Vidal Sassoon London Lilac!

It's been way too long since my last post about my hair, since my red hair after using Loreal HiLights/HiColor red or magenta hair dye, I switched to Vidal Sassoon London Lilac!! I was tired of the upkeep of the red, you have to retouch it every 2 weeks or so and that stuff bleeds everywhere! I knew this before I dyed my hair but after awhile...well, I'm a low maintenance kind of gal.
I'm in love with the London Lilac hair dye though! The dye does fade but it is not as drastic as the red and lasts a lot longer. I've also tried the Deep Violet color in the same line and it's a bit of a darker purple color, pretty much almost an unnoticeable difference but I just keep sticking with the London Lilac.
I used this right after my red hair started fading so at first, it was like a burgundy color. Then after that, it was a consistent dark purple color. I love it because it's a nice color that looks good in all lighting. Inside your house, it'll be dark so not too noticeable, then outside it's like a screaming violet color with red tones, and under fluorescent lighting, it's a nice stand-out purple. I also bleached my hair in between to see if it would be more noticeable and to be honest...wasn't that crazy different. I bleached it to a dark dirty blonde. You can see the difference between my new growth hair and the dyed part but no so much right after you dye it. It's brighter but you can't see the difference until the color starts to fade out.
This box also covered all of my hair, I definitely use all of it but I'm able to use it throughout my whole hair. But there's no extra saturation, I know some people like to top off hair dye at the end. My tips for making it through all of your hair is to do ends first (since roots dye faster), comb your hair at the end on each section (I know some people advise not to do it because of breakage), this helps spread the dye throughout your hair and makes sure its even, do sections for sure, if you try to do your hair in one huge section, you will miss the "inside" of your hair!! I also help keep it last longer by washing my hair in warm water rather than scalding hot lie I used to and then after I condition, I rinse in cold water. I am not able to wash my hair in cold water! This dye also isn't too drying to my hair! I've used some hair dyes that made my hair feel like I played with fire!

So here's some pics to show you how it went and a few more times after I used it and when it started fading (I think pics of how it fades is useful! And note, I still have some red undertones, not too sure if it's from the L'Oreal HiColor Red dye or it's just the undertones of my hair since I do have natural red undertones):

Proclaim Hair Polish

It's been too long since I've posted anything and even though I took pictures of stuff I want to post, I've never done it and ended up deleting them. BUT I finally thought, at least do one for this year.
So I have a lot of hair problems. My hair looks dry and frizzy all the time. After a shower, my hair poofs up like crazy and takes a whole day for it to "calm" down. This morning my hair was extremely poofy after my shower. Now, I dye my hair a lot, it's been about 3 weeks since my last dye or about 4...can't remember...anyways, the point I was making was that I do damage my ahir by dying it often. I do not use any heat on it though, no blow drying, straightening, etc. I still get split ends and still have frizzy hair...makes me feel like I might as well use heat if it's still going to act like how it was when I did use all of that.
After a shower, I rub hair oil into my hair. The problem with hair oil is that if you rub too much then your hair looks greasy...like as if I never even showered. Who wants to take a shower to come out looking like they didn't at the end? I didn't shower for no reason! So I rub minimal oil into my ends and on the lower half of my hair. The other problem I have is that lately, I've been showering in the morning and because I don't use heat, my hair comes out different and all different levels of crazy on different days by the time I go to work. (I take a train to work for an hour so I always rush out of the door to catch it then I can't do much on the train.)
So at work, I've decided to also keep some type of hair maintenance...stuff, whether it's oil, leave-in conditioner, etc. On my desk right now is: Proclaim Hair Polish. Sometimes I feel wary of keeping it at my desk because let's be honest...it looks like a bottle of lube. I have to keep telling people, I swear it's hair serum or hair lube.

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.

Nail Art Binge

I'm not sure how I even got started with getting back into doing my nails! And when I mean, "do my nails", I mean more than just painting them one color. I think it was because I started to actually paint my nails again that the binging started. I also saw on eBay, all of the cool nail art stickers that you can buy. Simple, easy, fun! I can do stickers, much less work than the damn nail stamps. Here are some of my nail art, that I've been proud enough to take pictures of...and remembered to take pics of.

Sailor Moon inspired! Well Sailor Jupiter to be exact! I've been obsessing over Sailor Moon again! And got this idea from one of the sticker sheets I bought off of eBay. I only used two stickers, on the thumb and pinky, but they're roses with lace designs and a couple of little gold rhinestones. The green nail polish, by Nika K that I got off Groupon that came in a set of 5 nail polishes. These nail polishes are the best I have in my collection. I haven't tried Essie or any other expensive nail polish. I usually get Wet n' Wild, which is pretty transparent in all colors, so multiple layers are definitely needed. I have some various ones like NYC, Sally Hansen and a couple others that I don't remember. I bought the set because it was cheap on Groupon and I read good reviews on them and they are really worth it! Cheaper than Essie and OPI...but probably only with the deal (which came with Red, Blue, Green, Silver Glitter, and a speedy Top Coat!!). I also super glued a bow, which came off after a few days since I tried to glue it ontop of the nail polish.