Going Blonde At Home!

If you know me you will know I like change, I don't like things the same for long. I can not go 3 months without moving the furniture in my bedroom, I can not go a summer without paining my bedroom walls, I always alter my clothes, and my hair is no exception. Within the past 12 months I have gone from brunette with ombre, to bleach blonde (a DIY fail!), to dark blonde, back to brunette, then with ombre and now I am blonde again! That's a lot of dying my hair! Recently I decided I needed a change, I was getting bored getting up each morning and seeing the same head of hair, so that's what I did!

I decided since it is coming into the sunny (hopefully warmer) months I wanted to go lighter, and when my hair is lighter I look way more tanned instead of a pail mess! I obviously don't have the money to go and get it done in a salon, so I decided I would try to do it gradually at home. My next problem was figuring out, how I was going to do it? Then it hit me (well not literally hit me) Ombre! I mean like you are dying the bottom of your hair blonde, why not use it to do all of your hair?

I know better than anyone the damage bleach can do to your hair so I vowed after my first mishap with bleach I would never do it all at once by myself again. I was all one color, as dry as the sahara, there was more split ends than I have had my entire life, there was so much frizz and no amount of toning shampoo would have helped it. So I called up my hairdresser and made the earliest appointment I could and €100 later I really learned my lesson.

Okay so there are so many different ombre kits out there it can be overwhelming. There are kits for brunettes, blondes, intense omber, wild ombre, extream ombre, how do you decide what one to get? I chose one that I liked the look of the blonde and one for brunettes. Out of all the brands of kits I went with the brand that I have trusted for some years now and that was L'Oreal Prefrence. It took me 4 times to get to the shade I am now and it was worth every penny! The two types I used were L'Oreal Paris Prefrence Intense Ombre for brunettes, I used 3 of these kits, and one L'Oreal Paris Feria Extreme Ombre for brunettes. After I had made my choices the application was easy and straight forward.

After Application 1

This was after my first application. I always knew I was never going to take the blonde to my very roots so I actually darkened my roots a little with a brown hair dye that was one shade darker then my natural hair color. I then proceeded to apply the Intense Ombre lightening formula to the ends and lengths of my hair from ear level down with a few streaks of it further up to create a base for the next application. As you can see there was not a huge difference made to my hair after the first application but it laid a good foundation for future applications. I wanted to give my hair a break to minimise the damage done by the bleach so I left about 4 days between each application. During this time I conditioned my hair a lot so it was hydrated and could repair any damage caused.

After Application 3

I forgot to take pictures after my second application but here I just used the same brand of kit and started my application about 1 inch above where I started the first.


To the right you can see the results of the Third application of the ombre. On this application I started applying the bleach about 4 or 5 inches from the roots and spread any access throughout the lengths so there was a nice graduated effect through the lengths of the hair. At this stage of the process the hair has stared to appear a touch brassy so I purchased a toning shampoo and conditioner and used that to take out the brass. My hair had not developed any split ends or a coarse texture which I was worried about. Again I left about 3 days between this application and my final one.

After Application 4

Through the breaks from applications I used the toning shampoo and conditioner as well as heat defense spray (as I always do), hair repair serum and leave in conditioner spray. It is always so important to keep your hair in tip top condition when you are doing anything like bleaching or dying to prevent breakage or hair falling out.

This is what my hair looked like after my final application of the ombre kit. This time I used the L'Orela Feria extream ombre and applied it to the hair starting about 1/2 inch from the roots and then once I have applied it to my whole head I brushed a little of the bleach to the roots to lighten them slightly. With each application I left the product longer that suggested for the ombre, the kit suggests that you leave it for about 20-40 mins but I left it for about 1 hour. As I had started to apply the bleach at different lengths of the hair each time I actually got a result of blond with ombre lengths and tips!
I love how my roots are darker then the rest of my hair. I also have streaks that are lighter at points as I put in kinda 'Highlights'. To put in the 'highlights' I used any left over bleach and used my fingers to saturate some sections of hair to make them lighter.

Over all I am very happy with the outcome of this method. It was kinder to the hair then bleaching it all at once and gave different tones so it looks more natural. There is still a touch of brassiness in my hair but that is slowly getting toned out with my purple shampoo! This method is so different to bleaching your hair all in once go as you don't get that uncomfortable burning feeling on your scalp, and you roots are not 10 shades lighter than the rest of your hair! If you are thinking of going blonde but you are afraid to take the plunge this is a great way to do it as you can stop at any point. I think that is another reason I liked this method, as I was in control of how blonde I went. Over all this way cost me just short of €40 (roughly €9.99 per dye kit) which is a major saving over the salons. The best think about this is that there is not a lot of up keep as when it starts to grow out you can just touch it up every now and then! I love it!!!!!

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