Grey Hair.

Wheee, so I finally exiled the blonde from my hair. It was a short lived, cutesy thing, but blonde really just isn't my colour.

To explain this simply, I used the exact same products I used to get it blonde, to make it grey, just in different ratios. The mixture I concocted was as follows:

15mL of Wella Color Charm Additive 050 Cooling Violet
15mL of Wella Color Charm Liquid Toner T14 Pale Ash Blonde
60mL of 20 vol. developer. (I used Ice Cream, a European brand, but it doesn't matter what brand you use.)

The amounts you use will vary for how much hair you have, this mixture makes a rather small batch, because for hair my length, I don't have much (it's all been shaved or broken off). The main point is 1 part 050, 1 part T14, and 4 parts developer.

You can use any level of developer, the darker your hair, the higher the developer you should use, but my hair is really fried, so even though I favour 30 and 40, I went with 20 this time. (Also I'm out of 30).

I bleached my hair prior, but I only did the dark bits (where my hair was stained green, and I'm "gently" trying to remove it) and my roots, if your hair is platinum or near-white, it'll work, but if your hair is coppery, ginger, red, orange, or brown in any way, THIS WILL NOT WORK. Your hair must be near white or platinum blonde.

I left it on for 45 minutes, no heat, then washed with shampoo and conditioner.

All products can easily be purchased at Sally Beauty Supply.

Toning Products for Colour Maintenance

After dying my hair the last time, I noticed it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep my hair grey and prevent it from going blonde in the grey parts and brassy in the blonde parts.

It's no secret that I rarely wash my hair, I only shampoo it once a week, and when I do, I use Daddy-O shampoo by Lush, it is a purple shampoo that is made to tone brassy platinum or grey hair. Like a lot of purple shampoos, it is quite drying, so I follow it up with a really thick conditioner like Marc Anthony Be Ageless or Got2B Hottie conditioner.

During the week if my hair does get dirty (I've been working all week, so stuff happens), I was it with Lush Veganese conditioner, and then condition it with John Frieda Sheer Blonde Colour Renew Tone Restoring Conditioner (holy crap, that's a long name), you don't need to use conditioner after using Veganese, but I do anyway.

One thing I noticed about the John Frieda conditioner, was that the product is the exact same colour as Manic Panic Virgin Snow temporary toner.

When I get out of the shower, I use the Fanciful Temporary Hair Colour in Silver Lining, this adds some amazing grey highlights into your hair, provided it is light enough, your hair has to already be extremely light for it to make your hair grey, so it's not a miracle product.

I also use the (get ready for this, take a deep breath) John Frieda Sheer Blonde Colour Renew Tone Restoring Mousse to thicken my hair and also to tone out a little more blonde.

Overall, I use a lot of products, but most of them only replace non-toning products, with the exception of the temporary hair colour, that, plus the fact that I am a huge drama queen, means that this isn't too much for me to deal with.

Products Mentioned:
Lush Daddy-O shampoo (Lush stores) - $9.95-$29.95
Marc Anthony Be Ageless Conditioner (drugstores) - $9-$15
Lush Veganese Conditioner (Lush stores) - $9.95-$29.95
John Frieda Sheer Blonde Colour Renew Tone Restoring Conditioner (drugstores) - $9-$15
Manic Panic Virgin Snow (Sally Beauty) - $13
Fanciful Temporary Hair Colour Silver Lining (Sally Beauty/drugstores) - $7-$10
John Frieda Sheer Blonde Colour Renew Tone Restoring Mousse (drugstores) - $9-$15

Developer Debate, Bleach.

I wanted to help you to quell some of your fears about choosing the right developer for bleaching your hair. But first off, I wanted to tell you that it's really not that big of a deal, you will get similar results no matter what you use, it just may take more time.

Cream or Clear?

Developer comes in clear and cream forms. Clear is usually cheaper, and is basically just peroxide and water. Cream developer is similar, but it also contains conditioning ingredients, buffers, and glycerin. So cream developer is much better for bleaching hair, and makes everything a lot easier to use. 

Developer, cream or clear, also comes in different strengths, or "volumes". 10, 20, 30, 40 volume. The volume describes what percentage of the developer is peroxide. 10 volume is 3% peroxide, 20 is 6%, 30 is 9% and 40 is 12%, some places do have 50 volume, which is 15%, but it is usually only available to real professionals. 

I like to generally say that anyone can use 30 volume, it is a good standard that I always have a big bottle of around the house. If you're trying to go to "pale yellow" the colour to dye your hair any bright colour, 30 volume should be good if your hair is any shade of "brown" from a dark, chocolatey brown to a light brown, 30 volume should do the trick. 

If your hair is quite light already, you may prefer to use 20 or 10, but to be quite honest, I've never used either with bleach. 

If your hair looks black or really dark brown, save yourself a lot of time and go with 40 volume. 

My hair is really dark, it is black, thick and coarse, so bleaching it is a pain in the ass. To get my hair "pale yellow" enough to dye it pink, I bleached my hair twice with 40 volume. To get my hair as light as it is now, it's been bleached about somewhere between 4 to 7 times, with mostly 40 and occasionally 30 volume. 

Depending on how you bleach your hair, depends on how much you're going to have to do it. Freshly bleached hair doesn't bleach as much as dirty, stale hair, so waiting a few days in between bleachings may give you better results. 

I would highly recommend that you keep different developers around, especially if you typically need to use 40 volume. I always have a big ass bottle (946mL) of 30 and 40, and a small one shot bottle (120mL) of 20 volume. You may find one day when your hair still needs to be bleached, but 40 would produce too much lightening, and 30 will be better.

THE CONFUSING PART. 

You can achieve the same end result with 20 volume that you can with 40 volume but you would have to use 20 volume more times that 40 volume.

Some people think that it is better for your hair to bleach many times (waiting time in between) with a lower developer than to use a stronger developer once. 

Review: Lush Veganese Conditioner

I'm going to start this review off by saying I know that this product sports a luxury price tag that is out of most people's budgets. I just work more than I should so I can afford it.

The conditioner is available at any Lush store, as well as from the Lush cosmetics website, in three different sizes.
100 mL for $9.95
250 mL for $19.95
500 mL for $29.95

The main ingredients in Veganese are lavender, sea weed, citrus, and rosemary. This is a completely vegan conditioner (hence the name).

The main purpose of this conditioner is to be an ultra lightweight conditioner for people with fine hair to give them lots of volume.

If you've read any of my posts or ever seen a picture of me, you can probably guess that "lightweight" does not mean a conditioner that would be particularly helpful to me. I have thick, coarse, bleached out hair that is damaged beyond return. And this conditioner is actually one of my favourite hair products. Especially in the "Shampoo, Conditioner, Hair Mask" department.

By now, you've probably hear of Wen, Hair One or the L'oreal Cleansing conditioners. They are becoming quite trendy for healthy hair methods.

Cleansing conditioners are sort of the healthier, newer version of 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioners, but these are more conditioner than shampoo, and that's actually why I love this conditioner.

Veganese as a post-shampoo conditioner really only works if your hair does not need any conditioner, just something to smooth it out when you're done, and in that case, why drop the cash on a conditioner at all? But for someone like me, using the Veganese conditioner actually takes the place of both my shampoo and my conditioner, so I'm only buying one product, which makes the price tag a little easier to swallow.

To use it as a cleansing conditioner, simply get into the shower, wet your hair, and apply the conditioner, but instead of smoothing it on like a regular conditioner, lather it up like a shampoo, and then leave it in while you do your other shower-type stuff, rinse it out before you get out of the shower, and you're good to go.

As a cleansing conditioner, I found that this leaves my hair incredibly clean. but also well conditioned, seeing as I didn't strip it with a shampoo before using it. The fact that it also has my favourite scent (citrus) doesn't hurt either.

How to: Grey-Blonde Hair

So, I finally got my hair to a colour that I really really like. The lavender was something I got to by accident and just decided to live with. But this colour is staying!

It's kind of a mix of grey and blonde, my god father called it "grlonde", but I just think it looks awesome.

The first thing you'll need to do, is bleach the bejeezes out of your hair until it is pretty much white. I know what you're thinking, "I'm Asian, my hair doesn't go white!" oh yes darling, it does! You just need to bleach it, a lot. It'll probably fry if you've bleached it before (go all crispy and crazy coarse) but if you're careful it'll all go swell.

I only used two products to get my hair my perfect colour, and I was so happy! (Well, three, if you include developer.)

I used the Wella Colour Charm Liquid permanent toner in T14 Palest Ash blonde or Silver Lady. As opposed to the more popular T18 Lightest Ash Blonde or White Lady. With the 050 Cooling Violet additive.

So once my hair was bleached to hell and back, I mixed a whole bottle of the T17 with 30 volume creme developer (2:1 ratio, developer to colour) then I added in three capfuls of the 050 and mixed. This gave me way more than I needed, but if your hair is the same length as mine, you should probably still use this amount. (Bear in mind that I have a lot of hair shaved off the sides and the nape, and that my hair is cut into a mullet, so the longer hair is super thin.)

I left that in my hair for about an hour, to my pleasure, the dye developed into a dark grey colour, rather than the purple that the T18 gave me. I rinsed my hair and did all my normal stuff, I didn't really get to see the true result until this morning (my hair takes forever and a half to dry) and I absolutely love it. :)

The products I used:
Wella Colour Charm T14 - $6.79
Wella Colour Charm 050 - $6.79
Salon Care Developer, 30 Volume (price varies on size, but I used less than 100mL)

Not a huge price tag, seeing as I always have developer at home, and the bottle of 050 additive will last at least two more treatments.

How I Got My Hair Lavender-Blonde

First off, you're gonna need to bleach the crap out of your hair until it is a light blonde, or almost white. If you don't know how to bleach hair, click here! Then, the dying begins.

So, your hair is bleached, then you're going to need to tone it so its a paler, more even tone of blonde, I used the Wella Colour Charm Toner T18 Lightest Ash Blonde, it used to be called "White Lady" so if your see anyone talking about White Lady, that's how to find it, they changed the name. To be quite honest, you could do this without the toner, but the toner did make my hair more even and a slightly lighter "blonde" colour (but not white by any means whatsoever).

Then you want to mix a tiny bit of purple dye into a big bowl of conditioner or hair mask. I use hair masks, because that way you're leaving the hair mask in your hair, so you are conditioning your hair and dying it, (hello, double whammy AND time saver? Thank you.) You want the dye to come out a pastel purple colour, slightly darker than you want your hair. To test it, take a small amount of your pastel hair colour, and smear it on a white paper towel, the colour it comes out, is how it'll look over white hair, so remember to keep in mind that your hair is very light blonde, almost white, but not quite white.

Start off by using the smallest amount of hair dye that you can pick up, then gradually add more until you get the colour you want.

For an uneven looks with lots of highlights etc. use a brush and apply to dry clean hair (shampoo, no conditioner, no product) where you lay the brush down, the purple will stick, and create streaks that will be more purple than others.

For a more even application, use your hands and apply to damp, clean (shampoo, no conditioner, no product) hair.

To lightly tone your hair, leave it in for about 10-20 minutes, for purple/lavender hair, leave in for anywhere from 45mins or longer, (seriously, you can leave this in for 8 hours if you want to.)

Rinse with water, try not to shampoo unless you have to, and enjoy (:

Products Mentioned/Recommended

Salon Care Blue Flash Bleach Powder (Sally Beauty) - $27.49 for a 1lbs tub (this will last forever).
Salon Care Developer (30 and 40 volume depends on your hair) (Sally Beauty) - $6.79 for 946 mL (Will probably last 1-2 years)
Wella Colour Charm T18 (Sally Beauty) - $6.79
ANY CONDITIONER.
Lush Veganese Conditioner (Lush) - $29.95 for 500mL (It's expensive, but I use it as a hair treatment)
Raw Deep Purple (Hot Topic) - $11.95

Basics, How to Bleach hair.

To bleach your hair, you NEED (absolutely with out a doubt, you can't get around it) a few things.

• Bleach Powder
• You have three options for colour, white, violet, and blue. Blue bleaches are usually the strongest, then white, then violet. I only recommend violet for highlighting already light hair or toning purposes, otherwise, go for blue or white. My favourite bleach is Salon Care Blue Flash ($28 at Sally Beauty). 
• Liquid Developer
• These come in two types, and each type comes in four strengths. There is creme developer and clear, for bleaching ALWAYS use creme developer, it have more buffers and conditioners, using clear developer will allow the bleach to eat right through your hair. Then there are different volumes 10, 20, 30, and 40. 10 is the weakest, 40 is the strongest. You need to use some discretion with this, but I personally use 40 most of the time, sometimes 30. 
• Something to mix in.
• Use a plastic bowl. Any bowl as long as it's plastic, and no one will miss.
• Something to mix with.
• You can use your tint brush if you have one, if you don't a plastic spoon will work.
• Gloves
• You can buy gloves pretty much anywhere you can buy the bleach and developer, or you can do it the hardcore way and snatch a few from work, or get a friend to if they work at Subway or something. If you get your hands on a pair of thick latex (or whatever) gloves, keep them even if they say they're disposable, don't throw them out until they tear or something.   

You can buy bleach kits, but pay attention to what they include. Most regular strength ones give you 30 vol. developer, "extra strength" kits offer 40 vol. They also usually include gloves, and maybe a small tint brush. If you're only bleaching your hair once, they're fine, but prolonged use will cost you way more money than it's worth. 

Then there are some things your should have, that you can skip if you really don't want to use them.

• Tint brush
• Really handy to have around, (I have three), they're great for mixing your bleach concoction, and really helpful for getting product around your roots. You may find that you don't like to use them, but personally, I like to use the brush to apply to my roots, and then blend it out with my hands. 
• Paper towels/old towels no one likes
• For cleaning up bleach messes, drying your hair, and all the good towel-y stuff things you can do with them. 
• Baby wipes
• These are great to keep on hand to wipe off quick messes of bleach, but also if you get and bleach on your skin, you need something wet to remove it, otherwise it will continue to burn, baby wipes will make quick work, then you can wash it with soap and water when you're done applying. 
• Foil
• Ah, the foil debate. First off, buying hair foils can make your job go by faster and be neater. But it's also a huge waste of money. Cutting strips of cheap foil will work great as well. Foil is good for making sure you get all your hair evenly coated and also helping the bleach to process faster. Good for if you're bleaching a lot of long hair, not necessary for bleaching roots.
• Shower Caps
• I always like to wear a shower cap, just because it's good to keep your bleached hair from touching your chair or your walls or anything. They also keep heat and moisture in. If bleach dries on your hair it will fry your hair more than it'll lighten it, so once it dries, wash out and reapply. Heat helps the bleach to process faster, so that's also why foils help and why your roots will bleach faster than the rest of your hair.

To begin bleaching: 

YOUR HAIR: should be dirty, or at least not freshly washed and dry. You can have as much product in it as you want, as long as it's kind of dirty. Comb through it to make sure it is a tangle free as possible. If you're bleaching your hair more than once in one day, I recommend using conditioner when you wash through, and loading your hair up with cheap serum. If you just washed out a bleach job, blowdry it or wait until it's dry before you bleach again.

THE BLEACH: depending on your bleach, your may need different amounts of developer to bleach powder. Generally, start with 1:1 ratio, and then you might have to add more developer or powder. Or just read the directions. And mix until it's smooth, no lumps. (Tip: add small amounts of developer, mix, then add a little more, it takes longer, but it'll be a lot easier to smooth out). Some people prefer a thicker bleach mixture, others a thinner, but it's up to you. 

APPLICATION: 

General bleaching: If you're bleaching all of your hair, there's no "proper" way to start (back to front, front to back) but I like to split my hair in 2-3 inch horizontal sections, then split those vertical sections to apply the bleach to the length. I start from the back, and work my way up to the crown of my head, then I just do vertical sections for the top. 

Using your tint brush (or your hands) start applying the bleach about two inches from your roots, and work it downwards to the tips, and then go back and cover the roots. This way, you'll end up with the most even bleach coverage. 

Root touch up: I still like to start from the back to the front, using the same kind of sections as before, but when I do my roots, I only apply bleach to the roots. I personally apply the bleach to my roots, then pull any excess a little onto the length so it blends, but some people have other ways of doing it that will end up with less damage to your hair. 

WAITING: How long you leave the bleach on depends on your hair and which developer you are using. If you're only lightening it a little bit, make sure you check often. If you're trying to go from black to blonde, (or any extreme lightening) you may find that after an hour or so, the bleach had dried out and your hair still isn't light enough. Wash it out and reapply. I usually tell people to set a timer for 45 minutes, at 45, if your hair is perfect, go ahead and wash it out (duh), if it's nearly there, leave it on for another 15 minutes to make a full hour, if it's not even close, wash it out, and reapply the bleach, fresh bleach is more effective than dried out bleach.

WASHING OUT: When you go to wash the bleach out, use cool-lukewarm water (as cool as you can stand for however long it'll take you.) but not cold. Hot water will burn and cold water will make it impossible to wash out. Gently shampoo your hair to get all traces of bleach out (I really like to use baby shampoo for this step), especially if this is your last bleach before you dye your hair. If you're going to use a normal hair dye or more bleach (normal hair dye, anything you mix with developer), go ahead and use conditioner to make your hair a little easier to work with. If you're going to use a conditioning creme dye (Manic Panic, Raw, Directions, Special Effects) or a hair mask skip conditioner and go on. 

POST BLEACHING: I really don't recommend walking around with bleached hair, that hasn't been toned or dyed. If want wait to bleach your hair another day before dying, you can tone it, but I suppose it's not necessary. But your final product should be dyed or at least toned.