No-Bleach Lightening My Roots

So, it's been a while since I added anything to this blog. That's because, not long after my "red to blonde" post, I had my hair professionally highlighted so I didn't do any DIY hair stuff for ages. My mum treated me when I went to the hairdressers with her at some point in the summer (August?) (thanks mum!) and my hair was quite a warm blonde. I explained to the lady I wanted really ashy hair (think Taylor Swift) so she put some highlights in and toned my hair and I loved it. I was a bit wary of having bleach put in my hair after The Great Bleach Disaster of 2013 but my hair was in good condition again by this point and she assured me my hair would be ok. It survived beautifully and I really liked them. I can go for much longer these days without being bothered about my roots (which aren't terribly dark anyway) so only got my hair re-highlighted in November (and the only reason I did then is because I was going on TV and didn't want roots on national telly). It looked fabulous again (I had a different lady this time who put some darker ashy bits in along with the highlights) and I was happy up until this weekend.

I'm a second year university student and, with it being January, I had exams. All thoughts of my appearance ended when we broke up for Christmas and revision started. I lived, breathed, ate and slept microbiology for six weeks so I didn't pay any attention to my hair. I emerged from my isolation after the final exam a couple of days ago, blinking at the light outside, breathing in fresh air and caught sight of my hair and saw how tired it looked (it must have been reflecting my own fatigue - those six weeks were incredibly challenging). My roots were very visible and the blonde had yellowed. I'd used a funky reddish-pink semi-permanent on the ends (La Riche Directions in Rubine) the previous weekend for a cousin's birthday meal and even that looked tired.

I'd noticed a very small amount of breakage after my hair was highlighted in November so I pondered whether I did want highlights again. The ladies at the salon my mum's a regular at are fabulous but it would be a while before I could go again and I decided I didn't want it highlighting again. I didn't want to get into a pattern of highlights, damage, highlights, damage, etc. I decided to sort it out myself and just hoped I wouldn't make an absolute hash of it. I don't know why I was so worried about doing my own hair again, as I've been home-dyeing it since I was 14, but there was a bit of worry I'd end up with vivid orange roots. But I couldn't wait any longer and I felt a kind of desperate urge to take care of my appearance after having abandoned it for a while so decided to go ahead.

I decided to use a high-lift blonde dye to lift my roots, then use an ash blonde over the top to even the whole thing out. I would then tone if necessary and I also equipped myself with some new silver shampoo that I'd read rave reviews about to keep the brass at bay. I wasn't naive enough to think the high-lift dye wouldn't damage my hair but at least it would be less damaging than bleach.

So. This was my hair before I started The Process:

Rooooooots! I'm naturally around a level 7 dark blonde and it's ashy as HECK. Sadly, whenever I lighten it it goes really warm (which is unsurprising but still disappointing). It really does look tired here :( I soaked it in coconut oil (100% coconut oil, no additives) for a few hours a couple of days before I did this to prepare it. Coconut oil is absolutely fabulous and it's been a life-saver for my hair. My hair itself isn't fine but I don't have a great deal of it so it's kind of thin (it was lovely and thick when I was younger, I blame ageing and also The Great Bleach Disaster of 2013 - entirely my own fault on that front).

Step one was the high-lift blonde. I settled for this one as I've used it before on darker hair with some success:

Garnier Nutrisse Truly Blonde 101 - ultra light beige blonde

It claims to lighten up to 4.5 levels, which was fine for me as I only wanted to lighten it around 2 levels. I didn't want to go any higher than a level 9 because, as much as I love really light blonde hair, my roots would have been more obvious more quickly. I've been a level 10/11 blonde before and it was lovely, but the roots! I pasted it onto my roots and the underside of my hair first for around 15 minutes, then spread it throughout the rest and left it for another 15. This was the result:

It definitely lifted my roots which I was happy about, but left them very brassy, which wasn't at all surprising. Perhaps I should have added heat/wrapped my hair during the process but ah well. It nicely boosted the rest of my hair where it had been highlighted before to a lovely ashy blonde. It also faded the pink ends, which was fine because I was planning on re-pinking them anyway. I kind of liked the faded look to them.

I got a better picture in the daylight the next morning:

Next was the ash blonde dye. I went with L'Oreal because their dyes seem to dump a lot of ashy tones which is exactly what I wanted:

L'Oreal Recital Preference 9.1 Viking - very light ash blonde

Again, I painted the roots first for around 15 minutes then pulled the rest through the rest of my hair for a further 15 minutes. The result:

It took away the orange but was still slightly brassy, as I saw the next morning:

I'd probably use their other ash blonde series in the future because this one didn't seem to make my hair as ashy as I'm used to. Not bad, though. The rest of my hair looked like this:

The highlighted parts were stunning, a silvery ash shade that I adore. The warmer parts running through, as can be seen on this pic, weren't too bad. They seem to make a huge contrast on this pic but weren't that bad in real life. I also re-pinked the ends.

Toner time! Glad I invested in this, I had a feeling I'd need it. The one I chose was this:

Wella Color Charm T14 - pale ash blonde (previously Silver Lady)

I opted for this one rather than T18 because this I think has more blue tones in it, which I figured I'd need. I mixed it with 10 vol developer (not 20 as the box recommends. I didn't want to lighten my hair any further, just wanted to tone it and 10 vol is colour-deposit ONLY). The box says to apply it to towel-dried hair, but I accidentally missed this instruction and applied it to dry hair. It didn't seem to have any adverse effects but I would recommend following instructions where applicable (pay attention, future self). I applied this to my roots only, I didn't put it anywhere else on my hair. I left it on for 25 minutes, washed it off and this was the result:

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Brass GONE. I'd read rave reviews about the Color Charm toners online and it didn't disappoint. The brass is gone. The roots and some parts of my hair are a slightly warmer tone than I was after, but at least there is no brass and I can work on the warmer parts over time. 

I also invested in this silver shampoo:

Bleach London Silver Shampoo

I tried it during this process but can't give an honest review of it yet as I used it alongside all the other stuff I was doing. It is the most heavily pigmented shampoo I've ever seen and there were so many good reviews online for it. I went to Boots where it seemed they didn't have any in (none on the shelf!) but luckily another customer had asked a staff member if they had any in and she brought some out! So I nabbed some and will give a review of it once I've had the chance to test it properly. It smells good and it didn't seem to dry my hair out, unlike Provoke Touch of Silver, which I find quite drying. I've also used Shimmer Lights in the past, which has a gorgeous smell (I think so, anyway! A lot of people seem to hate it - it is very floral) and leaves my hair soft. So, we'll see.

So yes! It was a long process (couple of days) but I'm happy with where it's at now. I may use a stronger high-lift dye the next time I do my roots, but, as my hair condition isn't too bad right now, I might just do this again. The ends of my hair are a bit dry but other than that, it seems fine. Which is a huge relief, as I didn't want to damage it too much (this process is damaging, there's no avoiding it to have lighter hair, but it's nowhere near as bad as bleach). I'll keep conditioning and coconut oiling it. I rarely use heat to style it (apart from my wayward fringe which needs straightening nearly every day) and dry it on the lowest hairdryer setting to keep damage to a minimum, so yeah. It should be fine.

I hope this helps anyone who is looking to go lighter! I realise for a lot of people that bleach is the preferred (and sometimes necessary for very dark hair out there) option but this may be of some use to the lighter-haired ladies and gents out there. 

Note: No, I am not a professional hair person and I do this entirely at my own risk. I've probably done some things wrong, there are probably easier ways of doing this, etc. But this works for me and my hair feels fine, so yes.

Bonus cat photo! Meet Tiger. Isn't he gorgeous?

Beautiful Soundtrack Music

So, my music taste is quite strange. I've never been a follower of many artists, really. There're only a few that I've listened to several albums of (Keane, Florence and the Machine, Muse to name a few) and I don't anticipate the release of their new songs or albums. I'm much more of a song person in that, if I hear a song and love it, I'll download it, regardless who it's by. This is why I have a Miley Cyrus song on my phone. Most of the tracks on Guitar Hero 3 lived on my phone for ages for this very reason.

Soundtracks are a different matter though. I adore good soundtracks, specifically movie and video game soundtracks. The first one I ever bought was the Halo: Combat Evolved soundtrack because the music in that game is absolutely stunning. And if there's a particularly beautiful track it often makes me tear up because I'm just a sucker for beautiful music. The first piece that made me cry was the Ending Theme of Final Fantasy X, mostly because DAMN and a lot of because I sunk so many hours into that game and the ending was so sad.

I decided to compile a post of some of my favourite pieces because why not? If it causes just one person to fall in love then it'll be worth it. I know I'm not the only person who loves this kind of music and I discovered a few pieces through looking up what others had suggested. With the exam period being upon us I needed some nice background music for my studies so looked up some of the composers of these tracks. Some of whom I was familiar with, some brand new to me but I'll be watching out for their future compositions.

I will keep updating this list as and when I come across more beautiful music - the exam period has only just started so no doubt there'll be plenty coming this way soon! Finding music like this is the best way to procrastinate help revision.

This is in no particular order but I'll start with my favourite, which I only discovered recently.

1. Arena Crumbles - The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Official Score
   James Newton Howard




It's May 2015 and I only discovered The Hunger Games a couple of weeks ago (shameful, I know). Having been in possession of the first book for over a year now and never getting the chance to finish it, I was properly introduced to the series by my mum. She's a big fan and asked me when I visited one weekend if I wanted to watch the first film. I was curious so said yes and so my love for the series began. We also watched Catching Fire that weekend and I really, really enjoyed it. I think both films were excellent but Catching Fire was fantastic in my eyes. I haven't seen Mockingjay part 1 yet but I will as soon as I can, then go to the cinema, hopefully with my mum, to see part 2. I've now read all of the books (again, thanks mum, for lending me your Kindle collection!) and devoured Mockingjay in a single day. Absolutely brilliant series that I'd heartily recommend and the films are great. Jennifer Lawrence <3 She's fab (also definitely have not developed a crush on Woody Harrelson as a result of his portrayal of Haymitch). And I didn't think I'd like Effie but I loved her. And CINNA, I love him, Lenny Kravitz is just lovely. Also, Finnick, pfwoah, ANYWAY I'll stop now.

The whole soundtrack is excellent but this particular piece just staggers me. The scene that it's from really sticks out in my mind (I won't spoil it but those who have seen Catching Fire will know which part from the title) and it's one of my favourite movie scenes of all time. I only heard the piece properly a few days ago but I can't stop listening to it now. Firmly wedged into my top spot and it had its work cut out beating the Avatar soundtrack, but it did it.

2. You're My Hero - Wreck-It Ralph OST
    Henry Jackman




With Wreck-It Ralph being my favourite film ever, there was going to be something featured from it on this list. The whole soundtrack is catchy and it was so well-done and captured the mood brilliantly with every scene. This and Sugar Rush are my favourites, I chose this one though because at the start and about 2/3 of the way through it's just lovely. I won't spoil the film for anyone who hasn't seen it (and please, watch it, it's absolutely fantastic, never fails to cheer me up) but it's at a very heart-wrenching part of it. I'm going to note here that the voice acting in this film is some of the best I've ever heard, from every single person in it.

3. Becoming One of the People - Avatar, Music From the Motion Picture
    James Horner



When Avatar was released I went into it with zero expectations and came out of the cinema feeling pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed the film but the music stuck with me straight away. It has one of the most gorgeous soundtracks I've ever heard and was my favourite for years until I encountered The Hunger Games. There are so many lovely pieces contained within and I could list them all here, but I won't. Instead I'll put the one in that I first fell in love with. Trust me when I say they're all excellent.

4. Miracle - Winter's Tale Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
    KT Tunstall



An actual song featuring on this list! This was a "I desperately need some nice music to accompany this lecture revision on cell signalling of all things, help me, Internet!" discovery. I'm not familiar with the film at all but when this came on it stood out to me straight away. Very nice, dreamy, flowy song and KT Tunstall sings it beautifully.

5. Rue's Farewell - The Hunger Games Original Motion Picture Score
    James Newton Howard



Oh lookie, it's The Hunger Games again. Told you it was good. This one features from the first film and the title could be considered a spoiler but it's another beautiful piece. Especially since I had had no clue about the story at this point and that bit accompanied with this music and the tears were flowing. I cried a lot during The Hunger Games series, to be honest. Not ashamed. Plenty of people will have done, too.

6. Evacuating London - The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
    Harry Gregson-Williams



Another film in which a scene sticks out because the music grabbed me straight away. Seriously, the people behind the music of movies deserve some serious credit for what they do. I saw this at the cinema years ago and the point at which this occurs will always be burned into my memory. It's not spoilerific so I'll tell you: it's at the bit where the kids are on the train right at the start and it's wonderful. A Narnia Lullaby is another good one.

7. Ending Theme - Final Fantasy X OST
    Nobuo Uematsu



"Finally!" I hear you cry. "A video game soundtrack!" This soundtrack is wonderful all the way through but this piece will live with me forever because I bawled my eyes out during it and the scene that was playing. This is right at the end of the game so I won't spoil (... I know the game is 13 years old now but still, the HD remaster just came out so some are still new to it) but DAMN, SON. When you invest yourself into a story and see it through you're bound to get emotional, but the music just made it for me.

8. Cornfield Chase - Interstellar Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
    Hans Zimmer



Hans Zimmer did The Lion King soundtrack so I already loved his work. I was shown Interstellar by a couple of friends fairly recently and when I was hunting down good revision music, I remembered that I'd enjoyed the score in this film. A lot of the soundtrack sounds very similar but I like this one because of the urgency of it as it goes on. Again, I can remember the scene in my head largely because of this piece that accompanied it.

9. Light as a Feather - Winter's Tale Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
    Hans Zimmer



It's our old friend Hans Zimmer again! He does some excellent stuff. Again, I've no idea of the context of this one because I haven't seen the film, or even heard of it to be honest. This was another stumble-across-ey one which stood out to me in the sea of soundtracks I was listening to in order to gather inspiration. It's a nice little piece.

10. Brothers in Arms - Halo: Combat Evolved OST
      Martin O'Donnell



Halo: CE was released on 15th November 2001 and I was in year 8 at high school at the time and about to turn 13 and I'll never forget because good grief I loved Halo. It was my first FPS and I loved the whole game (though the level "The Library" can go and do one). But the music! Oh, the music. When I left the game running on the menu one time and went back into the room to this music, which had come on in one of the trailers that ran every now and then, I fell in love. I really enjoy all of the soundtrack and it was the first game soundtrack I fell for, but this piece gets me even now, all these years later. I still play the game and I still love this music and it's well worth a listen.

Scott Cornwall Colour Restore: Deep Red (and a bit of Garnier Nutrisse 6.60 Fiery Red)

I adore red hair. Whether it's out of a box and enough to rival British telephone boxes or gorgeous hues seen in natural redheads (such as Karen Gillan, for example), it's lovely. I'm not a natural redhead, sadly, so for me it comes out of a box/salon if I'm being treated by my mum. I've always strayed towards the ruby/plum reds and was red permanently for a good couple of years before yearning for blonde again. Well, recently I took the plunge and went red again after 3 years of blonde. I started with a lovely golden copper blonde and it made my green eyes look stunning (shameless self-admiration). Sadly, almost all red tones washed out in a couple of weeks even though I was using a copper-adder-of-tones-shampoo-thing. So sod it! Back to extremely red it was.

The colour I chose, after pouring over the delicious red shades in Superdrug for slightly longer than is deemed sane, was Garnier Nutrisse 6.60 Fiery Red - a permanent colour. I didn't want to go any lower than a level 6 in case I changed my mind in the future and wanted to go light again. The shade on the box was perfect and I knew I'd get something like it as I had a pretty light level 8-ish kinda-blonde that I was about to plonk it on top of. 

This is was what it looked like straight after dyeing:

I loved it! It was the exact shade I was after. 

Two things to note about this particular dye. One, it smelled very pleasant unlike dyes I've used in the past. I hadn't used Garnier for a long time before this and have no idea if all of their dyes smell like this, but when I opened the box I got a kind of soft, fruity smell (likely the conditioner - avocado-ey!). And applying the dye was a nicer experience than usual because of the smell. Thumbs up, Garnier! Secondly, I noticed far, FAR less staining in the following weeks than I've had with other red dyes. I'd fully expected my pillows, towels and necks of my clothes to come out with pink/red stains but only experienced the smallest amount on a white shirt I'd slept in one night. My towels and pillows were absolutely fine. No idea why this was the case but I was pleasantly surprised and impressed.

The only bad thing was that I only just had enough dye for my shoulder-length, medium-thickness hair and had to stretch it as far as I possibly could. When I recently dyed my hair blonde again with a different brand I didn't have this issue at all and actually had excess.

Now, the problem with red dyes is the notorious, dreaded FADING. Using a colour-save shampoo and conditioner reduces the fading so the colour lasts a bit longer. Washing with cool/cold water ensures the colour is sealed in for longer. Avoiding shampoos with sulphates (even colour-save shampoos contain these) can help a lot, as sulphates strip the colour from hair. Four weeks down the line, this was my hair:

Sadly there was no natural light available as it was 10pm-ish at the time so apologies for that, but you can see there had been considerable fading!

I was determined to keep the red fresh for as long as possible as I didn't like the idea of dyeing my hair more often to keep the red looking good. I'm trying to grow it out and it's suffered some damage in the last few years so I'm avoiding putting it through dyeing as much. My unbelievably ash blonde (~level 7) roots were coming through but I figured I could live with those for a few more weeks.

Behold! This product here. Scott Cornwall's Colour Restore in Deep Red:

I'd seen this in stores and after a lengthy couple of evenings Googling it and reading reviews, I decided to buy. It's not that cheap (I got it for £12.99 in March 2015 at Boots) but you get a lot from the tube, especially with my length of hair.

It's a toner-type product. You can either shampoo it through like a normal shampoo, leave in for up to 5 minutes then rinse like normal, or plop it on for 25 minutes for a restorative job. As I'd had quite a bit of fading, I opted to leave it on for 25 (... 30) minutes. I washed my hair first with a clear shampoo, combed it and then applied the stuff to damp hair. 

A little goes a long way with this and I only needed a few blobs to saturate my hair. I combed it through with a wide-toothed comb to ensure I hadn't missed any bits. I didn't cover it with anything and didn't apply any heat, just sat and waited and fed my cat and made a cup of tea and despaired over the amount of revision I had to do for my upcoming exams. When the time was up I rinsed and conditioned. You don't actually need to condition with this as it leaves it in a soft condition (I could definitely feel this as I was washing it off) but I did anyway as my ends were a bit dry at the time.

The result! Again, no natural light for the first pic but took one in some poor, cloudy daylight (yay for Lancashire weather) for the second one:

I was pretty stunned about how NICE it was! The photos don't do it much justice at all. It had taken on a nice cherry colour which I hadn't expected as the pic on the front of the box showed more of an orange-red! 

Which leads me onto a point: this is PINK-BASED. It deposited pink tones along with the red and it was also very pink when I shampooed my hair in the next few weeks (the colour of the shampoo as it washed out was candy-floss! Very pretty colour though!). For me, this worked very well with the base I had and I adored it. BUT, A WARNING: to those with bleached hair who use this, it'll likely turn your hair pink. If you're after pink hair, great! If not, I wouldn't use this on a light base. I don't fully know how it would work on dark hair. It CANNOT LIFT COLOUR so dark bases will NOT be lifted to a red. It'll deposit red/pink tones so will add warmth but I don't know how much red would be visible amongst the dark tones.

It didn't really touch my natural roots very much. It DID blend them in ever so slightly for the first few days but my roots were very evident again after a couple of washes. Based on this, I'm not sure it'd be very effective on non-red natural hair.

It lasted for a surprising amount of time, too. I was seeing friends just over a week later so did the shampoo/rinse-through refresh a couple of weeks later. I didn't see a huge difference but it did look slightly brighter - which is the point! When I then went blonde again just under a week later, it still looked pretty good and hadn't faded nearly as much as it had prior to using it.

Overall: recommended for redheads seeking a refresh for plum/cherry tones, a little goes far so the price isn't too bad considering. Definitely wear gloves when applying it! Unfortunately my memory fails me so I can't remember if it comes with gloves or not (I have a feeling it does) but there are packs of gloves available in places such as Boots for only a couple of quid.

Bonus: a photo of our lovely cat, Toby. He was our first cat, sadly no longer with us but he was wonderful (and huge!):

From Red to Blonde: JoBaz Hair Colour Remover!

First, some hair background.

I'll be honest, I've never been particularly interested in beauty or my appearance. My mum despaired when I'd wander into GAME to spend my pocket money/wage rather than Boots or clothes shops. I only started wearing make-up when I was 17 and my acne exploded into existence (thanks, crappy family genetics!). Even now, aged 26, I don't put much effort into it, if I bother to put any on at all. This was made particularly evident when I went on TV and the instructions were to turn up to the studio wearing make-up that one would wear for a night out. The make-up lady commented that I'd "made a start" and proceeded to start from scratch on top of what I'd put on (and did a heck of a much better job than I could ever have dreamed of doing myself). 

My hair is a different matter, though. I'm a bit vain about it. When I was a kid it was the nicest golden blonde you've ever seen. Had it remained that way, I'd have never touched it with dye. BUT NO, family genetics strike again! By age 14 it had dulled to the ashiest mousy dark blonde possible. Fed up of it, I mithered my dad and he said I could have it dyed at the hairdressers'. I had a lovely medium brown with a hint of red in my mind and came out with a red that could rival a fire engine. I was horrified and it was a few days before starting Year 11 and I couldn't face the remarks I knew would come my way (god, I hated school) so dyed over it with a dark brown boxed dye. And WOW, I loved it. So much that I dyed it dark for the next few years.

I then varied between red and brown until I was 20. I really, really wanted to go blonde again. I was frightened of bleach so looked into going blonde and discovered hair colour remover. Now, this was back in 2009 and Britain was shockingly bad at stocking anything of the sort and I found nothing. I ended up importing some Color Oops from the US, which cost a small fortune and the shipping! Oh, the shipping. But anyway. I whacked it on, did the rinsing and didn't rinse enough and was left with the ginger-iest ginger you've ever seen. I thought I'd done enough research into the results and whacked an ash blonde dye over it straight after the process and was left with ash roots, ginger in the middle and almost black ends where it had re-oxidised.

The hairdresser silently laughed at me when I asked for blonde streaks and said it wasn't possible. Disheartened, I dyed it dark again and it remained that way until I was 23. I wasn't giving up this time, but avoided colour removers and went straight for the bleach. By this time, ColourB4 had been released in the UK but after my last experience I didn't want to try it. I bleached it twice with a Jerome Russell kit, whacked an ash blonde over the top and was so incredibly close, with gingery ends. This would not defeat me so several ash blondes later, I was FINALLY happy. And luckily, my hair was in good enough condition that my ends weren't fried and looked in decent nick.

I kept it this way for over a year and somehow ended up at around a level 9 blonde through dyeing alone. Then. Oh god. Cringe with me, guys. I decided I wanted white hair. Bloody Daenerys Targaryen. I've never even read/watched Game of Thrones. But I loved her hair. That was my mistake. I bought some bleach powder and 30 vol (9%) developer and bleached and bleached again. I then toned the life out of it. To be fair, the colour was quite nice, it was pale and silvery and had a hint of purple sometimes when I toned too much. But the condition of my hair was horrific. I experienced a lot of breakage, loss of hair and I honestly hadn't realised how much damage I'd done until it was too late. The back of my head wasn't too bad but the front was awful. It looked frizzy and straw-like and it was a mistake I will never make again. I'd bleached it without knowing what I'd done to it and kept experiencing breakage and weakness weeks after bleaching but because I'd continued to bleach in the days following the initial bleachings, it just got even worse. It had that awful cotton wool feel, felt too soft, but not a good soft, a too-damaged soft and it had lost its elasticity and eurgh. My hair is ONLY JUST back to fully normal, non-bleach damaged 18+ months later after a lot of trimming and keeping it to chin-length (it's now collarbone-length).

So, bleach is fine as long as you don't overdo it. Which should be flipping obvious and I'd heard horror stories about bleach (which is why I avoided it the first time) and when I first went blonde, it was absolutely fine. Because I didn't overdo it. But then I did. Lesson learned. Never again. I'll just admire white-haired beauties from the safety of my room.

So anyway. Onto the point of this.

The colour I was before dyeing it red was a light golden copper colour. I wanted to introduce some warmth into my hair after being ash for so long. It was a gorgeous colour but unfortunately, all of the red washed out in a couple of weeks, leaving me with a bit of an "ehh" blonde colour. Behold!

Apologies for the terrible image but LOOK AT MY CUTE CAT, oh, and the hair. I decided if I was going to have some red in my hair, I might as well go turbo and just whack a really red dye on it. I chose Garnier Nutrisse 6.60 Fiery Red (I didn't want to go any darker than a level 6 in case I wanted to go back to blonde - hindsight, I'm proud of ya). My natural colour is a level 7... something. Something ridiculously ashy. Anyway. It was gorgeous and I loved it. 

It had faded considerably around 4 weeks later so I used Scott Cornwall's Colour Restore Deep Red (a review of which I'll write separately) and did a full tonal thing. It restored it really nicely and I was happy for three more weeks. Then, I realised with this colour hair, I was restricted with using these cool hair chalks my sister had bought me for Christmas. I realised I wanted to go blonde again so I could use 'em all (there is a green, blue and purple which would've just clashed horribly with the red). I wanted to avoid bleach like the plague so knew I was going to go with a colour remover.

ColourB4 was considered but I've used JoBaz before to remove a semi-permanent dark blonde so I could go a bit lighter and had great success with it. I did hesitate as I wasn't sure if it was any good at removing red, but I had nothing to lose and had an emergency dye at hand in case it went wrong (HEARTILY recommend keeping an "emergency dye" in a drawer - you never know! I usually have an ash blonde to hand). Plus JoBaz was less than half the price of ColourB4.

It was decided. I bought JoBaz in Max Strength from Home Bargains (also available at Savers and some supermarkets) for £4.49 (in April 2015) and I bought two boxes just in case. The kit comes with the parts you have to mix (oh, the technical terms) A and B, buffer C and some gloves that fit giants (I have tiny hands as I'm only 5'1"!). I mixed all the stuff then proceeded to plonk it on my hair.

Please note: this is a colour remover that removes artificial pigment ONLY. It CANNOT lighten natural hair and it CANNOT be used as a bleach. It doesn't touch natural hair colour. When you use it, it takes you back to the LIGHTEST colour you've ever been. If you've previously bleached/lightened your hair, it will take you (eventually, if you have build-up) to THIS SHADE. Take note that permanent colours almost always contain peroxide. This lightens the natural hair colour. So, if you've even just gone a shade lighter, it will take you back to this lighter shade, not your natural colour. This is why you can't return to your natural colour if you've lightened it then dyed it a lighter colour previously. This is also why you'll get ginger if you're removing a dark colour.

The reason I always keep an ash blonde nearby is because ash counteracts the ginger. Ginger has red and orange tones and ash shades either have a green or a blue (or a mix of both... grue?) base to them. Green cancels out red, blue cancels out orange. Now, in my years of buying ash dyes I've NEVER seen any indication on the box or through online research as to what base the dye has, whether it's green or blue. So I've never been able to tell if I've been using the "correct" one. I tend to stick with L'Oreal for heavy brassiness as this deposits a lot of ashy tones. I use Nice 'N Easy for minimal brassy tones because, while I think their ash shades are gorgeous, they tend to wash out quickly and not cover brassy tones as well as L'Oreal (based on personal experience, anyway). To counteract yellow (eg. canary yellow) tones, a purple-based dye would be necessary. This is why a lot of toning shampoos, such as Shimmer Lights (which I've just ordered off Amazon because I can't find the sodding thing ANYWHERE in stores in the UK) or Touch of Silver, are purple. Purple shampoos when blonde are excellent for stopping hair getting that yellow tinge that so often happens a few weeks after dyeing blonde.

This was my hair just before I applied it:

A word about this: it does honk to high heavens. If you've done your research, you'll have seen this noted more than a few times! It clings to whatever you're wearing so I'd recommend chucking it for good in the wash as soon as you're done. It also resurfaces the first time you wash your hair in the next few days, too. It's not completely horrific but it ain't pleasant.

I left it on for an hour just to make sure. It requires that you aren't in a cold room and that there are no drafts. I covered my hair in the Home Bargains plastic bag I'd brought it home in (we'd run out of cling film... that's a lie, I couldn't be bothered to go and find it), tied it with a bobble at the base of my neck and blasted it for a couple of minutes with a hot hairdryer. The heat accelerates the process so it's recommended. When I peeled the bag off, I could see the ends of my hair and was shocked that I couldn't see any red whatsoever, just a chunk of very yellow hair. 

Now, rinsing. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH!

PAY ATTENTION

SERIOUSLY

Rinse like you have never rinsed before. If you don't rinse enough, it will RE-OXIDISE. This means that it will go darker/more brassy over the next few days. If you choose to dye straight afterwards, your hair will go darker. Possibly even back to the colour you had before you used the remover. This stuff works by shrinking the artificial colour molecules down so they can be washed out of the hair. If you fail to wash them out, they grow again and make your hair appear dyed like before. 

THIS is what happened to me back when I used Color Oops. I didn't rinse for nearly long enough and my ends went straight back to a dark brown. I PROMISE rinsing loads will prevent this. It recommends at least 5 minutes of rinsing, I did 8. Then you lather the buffer in, leave for a couple of minutes, then rinse again for at least 5 minutes. You won't see any colour washing out, the water will run clear/slightly bubbly, because the molecules will be too small to see. I did 10 minutes this time, buffered again, then rinsed and got out of the shower without conditioning.

Lawdy lawd, I should have conditioned. The reason I didn't was because I wasn't sure if I'd need to dye over it straight away and conditioning isn't recommended if you do this. However, my hair was really tangled and I couldn't get a wide-toothed comb through it at all. So I decided, whatever it looked like, that I wouldn't dye it straight away and I'd just live with the colour for a few days and hopped back into the shower and deep conditioned with Aussie 3 Minute Miracle (the Reconstruction one).

At the end, this was the result:

Well wow, I wasn't expecting such a good result at all. Look at it! That is gob-smackingly amazing. I was fully expecting a ginger colour because I'd used red. Red is notoriously difficult to get out of the hair so I was seriously staggered. It was a bit more yellow-y than in the picture and didn't suit my skin tone at all (otherwise I would've left it as it was!). As I was fearful of re-oxidation, I decided to wait a few days before colouring over it.

I managed three days before I reached for the dye. In that time, it had gone ever so slightly more brassy (barely noticeable) but not orange! The blonde looked more golden and it wasn't a horrible colour at all. I just didn't suit it. I'd chosen L'Oreal Excellence Creme, 8.1 Light Ash Blonde:

I love this shade so much. On hindsight, I may have gone for the 9.1 instead. I love the lightness of this shade. However, I'm also glad I didn't, as my roots will be far less noticeable with the 8.1 rather than the 9.1.

My hair just before colouring (those roots!):

And the end result!:

Note: I am aware my hair needs a good trim so please excuse the weird ends.

No re-oxidation!! Happy days. My hair feels great, too. Soft and shiny. This wasn't nearly, NEARLY as damaging as bleach (even though it feels it after the buffering stage!)

I'm thrilled with the result. Now, please listen because I have a thought. I think the reason this was so successful was because I only had one layer of permanent red. Therefore, there were far fewer molecules to rinse out than if I'd had several layers of red on red on brown on red, etc. When I tried with Color Oops after years and years of dyeing brown and red, it wasn't nearly as successful (not even close!). I had severe re-oxidation (a lot of which was my fault for not rinsing enough) and came out disappointed. If you're about to try this after years of doing the same, please be prepared for various colours and really dark ends after a few days. The instructions say it can be attempted up to three times. And with such a colour build-up, I'd definitely recommend doing it multiple times (up to three - no idea what would happen if more were attempted but if they say a maximum of three, it must mean it gets damaging), leaving at least a few days in between each one.

The box says that the hair can be re-dyed straight after using the colour remover. I'd recommend either waiting a few days to see if there is any oxidation, or using a non-peroxide dye (as peroxide ones cause re-oxidation). PLEASE BE AWARE that a lot of semi-permanent ones also contain peroxide! Not as much as permanent hair colour, but there is some. A temporary dye usually lasts 6-8 washes and contains no peroxide so you're safe with these ones.

It is ever so slightly darker than I was after but I know it'll fade in the next couple of weeks. And now I can give those hair chalks my sis got me a proper go. Sweet. I hope this was helpful to anyone considering using JoBaz. For me, it gets a STONKING thumbs up.

A quick note about "fashion" colours and how effective JoBaz/hair colour removers would be on these colours. Fashion colours, such as those made by Directions, Crazy Color, Manic Panic, etc. work differently to standard box colours. These do not penetrate the hair shaft, instead, they coat the hair and stain it. Now, if these colours have been applied over natural hair, removing them shouldn't be so difficult. However, if hair has first been bleached, it is likely that the colour will stubbornly remain, even when faded, because it has stained the hair cortex itself. JoBaz isn't designed to work on fashion colours. There is one, ColourB4 Fashion Colours, that HAS been designed for these colours. However, it seems like it removes some and not others. Some users of colour removers have reported that reds and pinks have been successfully removed using these. However, blues are normally untouched/very little removed. Judging from this, I would NOT recommend JoBaz for hair that has been coloured with a blue (possibly also green, particularly a green with a blue base) fashion colour.

And finally. Have another photo of my cat. Because she is just so flippin' cute.