Ombré Hair Care

Hello m'lovelies! So as most of you are aware about two months ago I gave in and got on the ombré hair bandwagon. That in itself was an experience and a half as sticking bleach on the ends of jet black hair is never too advisable, but surprisingly it kinda worked and my hair didn't snap off (always a good sign in the land of hairdressing I assume)! So other then a couple of slightly ginger low lights my hair is actually still holding up well due to a few extra haircare steps I've put in place that I thought I'd share with you lovely lot.

So the main bulk of this blog post will be the products I've been using on my hair, as much as I'd love to tell

you all that having healthy bleached hair can be achieved through no heat styling and silk pillowcases alone we all know that's just not happening (science can do wonderful things now though so maybe it'll get cracking on that soon!). However, I'm also a student so alas I don't have £200 to spend on the finest of hair masks so here's my little combination that I've got going that isn't going to completely obliterate the bank

• Tresemmé thermal creations shampoo and conditioner
• John Freda frizz ease serum
• SP Luxe oil
• Tangle teaser
• Batiste dry shampoo

 Now I'm going to answer the obvious two questions. Firstly, why use shampoos designed for heat damaged hair when you're not actually using heat on your hair? The simple answer to this is that products formulated for heat damaged hair are almost identical as ones for dry hair, in short, they put much needed moisture back into your hair. Secondly, Luxe oil is expensive you said this wouldn't break the bank? Okay now I know to some people SP products aren't expensive but to me they cost a little more then I'd like to be spending on my hair. My oil was actually gifted to me by my mum but it works so well I will go out and repurchase it once I've used up the bottle. If this product is out of your price range however don't panic as this step of the routine can be replaced with a hot oil treatment every now and then (I highly recommend the VO5 ones).

Right, I'm not going to go on describing how to use these products or this will become a never ending post, besides it's shampoo and oil...pretty self explanatory. Saying that though would you guys be interested in a full review of the Luxe Oil  as I have plenty to say about it, let me know in the comments! As for other general things I do to reduce breakage is by brushing my hair with hairbrushes designed for thin and tangled hair and also minimizing the amount I wash my hair. I will warn you guys though, we're not in the festival season anymore & batiste will only get you so far so there will come a point where you need to actually wash your hair!

The bottom line is that ombré will damage your hair and contrary to popular belief you can't repair your hair once it's split. However, you can minimize the damage by taking good care of your hair with products suited to it and generally being more careful when it comes to your hair. So please stop yanking your hairbrushes through wet hair...please?

Love & TubTubs

Ombré Adventures; Part One

Hey there m'lovelies! So today has been a bleh day in England and after weeks of glorious sunshine the good old English weather has returned and it is chucking it down outside! With no plans for the day and not wanting to go outside in the torrential downpour I decided to do the obvious thing and ombré my hair! Now I've had a few bizarre hair colours in the past from pink to an accidental mouldy green situation but since entering the world of employment the crazy hair had to go out the window and I returned to my regular black hair that I’ve sported on and off for the past seven years.

As you can imagine seven years of black hair dye build up isn't going to be the easiest thing to get out so I knew I was going to be in for some hair torture, however I don't have the best attitude with my hair that being "It'll grow back if something goes wrong" so with that mindset off I went!

The final slightly ginger product!

So my tactic for this was pretty unconventional, i.e. there wasn't one and I just made it up as I went along. I'd used powder bleach before so I mixed it up the powder and developer to a good consistency loaded it up onto my brush and slapped it onto the ends of my hair. My main goal was to avoid the dodgy straight line effect so after I painted the bleach onto the front and back of my hair (and across my shirt) I used my fingers to massage the bleach into the hair blurring out the line then just left it on for 20 minutes. After that time had passed I noticed it had little effect on my hair so left it on for a further 25 minutes before washing it out, when I washed it out I couldn't even see the lighter sections of hair but once I'd left it to dry my hope was restored as I had a ginger tinge to the ends of my hair.

On goes the bleach!

I then repeated the process later that evening to lighten the hair further (not advisable if you want lovely healthy hair) for half hour and this lifted it to a distinct brown/ginger which I'm happy to go around with for now and have decided to give my hair a break for a while before I try and lighten it further. My main points for anyone considering this is to definitely blend out the lines when applying the bleach and also ensure you're using and old towel to dry your hair as after finishing mine looked like this...

So I hope this post has been insightful for some of you for a less conventional way of achieving the ombré effect, because you know there clearly aren’t enough blog posts and videos on the subject... I'll keep you guys updated when I lighten it further and put the purple in and we'll see if my hair stays in my head aha!

Until next time, Love & TubTubs