Haircare series: My Hair Horror story

Hey Beauties,

Welcome to my Haircare series! This is a series where I will share my hair story and how to take care of your hair for your best hair yet. I will also be doing reviews and sharing my favourite products for you lovely people out there. Stay tuned for tips and tricks that will help with all hair types that I’ve learned about along the way.

So this is a story about a girl who decided that change would be the best for her and it turned out to be one of the worst hair experiences of her life! And how I’m still paying for it two years later…

BusyBrunette and I in varsity. What my hair looked like before the cut.

I have always been a blonde ever since the day I was born and it stayed blonde until my early 20’s. Majority of the time I let my mom control the style and length because, let’s face it, Mom knows best! As early as the age of 13 my friends began experimenting with their hair, doing the drastic change from mousy blonde to black and then back to blonde. I was extremely jealous and all I wanted was that freedom… Fast forward a few years and here I am crying about the fact that I wanted to be an adult and finally decided that I was in control of my own hair. BIG MISTAKE!

Rocking the purple.

Another thing about me is that I’ve always had long hair. I cut it short once and regretted it so badly but in 2015 I decided “aggh, you know what? Hair grows! So what if I cut it short, it’s a change.” again BIG MISTAKE. My hair is still shoulder length after 2 long years. Why? Well because my hairstylist took advantage of the fact that I was looking for a change and suggested a purple temporary dye that she assured me would wash out in a month. Being a hair colour virgin, having a temporary colour was a huge step but I wanted something different. I didn’t want a plain Jane hair cut and colour anymore. I absolutely loved the purple, It made me feel wild. 😉

Regrowth and faded purple.

So after about two months my hair was growing out and my hair was a faded purple, not rinsed out just slightly faded. If any blonde knows (which I didn’t btw because I was not educated in hair colouring) is that it grows out significantly lighter and makes you look like your hair is falling out/ or that you are experiencing balding. I ran (I didn’t actually) straight to my hairdresser begging her to fix it. To which she suggested a bleach rinse, assuring me it would come out and after a few rinses my hair was still faded purple. 😦

My hair went orange with the first bleach.

So she suggested to bleach it and yes, you guessed it, *another* BIG MISTAKE. My hair turned highlighter ORANGE. Apparently, if you have red undertones in your hair it goes orange! So she bleached it again to get the orange out and I had my hair toned, I walked away a platinum blonde. Little did I know that when my hair grew out it would look like a constant grease pit because my hair was a shade darker than the hair that was bleached. I was constantly asked, “When last did you wash your hair?” This didn’t sit well with me at all.

Reverse Ombre

Long story short I tried reverse ombre to combat the regrowth, attempting to not touch the new hair. After a year and a bit of cutting it short, I realised my hair was not growing. It was still shoulder length and it wasn’t working for me, it was supposed to be waaay past my shoulders and reaching my bra strap (my expectations). So I decided to change my stylist. Everything was going great, he fixed my hair colour, it was in a great style and it was growing so long just in the few months that I had been with him. I was really happy until… the red hair trend came in. “Let’s try a semi permanent dye I said, it washes out in 10 washes I said” (not learning my lesson from the purple stage). I dyed my hair a semi permanent red, it was natural and promised to not damage my hair. It looked really great and I got so many compliments until it washed out and stopped washing out. My blonde regrowth reared it’s ugly head again and I had rose gold hair, so I went to the hairdresser for a bleach wash that I was sure would wash it out.

My hair after the red semi permanent colour. look at the length!

I was wrong it didn’t wash out and the bleach rinse didn’t help so my hair needed to be stripped once again.  It was bleached again, I was really hoping that my hair would behave but it turned orange and it needed to be bleached twice. After a month I started noticing long split ends from the damage of the bleach so it was back to shoulder length. To my long beautiful hair, I’m so sorry I never left you alone, I should’ve just listened when I was warned. Sorry I didn’t listen to you mom, YOU were right! (It’s in writing now)  But now I’m on a hair journey to get it back to the state it was in before I decided I needed a change. So no more temporary hair dyes and no more bleaches.

My hair now. Almost healthy and happy!

So as you can see, my hair and I had some ups and downs. When I had dyed it, I was very chuffed and I absolutely loved the change. I lost my length and I’m working through the damage. I haven’t touched my hair since besides mixing my own purple shampoo and a good trim every so often. It’s healthy and happy now, hopefully it starts to grow and at some point will return to its original state. 🙂

P.S yes I am a drama queen 😉

 So what did I learn?

1. Change is as good as a holiday, but sometimes change isn’t as good and you have to learn from your mistakes.
2. Talk to your hairdresser, learn your hair profile. Like myself, my red undertones made taking the colour out really difficult.
3. If you have blonde hair, do not dye your hair with semi permanent dyes. They don’t wash out.
4. Listen to your mom, she probably knows best.
5. Don’t make rash decisions on your hair even if it’s trendy. 99% of the time you will regret it. Think about it for a while.
6. Learn about what’s good for your hair type. Find good products that won’t cause more damage to your hair.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. It is part one of my haircare series. Let me know what you thought of it and what your horror hair stories are! I’d love to hear from you. Let’s talk in the comments below. 🙂

Chevy 🙂