In memory of my much loved red hair, I’m going to share my tips for keeping your hair bright red. I’m throwing in a few DON’T also, a few mistakes that I made that led me to inevitably dye my hair back to black in the end L
A few things you will need to dye your own gruaig:
Brush and bowl
Gloves
Vaseline
So
for starters, I dyed my hair myself, I didn’t go to a hair salon. When I had my
hair dyed red a good few years ago in a salon in Waterford, I paid a lot of
money every 3 weeks or so to get it topped up. The colour didn’t last half as
long as when I dyed it myself this time so in my own opinion, you develop the colour you want over time and it's cheaper to do it
yourself! J
Do
take note though cailíns, having red hair is a VERY messy business! When dying
your hair every 4-5 weeks, washing it etc, it just seems to get everywhere so
the new Eva Marie quote ‘All Red Everything’ is really true :P This was one of
the factor’s that made me go back to my roots as I didn’t want my new house to
have a red stained shower, red towels, red sink, red marks on the door from me
being clumsy dying my hair… it’s messy! :P
Here’s a few pics to show you how I gradually got my colour starting with my natural colour:
I bought a
mixing bowl and brush in Style Parlour Waterford and a supply of gloves in
Dealz. I would definitely advise anyone dying their own hair to buy a pot of
Vaseline to put on your ears, outside your hairline, your neck and basically
any places you might make a few boo boo’s so that the dye won’t stain your
skin.
So I
used L’oreal Majicontrast Magenta Red (below) mixed with L’oreal Developer 30
vol. If you’re using a half tube its 37.5ml and full tube its 75ml. The Magenta
Red colour is a slightly darker shade than the ‘Ariel’ colour, so if you want
that bright, bright red shade use the Majicontrast Red instead.
In
between dyes I was using Revlon Colour Ball 600 (below). I’d wash my hair as
normal but with cool/lukewarm water (shampoo and rinse etc), towel dry, put in the
colour ball all over (roots to tips), put on a shower cap and leave it on for
15/20 minutes or longer. I’d then wash it out and put in a good quality hair
mask and leave that on for 30 minutes, then rinse, dry and style J Once a week, I’d try and put Coconut/Argan oil
in my hair a few hours before washing or overnight to keep my hair soft and
give it a lovely, glossy shine.
To
be honest, the trick to keeping my hair bright when I had it red was not
washing it on a daily basis because red can fade pretty quickly. I’m lucky my
hair is not greasy naturally and I could get away with 4/5+ days between washes
using dry shampoo.
But
a big mistake I made dying my hair was, every 4/5 weeks I dyed my FULL head red
again, this led to my hair ending up in very bad condition, especially since I
style my hair a lot i.e. use a lot of heat appliances on it. It got very dry,
my split ends were horrendous and it resulted in me slowly losing the length L So if any of you girls (or guys! :P) are going
to brave the red colour and dye it yourself, once you have the colour you like
and are happy with it, I would recommend only dyeing the roots and use crazy
colour/Revlon colour ball/B Red Refresher’s colour on the rest. If the
semi-permanent coloured hair starts to lose its zest, I read online afterwards (always the way with me! :P) that you should use a
developer with a lesser amount of peroxide to avoid continuous damage.
So there you have it ladies, those are my do’s and don’ts of home dying bright red hair! I’ll definitely go
back red at some stage, I love it too much J It’s all about trial and error I suppose! Good
luck to any of you who try it :D And if any of ye fire haired ladies have any
other helpful tips about maintaining bright red hair, please share below!
Aoife xxx
