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.