The universe fascinates me. I often find myself staring like a hopelessly curious toddler; in awe of nature, photographs, and all the small things we take for granted. Inspiration can be drawn from every particle of our existence.
I came across this stunning photograph here, but unfortunately couldn't see a photographer to credit.
For a while I've been wanting to shy away from pastel hair but didn't want a bright block colour (as I'm sure I've had them all before). I'd been thinking perhaps a red as the main focus considering the last time I had red hair I was 15! As soon as I found this photograph I knew exactly what my next hair endeavour would be.
I wanted mostly deep red and orange but with a flash of purple at the roots. I selected the colours Plum, Poppy Red, Mandarin, and Bright Daffodil from La Riche Directions. I also was sent some lovely extensions from Lush Hair Extensions to dye (which I will be reviewing very soon).
I love how it turned out and how much thicker the extensions make my hair look! If you're interested in seeing exactly how I achieved this look then click through to my tutorial on YouTube!
To see all my Seeking Silver posts click the label 'seeking silver' at the bottom of the post. If you have any hair dye/ toner requests please leave them in the comments and I'll try my best to get ahold of them.
The second dye I am testing out in my Seeking Silver series is the Koleston Perfect Special Mix in 0/81. I purchased this from Ebay for around the £7 mark, but you also need a developer for this to work. I have generic 3% (10 vol) creme peroxide as I'm just depositing colour and not lightening my hair.
Below is the state my hair was in before applying the dye. I had just bleached my roots a few days before (without toning) so my roots were an extremely pale yellow, with the rest of my hair being virtually white.
To mix up the dye I emptied the contents of the Koleston tube of colour (60ml) into a tint bowl and then measured out 120ml of creme peroxide (as it requires a ratio of 1:2) and mixed well.
When applying the dye I split my hair into 4 sections, apply with a tint brush at the roots first, then pull and massage the dye through the lengths of my hair afterwards.
After I had applied the dye I noticed it was developing an extremely blue tone, so I cut the developing time short and rinsed it off after 15 minutes, then proceeded to do my usual deep condition afterwards (OSMO intensive deep repair mask) for 5 minutes.
After my hair had dried my results were as above. The colour came out a very metallic icy grey-blue which I personally think is absolutely stunning, but may not be what you're after. It's definitely an extremely blue based dye which I understand will not be to everyone's taste when looking for a silver/grey colour. In terms of the condition of my hair it felt identical to before I dyed it, which is great!
I decided to wash it once and check to see how much the colour changes. It did fade a bit and some of the blue tone did wash out, but you can tell it's still a blue toned silver (although I'm sure you will agree it's much more silver than when it was first dyed).
After the initial wash the colour noticeably faded, but during the next 3 weeks of hair washing the colour stayed virtually the same as in the photo above!
Please remember that to get silver/ grey hair you need to have very very pale blonde hair beforehand, so bleaching will be necessary. I personally wouldn't recommend trying this dye on hair much darker than mine as the blue tones will probably make the hair look murky.
Overall I'm actually really pleased with this dye. I would 100% recommend it if you like a blue based silver/ grey, but if you would prefer a purple or neutral based silver/grey then you may want to skip out on this one. As I previously mentioned I found this dye on Ebay but you can also find it in Sally's or other beauty supply stores!
