Milk and Blush Hair Extensions!

As I'm sure some of you noticed I chopped off a lot of my locks earlier this year; my hair was very long but I was going to Thailand and knew upkeep in a hot hot country would be difficult while travelling, so I decided to get it cut shorter! I really missed my long hair so I reached out to Milk and Blush and after speaking with Sammy they very kindly sent me out a set of hair extensions to try!

The extensions I got were the 24-26" (180g) Full Head Classic Set in "Oh my Gwen Stefani", these extensions come with 10 wefts which includes a quad weft which I absolutely love! The extensions arrived very quickly and I was actually super impressed with the packaging they come in. With previous companies I've used the hair extensions have come in a plastic sleeve with a piece of cardboard backing giving details of the product, but with the Milk and Blush extensions they came in a very pale pink box with a separate care guide and other small cards giving information  (and they sent me a personalised note which I thought was lovely!).

The colour 'Oh my Gwen Stefani' is the palest blonde shade they produce, when I opened them I thought they were much more yellow toned in real life than they looked on the website so I would definitely recommend using their shade matching service rather than guessing from the site!

I didn't mind the yellow tone of blonde that much as I knew I was going to be custom dyeing them all different colours, but I wanted to check and make sure they could be toned to a whiter bright blonde. Mainly so they would match my actual hair as closely as possible, but also just to test out how well the colours would take to the hair.

I managed to tone them to this more ashy blonde which I was happy with, they have several different tones in them which make them look more natural! I did this with just a home made toner (extremely diluted purple dye), but I'm sure you could push the colour to a white/silver colour with a better one.

When I open new extensions I do like to check through the hairs to check the colour consistency; in the past I've bought extensions that have quite a lot of darker strands in the wefts to 'pad out' the set, but with this set I checked very very carefully and only found around 4 darker strands which is obviously not noticeable at all so I was quite pleased about that!

In terms of quality I feel this set is a solid product, the hair is 100% Remy human hair so it feels beautifully silky smooth and the clips on the wefts are fab, they're metal and have a silicone strip on the inside to prevent slipping! Extensions I used to use a few years back didn't have silicone so I was super happy that I didn't have to backcomb my hair with this set! On my tester weft one of the clips broke when I first opened it but I didn't find this much of an issue as I had spare clips and was happy to sew a new clip on. However I am confident Sammy and the Milk and Blush team would have done whatever they could to fix the issue if I had notified them as they were always very lovely and helpful! ❤

I'm really impressed with how well they took up colour when I custom dyed them, I feel they look stunning how I currently have them but I will attempt to strip them and do something different later on. So far I'm really surprised with how little hair has shed from them! I've noticed far more of my own hairs floating around which is (not great for my hair) amazing!

Over all I'm stoked with the extensions! I'm loving styling and playing around with them and would recommend to anyone looking for some!

❤

Full Head Hair Extensions - Classic Set provided for review by Milk and Blush. Though these items were received free of charge, this is not a sponsored post, and all opinions are the author’s own.

Deep Sunset Ombre Hair

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!

♥

Seeking Silver: Koleston Perfect 0/81

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!

Thanks for reading!

♥

Seeking Silver: Mellor & Russell Simply Bright

This is the first post in my new series "Seeking Silver". I will be trying out many different silver hair dyes/toners and showing my process and results with you. This web series will be hosted on my YouTube channel with more in depth opinions written over here! If you have any dye/ toner requests leave them in the comments either here or on YouTube and I'll try my best to get a hold of them.

The first dye I am trying out is the Mellor & Russell Simply Bright Cool Silver hair dye which I purchased from... Poundland!?

The picture below is the state my hair was in just before applying the dye. My hair was an extremely dark pink into pastel pink before I bleach bathed it out, so that's why my roots were a much darker/ brassier blonde than the rest of my hair. 

In the box comes the tube of colour, a bottle of 9% (30 vol) and a pair of plastic gloves. The instructions are printed on the inside of the box, so you need to cut/tear it open carefully to make sure you don't make them unreadable. It doesn't come with a conditioner for afterwards, but I usually use my own hair masks anyway.

I decided to switch the developer (35ml same as was contained in the box) to my own 6% (20 vol) as my hair is already extremely pale and usually takes to colours quite well. I would have used 3% (10 vol) if I had any at hand, as that would be adequate for depositing colour. Personally I prefer to mix my dyes up in a tint bowl and apply with a tint brush, but if you're good using a bottle that's fine!

Upon opening the tube of colour I was surprised to see it was a light orange (I was expecting blue or purple!), I was a bit sceptical about using the dye but went ahead anyway. I applied the dye to my roots first (as that's where my hair needed the most toning), and then worked through my lengths. A short while after applying the dye to the hair it started to change to a more grey/ lilac tone; which made me feel more relaxed. 

 The instructions say to leave the dye on between 20-40 minutes, so I decided to leave it on for 40 to see the fullest effect. After rinsing the colour out I used my OSMO intensive deep repair mask and left it on for around 10 minutes to give my hair some moisture, rinsed again and ran some serum through my ends for a little extra lovin'.

After my hair had dried my results were as above. I'm extremely impressed with how well this dye toned my hair, considering it's price. I wasn't expecting it to do much to my hair at all (especially not my roots; which were extremely brassy), but it has brought my hair to a lovely silvery-white shade! My roots are still a tiny bit brassy, but it's not noticeably different from the rest of my hair (unless you look very closely). My hair didn't feel any drier or more damaged after using this dye, which is always a good thing! I've now had this hair for 3 weeks and the colour hasn't changed (although I have been using a good silver shampoo).

If your hair is much darker than mine was before using the dye it won't bring your hair to the same shade as mine, though, it will probably neutralise yellow blondes to a more ash blonde colour. Also if you're looking for a darker steel grey/silver then this is not the best dye out there for you. 

Overall I think this dye is a great option for people after the silver/white colour on a budget, but of course your hair will need to be pale enough to begin with. You can pick this dye up from Poundland, or search around on Ebay/ Amazon for it, but of course you won't find it cheaper than £1. If you aren't in the UK it might not be worth trying to find, as I imagine it would be difficult to get a hold of or much more expensive.

Thanks for reading!

♥

Removing hair colour - Bleach bathing

I had my hair mega fabulous in a mermaid trimple ombre effect while I was abroad in February (as some of you may know). After I had arrived back home I was booked onto some work at the NEC quite short notice and had no time to vitamin C strip/ fade my hair colour out so I turned to my wonderful emergency hair colour removal method - yes, the bleach bath.

How my hair looked just before bleach bathing

To do this you will need bleach powder, cream developer, shampoo, a mixing bowl, gloves, a measuring cup/scoop, a spoon/ something to mix it with, and an application brush (optional)

 Chances are if you're using this method to remove colourful dyes your hair will already be pretty pale underneath so when doing this method I suggest you use the lowest vol of cream peroxide possible (I used 3% / 10vol), it doesn't need to lift much and the last thing you want is to create irreversible damage to your hair. Many many many people on the interwebs have different mixing ratios, but the one I go with is 1 scoop bleach, 1 scoop developer, and 2 scoops of shampoo. I find this mixture to be very effective and I like the consistency as I find it easy to work into the hair.

Ratio 1:1:2

When you've mixed all the products together you should end up with a concoction that looks something like the first picture below.
Before applying the mixture to the hair you'll want to wet it and take off any excess moisture so it isn't dribbling water all over you - but don't dry it too much! Remember this is a shampoo mixture and shampoo lathers much easier through wet hair! You can apply the mixture with an application brush, but personally I find it much easier to just whack it on and lather it through my hair. This method is much faster than applying with a brush so the colour should come out evenly quicker and cause less damage to the hair - but of course it's entirely up to you.

Once you've fully saturated the hair with the mixture I suggest putting a shower cap over your hair so the heat from your head will help it process faster. Keep checking on the progress though as this can take no time at all if your hair isn't being stubborn -  parts of mine went blonde seconds after putting the mixture on but other parts took much longer. In total I left mine on for 20 minutes and had absolutely no colour left in my hair which was fabbo. Once it seems light enough to you just rinse it out and condition well and voila!

I did use a toner to make sure there weren't any yellow tones after.

If you don't have experience in bleaching hair please be cautious. Leaving the mixture on for too long (especially with higher volumes of developer) will damage the hair cuticle and could make your hair very dry and prone to snapping/ breakage.

I also did a corresponding video on this topic.

Removing/ lightening hair dye with vitamin C!

A few weeks ago I decided to dye my hair 'my little pony'-esque (pastel pink with a few streaks of other pastel colours in it) as a spur of the moment thing. I haven't had my hair any shade of pink in about two years and I was surprised as I really loved it! The pink was much paler than any shade I'd had before - so obviously it faded out very quickly.

Considering how happy I was with the initial dye I was quick to touch up my hair when it had started to fade out. While I was mixing the dye I accidentally put too much pink in with the conditioner but thought to myself, ah well! It won't come out too bad! - How wrong I was.

The colour my hair came out was an extremely bright pink, similar to what I had had years ago. I thought perhaps I don't like it because I haven't had dark hair (in comparison to my skin tone) in quite a while, so I thought I might just let it fade out... But after waking up to it the next morning I decided I just did not like it.

I grabbed my handy products and started to mix up my home made hair stripper. To make this you will need: Shampoo, a mixing bowl, any kind of vitamin C tablets/ powder, water (optional), and washing up liquid (optional).

How I made my mixture: I put four of the vitamin C tablets in my mixing bowl and broke them up a tiny bit, I then added the tiniest amount of water and left them to dissolve (Mine were the dissolvable kind, if you have the regular tablets just put them in a bag and smash them up with a hammer or try using a pestle and mortar). I then came back to it when they were dissolved and started to mix in shampoo until I had enough to cover my whole head.

                  

I applied the mixture to my hair, leaving it on for between 30-45 minutes. The pigment did seem to bleed out from my hair quite quickly while the mixture was on. After rinsing it off I could see a difference in the colour of my hair already. I decided to repeat the process twice because the initial colour was quite dark so I thought I had best get rid of as much of the pigment as possible to get it down to a more pastel tone. After rinsing the final time here were my results: 

 

I am very happy with how much pigment the vitamin C mixture pulled out of my hair. The colour is still darker than the last dye but is still a beautiful pale pink colour! 

(If you use this method make sure you deep condition your hair afterwards as this can be very drying to your hair!)