From Black, To Red, To Blonde

Well... I've gone and done it again. Yet another drastic hair change which I'm quite in love with. I decided to go back to blonde. Which I will tell you was not an easy feat. 

A few weeks ago one of the stylists (Cute Scottish Andrew) asked if I'd ever been platinum. I actually thought about it and I never really have been. I've been very very blonde, but never a solid blonde or platinum. I always get really blonde via bleachouts and then highlighting, never just bleaching and toning. 

After this lovely little platinum seed was planted in the back of my brain I sort of became very settled on the idea of being blonde again. Afterall, it's been an entire full year since I was last blonde.

So yesterday I made a trip to the salon. Unfortunately Andrew was booked solid (well, fortunate for him, unfortunate for me who had major "I want to change my look drastically" fever.) Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for our cute little Irish stylist Bernice, one of her clients no-showed so she was able to start my hair for me. I actually haven't really had the chance to get to know Bernice since we work different days at different locations but I gotta say, I absolutely adored her! She's the sweetest girl on the planet. 

Yesterday she spent 2 hours doing the first initial bleach out. The first inch of root near my scalp lifted to a perfect pale yellow, but my ends however were orange. I decided that instead of toning my hair last night that I would leave it like that over night and do another bleach out today. Basically my options were "either wait a night and get it a blonde you actually want, or tone it right this minute and end up with a darker colour than you were hoping for." I knew that pulling the red out of my hair would be hard and I was going to try to get as white as possible, but I was also prepared to potentially be a level darker than my goal level.

The condition of my hair is pretty good considering all that I do to it. I've only used demi-permanent dyes for the last 2 and a half months, and my hair is short so it is quite healthy. I also only shampoo my hair twice a week, I condition at least 4-7 times a week, and always use proper heat protecting products. On top of that, my hair is tough as nails so a double bleach out it was! 

But, in order to be a good hairdresser I cancelled my original date night (cause god knows I wasn't about to let a boy see me with white and orange hair!) and hung out with my hairdresser friends Jamie and Lisa instead. Before I left the salon I loaded on a deep conditioner and put my toque on and didn't wash it off until the next morning. When I got home I loaded on some Joico K-PAK Reconstructor (which is pure keratin protein basically) as well just to make sure that while my cuticle was wide open from being bleached out I could load as much protein and moisturizing agents into the actual hair shaft as possible before putting it through another damaging process.

So I woke up this morning, washed out the conditioners and headed to the salon. I was there for 4 hours this time. I only put bleach on the orange ends and left it on for about an hour before deciding it wasn't going to get any lighter, then had Katya throw on a toner, and then Bernice came back and cut it for me. 

I'm absolutely in love with the cut and colour. Katya and I picked some great toners (I used 2 colours for one side of my head, and 2 colours for the other side) in order to even out the tone as much as possible, and I love the cut Bernice did. She got exactly what I had in mind and really understood that my hair needs to be texturized like a son of a bitch. I have loads of hair so with short haircuts like mine, texturizing is necessary.

Anyways, after spending 6 hours in the salon, and a couple of days prepping my hair for the massive bleachout, this is what I've ended up with! 

 I have a little tail on the left side of my head. Taking pictures of the back of your head -- not so easy. The right side and all the way around the back of my head is undercut... The back mostly gets undercut because I have a retarded hairline (it grows in about 360 different directions) so I pretty much have to shave it so that the rest of my hair lies properly.

So there you have it. As you can see I still have some spots that are a little caramelly but it gives it some dimension for now. I'm just going to continue bleaching and toning my roots until the end colour grows out and I will be all white! Yaaay!

I kind of missed being a blonde.