Damnit! There aren't enough bloggings about red hair!

This last week has been a pretty rough one. I just had 2 days off work after working 8 days in a row, for starters, and so much other crap has been happening along the way that I can't do anything about!

So, I've decided to start writing about this awesome Red Hair adventure since that's definitely what it has been the past few weeks.

Beginning: My hair had been black for quite a few months with frequent dye upkeep and I had tried going red so many times before, I'm thinking at least 5 times.. but it was never quite red. I had been letting my hair grow out and the black fade for about one month before I decided I was too impatient to wait any longer and I just went for it. I had researched for hours about different Red permanent dyes, when I finally came up with some positive feedback on a particular dye, and once I looked that up I found even more positive responses!! So I went up to a Sally's Beauty Supply (and if you don't know what a Sallys is, you need to find out ASAP. It's a great way to get everything in one trip and at low prices. Which is great for red!) and purchased two boxes of the dye, a new mixing bowl, and some 30 developer.  I decided to try one over the roots and black in my hair knowing it probably wouldn't affect the black, but was pleased with the color it turned my natural hair, without even having to bleach!

Actually going Red from black. Bleaching: You always know how fun it is to bleach your hair... T_T Spend an hour covering you're whole head and another hour to pull out all that dye, then about a week feeling like you've only got straw on your head. It's dreadful. I wasn't expecting much when I bleached my hair the next day after doing the red over the black, and to my surprise it came out pretty well. I bought a box bleach kit from a drugstore. I'm pretty sure it was  L'Oreal. I put as much of it as I could through out my hair using a tint brush and put a plastic bag on my head and released the air from it. Then waited... Rinsed it out and conditioned with the conditioner that came in the box. In this photo my hair is still wet so it appears slightly darker. It was very orange, but that was okay with me since I was going red anyways.

Red Dye: I still had one box of dye so a day later I went red. It was definitely a little light when it first came out, but was expected after bleaching. I was none the less satisfied because my hair was finally red! You can tell the red was definitely new because I was still rockin black eyebrows ;P .. looks a little odd. I've since then switched em up to match. :)

Red Fade: The red in the photo above faded quite quickly.. I believe 2 washes! Ouch! After all that time and damage to my hair I was bummed. :( So I decided to switch to another color I had been considering that was very similar. It turned out AWESOME. Just the color I was looking for. It has more of a blue, magenta hue rather than the copper, orange like before. 

More Fade!!: This problem had been driving me nuts.. especially because I couldn't find any good information... until I sat through, like, a 15 minute video that just so happened to bring up my concern. My hair was only fading in the lower back center of my hair, and the tips... but everything else looked absolutely great! Wtf? The solution I eventually came up with was Red Protein Filler for your hair. They have it in neutral as well. I haven't seen the full potential it has held but I decided to try it out. I put it on my dry, unwashed, faded hair only on the orange-blonde faded spots and let it sit for probably an hour. Then I put my regular dye over the protein filler and let that sit (also with a bag on my head).  I almost forgot to take a photo, so I took it mid-protein filler. The orange color was lighter than that even, poor lighting! The darker color is where I had applied the protein filler already:

When I went to wash it out, I did not use shampoo, I rinsed and massaged it all out and used a hair treatment cream that I also got at Sally's just to try. Intense repair for dry damaged hair. It was by Ion. I mixed a good amount of the RED protein filler (I also bought two of these they are only a little over $5 each) with the ion conditioning treatment and only used that. I let it sit for about 10 minutes, possibly a few minutes longer. I towel dried my hair then let it air dry. It felt better. Not extremely, but after all that it didn't feel like straw much any more, if at all. :) I was satisfied. I've been rocking the new color for about 3 days and have not needed to wash yet. If you think that's gross, please try having red hair. :) Luckily my hair doesn't get very greasy to begin with.

The color is very vibrant where I applied the filler so it's still a little brighter than the top. Depending on how badly it fades out (crossing my fingers hoping it won't fade too bad) will determine if I try the protein filler again or go darker. I have one more trick up my sleeve in case of extreme fade. But I'm not an expert and all of these tactics have been self taught over hours slaving away on research and trial and error experiences. My head has been just about every color of the damn rainbow and so far no color has been this much of an issue... But it's just too damn sexy. ;D

I'll keep you all updated. Especially about the filler and fade. <3

xx