For a good 12 months or more I have been seriously coveting the ombre look. I have had monochrome hair for years, due to being on a tight budget & being unable to afford the ongoing maintenance of foils, streaks or lightening. Ombre or "dip dye" as they call it in the UK - dark roots and top section of hair fading into a lighter shade at the bottom - seemed like the perfect solution, but even so when I got some quotes from hairdressers I came away despondent - there is no way I can justify $200 on my hair, even as a one-off. That is more than we spend on food for a week for our family. It seems horribly self-indulgent.
I've been monochrome dying my hair at home for years, since my teens. I've done varying shades of red, chestnut & brown. And I started to wonder, what if I could ombre my own hair? The idea seemed ridiculous at first - surely everyone would be doing it if it were that easy. But still, I knew it was the only way I'd ever get it done, so I decided to consult trusty Google and search for DIY Ombre Tutorials. And lo & behold I found HEAPS of them, YouTubes, blog videos and photographic tutorials. And then, like a little message from On High, the L'Oriel Wild Ombre home colours were released in Australia.
So I decided to give it a go. I intended to use one of the L'Oriel Wild Ombre kits for my first try, although my suspicion was that it wouldn't bleach my ends as far as I'd like them, considering my hair is naturally dark brown and on top of that I've been permanently colouring my hair dark brown for years. As it turned out, when I went to buy my kit they didn't have them, however I was fairly confident after reading & re-reading & watching & re-watching so many online tutorials so I decided to go ahead anyway.
Firstly, I dyed my roots dark brown, to cover my greys and also to add condition & shine to my hair. I use L'Oriel Sublime Mousse colour 400. Here is the packet:
After years & years of home dying, I find the new mousse colours RIDICULOUSLY easy to use. It's so easy to get good coverage without being patchy. It's also pretty good value, around $15, and is a great colour and adds great shine & condition. I can't speak for the other colours obviously. Normally I would need two packs but as I was just doing the roots & the top section of hair one pack was more than enough. After giving my roots a good soak I tied the ends of my hair up.
I then washed the dye out, towel dried my hair, & went about my day. Your hair needs to be totally dry before you apply the bleach. You could blowdry it but I didn't bother I did my housework & groceries and left my hair alone til the afternoon.
Once it was dry I applied my bleach. I didn't use the Wild Ombre's kit. I bought a $7 pack of bleach called Nordic Blonde by Schwarzkopf:
I figured my hair needed some pretty heavy-duty bleaching after all the permanent dark brown dye which has accumualated in the strands over the years. Lucky I did, the result was really subtle and not even close to blonde. I mixed the bleach as directed and then squeezed it into a plastic bowl. I used a colour brush like they use at the hairdressers and started at the ends (because I wanted them lighter) and went up only to just above my shoulders (make sure you wear an old t-shirt you don't care about). I did this because I figured that this is as short as I would like my hair to be if I stuffed it up and had to get my hair chopped off. My hair is pretty long so that was about 1/3 of my hair, maybe slightly more, but not quite half. The way I did it was part my hair in half at the back and pull the two halves over each shoulder to access all the hair. This is shown in the L'Oriel Wild Ombre hair tutorial on YouTube:
I left the bleach for 45 minutes, and was absolutely crapping myself!!
.... which is the maximum time and then washed it out carefully. I was really disappointed that I had to wash it out as it didn't appear to be anywhere near as light as I wanted it. However, as it dried the ends became lighter & it was blending in from top to bottom well. I straightened it the next morning and was thrilled with the results:
It is not a perfect job, although I've had numerous people ask for the details of my hairdresser (haha!). I definitely want to re-do it and make it lighter for a more dramatic result, which I will do this weekend. I had my husband take a photo of the back of my hair and there is a pretty obvious dark chunk that I can see right of centre in this photo.
Even so I'm stoked with the results for my first time. I love that the dark hair gradually fades into lighter and that the lightness graduates to the ends of the hair. I was really concerned I would end up with two defined blocks of colour which I didn't want. I'll definitely do it again, to achieve a lighter result in the future. I would much rather a subtle result that is working towards the dramatic result that I want than a total stuff up. In real life it is lighter than these photos.
Hope you find this tutorial helpful :-)
UPDATE: Two days after I did this I re-bleached the bottom section, following the same technique. I cannot believe how much better the second attempt is! See the below photo. I'm so stoked with it. YAY!!
No comments:
Post a Comment