It may come as a shock to you all, but I am not a natural redhead. I know. Who knew? Well, I get asked about my hair quite a lot though, so I thought I'd do a bit of a post about it.
My natural colour is a medium-dark brown, if you're curious (
and don't remember). I've dyed my hair for pretty much all of my 20s, ever since I realised that first, flukeish grey hair at age 19 had multiplied. If I left my hair to its natural devices, I don't think I'd even be a quarter grey, but on the occasions I've left it a little long between dye jobs, those silvery strands are getting more and more noticeable (but don't cry for me, Argentina - I'd much rather be grey than bald!).
My favourite brown hair dye is Maple Syrup by Garnier Nutrisse, which fades to a really warm colour with auburn tones.
I was trying to go red for a while - subtly red - and the colours just weren't taking. My friend Rachel recommended I tried Schwarzkopf, saying it was 1) brilliant and 2) cheap, so I picked up this (on offer in Wilkinsons at £2 a box) and gave it a shot.
This colour is very vibrant - it doesn't look remotely natural, but I always quite liked that. It actually turned out that the colour my friend recommended wasn't the above, though (which was the shade I used for most of last year), but this one. I gave it a go. Why not?
It's a lot more plummy, but I was taken aback by its staying power. It didn't fade much at all, and it was only when my roots started to get ridic that I redyed.
Schwarzkopf is great because it's really cheap and often on offer in Wilkinsons. I flipping love Wilkinsons. I have long, thick hair, so I need two boxes - if you have long hair and are changing to a colour drastically different from your own, use two boxes or you'll end up with patchy colour. You can't really use TOO much dye.
I dye my hair about once a month. Fading combined with root regrowth means it becomes a necessity. I have bad roots
here and
here if you are thinking 'I have never noticed your roots before!'. You get a better result when you go professional, but box dyes are SO much cheaper. I know people who spend around £100 getting their hair dyed - the most I spend is around £10 for two boxes. And that's the PRICEY stuff.
On
Elizabeth's recommendation, I also tried this colour. It was super vibrant, but I was starting to get sick of the unnatural reds. And this one... well.
After that,
I got my hair dyed professionally - I had bleached strands woven through, so the copper colour came out really ginger. I was slightly horrified for the first day - it was much lighter than I anticipated - but then I realised how much I liked it. I didn't stick with it due to not having time to get to the hairdresser, and the roots came through SO obviously because it so much lighter than my natural colour, which I didn't like. Bloody roots! You ruin everything!
About a week before I'd got my hair dyed professionally,
Amy and I stalked a girl at the
Motel Blogger event and Amy found out the shade she used, so as soon as I re-dyed, I went for it. Funnily enough,
Ellie uses this shade too - it's funny because Amy and I both see Ellie a lot, I'm surprised we didn't make the connection!
It's L'Oreal Mango - it looks orange on the bottle but it is the closest my hair has got to AUBURN, which is what I've always wanted. I really want my hair just to look naturally red, but it's incredibly hard to achieve. This is my favourite shade of box dye that I've used, and after the first couple of washes, it fades from being mad bright to a more Christina Hendricks shade.
Currently, I'm using Nice 'n' Easy Warm Auburn, which previously turned my hair a warm brown. But after making my hair be red for the last year and a half, it went ahead and stayed red. I think I might have reset myself to ginger.
I was debating re-embracing being brunette again, but whaddya know? I kind of like it red.
PS - A bunch of people have been doing sponsored posts about hairdye recently. Not me, I just really like talking about hair.