to dye my roots one day and then the rest of my hair in semi the next. I tried doing both at the same time and that also was just an excruciatingly long process. I'm thinking about maybe just growing out my natural hair and end up with a red ombre hairstyle. It will take a few more months to get it to be a good ombre since right now, it just looks like I have grown out long roots but at the end, I'm only going to have to use half of the dye I use and end up with half the time to do my hair. And if I get REALLY tired of it, I can just cut it off next year. Applying the semi kind of lifts up my color, so it's becoming a good ombre. I predict that in the next few dyes, I'll have a very good gradation going on. I have good gradation now but it would be sweeter if it was a bigger gradation, if that makes sense.