Hair Transformation

It was time for a change. A hair change. I, typically, do my hair myself or let one of my dearest friends who just so happens to be a Hair Guru do some of the more difficult stuff when she has time. As far as cutting and color I've been doing a lot of it on my own lately. Truthfully though, with color I've just not been keeping it up as much. Got a lot on my plate right now, had surgery for a port to be put in, have the same super infection for the 4th time, hospital stays, etc etc. So thanks to my mother, she talked me into making an appointment to get my hair colored and cut at an actual salon as a "pick me up" type thing. I mean who doesn't feel more confident when fresh new styled hair? It didn't take long for me to agree and thus I did what every girl with social media or access to the internet does....I hit up Pinterest. 

 I knew that I wanted something a little edgy, a bit trendy but subtle, and a splash of color. We all know how much I love color. For years I'd kept my hair brown, red brown, auburn, or ashy brown. I didn't usually get too far from "brown" though. I'm not one for highlights of blond, I did try that a few times and it didn't suit me. Darker colors have always been my area.

I thought about all the trends I was seeing from: ombre to oil slick, pastel unicorn hair to grey ashy based hair, so on so forth. Then I ran across a picture of a "steel blue" color after tons of bright vivid blues and purples. The steel blue was so subtle but still noticeable, it had that edge I was looking for and it wasn't over the top, super trendy, either because it was so subtle. 

Above we have some before and after pictures. I had no idea how reddish brown my hair actually was until it was side by side with the new soft black and blue tinted hair. Plus we added some higher layers to it. The cool part about this is the color shifts depending what color shirt I wear. If I wear a greenish blue shirt my hair looks more teal, if I wear a sky blue my hair looks like a ashy blue, if I wear black it's not incredibly noticeable because then it's like a dark navy. For that alone I really like the transition. Now I wouldn't say this is a typical ombre, we sliced some blue in the top parts of my hair as well. A standard ombre is usually just a gradient fade that changes to a completely different color at the end of the hair. If it's done correctly it looks seamless and beautiful, if you're not careful it can look rather harsh with no blending or fading to your bottom color. So this style in particular is a bit more natural as far as placement goes. There's nothing natural about blue hair I know, but you catch my drift. The blue is not so concentrated on the ends of the hair but more throughout the hair but not to the root. Plus not all the ends are blue some are just the soft black with a bit of blue peaking in hear and there. 

That being said, even though we went several levels darker than my previous color to this, we still had to lift the hair some so that the blue would actually look noticeable and not just tinted. We did a very low volume of 2 to bleach some of the pieces and even then my hair stylist kept checking it and only let it sit for about 5-10 minutes, so there was no damage to the hair. When we washed out the bleach she cut in the layers I wanted before coloring the hair as to not waste product and have a better idea of where she would be placing the color after seeing how the hair laid. She used Paul Mitchell color I believe for the soft black and Pravana Vivids for the blue hues. Which always seems to make the hair look very shiny and healthy afterwards. 

She did the entire color (soft black and blue) at the same time and let it sit for about 30-40 minutes. The thing with brighter colors is that, they are going to fade. No matter what. Most color fades eventually but bright colors fade faster than anything. So color care shampoos are a must. The soft black won't fade very much or maybe barely any at all but the blue will lighten probably, which is good because then it will be even more noticeable. It's important, I feel, to give yourself that flexibility and space to where it's ok for you're hair to lighten up or fade a bit. I actually prefer it that way as opposed to knowing its going to look amazing and perfect the day I do it and then when I wash it, I'll be less satisfied. So in that respect I'd rather go a little darker while still in the realm of what I wanted, knowing that in a few weeks it's going to fade and stay the lighter version for longer. See what I'm saying?

Also know that, this could also take a series of sessions depending on what you wanted done. So before doing this make sure you're ready to commit to maybe 2-3 sessions of lightening the hair before getting the results you want. You don't want to jeopardize the health of your hair by being too impatient with it and not letting it have a rest from bleach and what have you. Mainly because if you've done a lot of color in your life the ends of the hair is what hold the most of that color as the root of the hair is new growth and has no color on it. So to color the ends only, you'll need to take some of that color off to be able to get the desired effect and so that the hair will take more color and keep more of the color you're wanting.

This is the second run of "refreshing the color". It took on a more teal look, and in some areas it was more like an oil slick vibe. We did some experimenting and put a blue tinted soft black on the hair we didn't lighten it any the second time so that my hair could "rest". The brighter shades she was using on me was from the Pravana ChromaSilk Vivids line of course. The black I believe was Paul Mitchell color again. The thing that I think really changed the tint of my hair and made it have so much more dimensional was we put some heat on it for about 10-15 minutes. That's with the blue tint all over my hair. You wouldn't think that would make much difference but it really did in my opinion and then we washed it out cold of course to close the cuticle of the hair again. When we were done we had an array of color shifts in my hair and now nearly two months later it's still holding strong. It looks super cool.

I want to quickly say how awesome my salon is and if you're in my area then definitely check them out: His and Hers Salon. I'll link their facebook page here. They are all super talented and special thanks to Vannah for always taking care of me and for turning my hair into a very awesome cut, style, and color. 

So the color care that I use is broke down into a home routine and then a travel routine because there's a lot of times I'm not home. 

At home I use: Amika Color pHerfection Shampoo (it's a thin consistency which I don't like cause I feel like it doesn't lather really well but my color hasnt budged) 
Then I use Amika Nourishing Mask. I swear by this for everybody. It hasn't hindered my color, it's made my hair grow I'm certain and if I don't use it my hair gets super dry and frizzy. I never used conditioner or anything before I got this. Now I can't go without it. It can be used as a mask or a conditioner either one. They can be found at Sephora or Amazon.

When I'm away from home I use the travel size of StriVectin for color treated hair. It smells awesome and it comes in individual or a trio set at Sephora as well.

I don't use a ton of heat on my hair. I rarely blow dry it. I do curl it but usually just once a week. Even then I use a thermal heat protectant spray like the Paul Mitchell one. I wash my hair about every 3 days or so. I always use plenty of conditioner now and let it sit on there for a few minutes. I occasionally do a DIY hair mask from Pinterest. Usually involving eggs or something and that really makes a difference as far as having shiny, healthy hair.