Getting my Red Hair, like a true Romanov Fan.

I had been missing my red hair for a while and just hadn't had the time or the effort to do anything about it, not to mention the fact that i was worried about work. I work in a male dominated industry and can find it had being a girl as it is let alone if I have red hair!

So anyway I finally took the plunge and went red again!!! I have had to do it in two stages as the first time the colour came out abit too pink for work life (even though it did look pretty cool). This is what I started with ombre hair, brown with blonde on the ends. 

So I am going to run through all the products I used and the methods I used, I am in no way a hairdresser or claim to know what the correct methods actually are, this is just how I chose to go about it. First i started off by doing a strand text on my hair with the Directions, Dark Tulip Semi-perminant hair dye, this came out a very luminance pink on the blonde tips. I therefore opted to colour my whole head with the Live Colour XXL, Damson Wine Permanent hair dye. 

This is the colour that my hair turned into, a much lighter shade of purple than what is shown on the box. This was okay as I had chosen to use this as a base colour anyway. 

I then proceeded to bleach the ends of my hair as I had done before leaving about 2 inches from the roots. 

I left the bleach on for about 20 minutes as I didn't want it to go too light I also didn't cover it and only gave it a little bit of heat. I then rinsed it out and washed it with Directions Pre-colour Shampoo. Once I was happy I had rinsed it all out I proceeded to apply the Directions Hair Dye in Dark Tulip all over just like you would conditioner massaging it in so it covers everywhere, please not that you need to be wearing gloves with this as it stains! Like everything! You will need to make sure you apply Vaseline everywhere you think you may get it onto your skin. 

The pot says to leave it in for 15 minutes, however I leave mine in for about 45 minutes or longer. Here is an image of my hair during the colouring period. Looks pretty bright! 

So once my time was up I rinsed it all out DO NOT SHAMPOO just rinse with Luke warm water. As much as you try you cannot get the water to run clear. You can try but it will not happen :P. 

So here are the results of the first lot of colouring. As much as I LOVE this look it is abit too bright for my job. 

So because it was a little too bright I had the brilliant idea that if I did everything you shouldn't do for coloured hair that it would hopefully dull out a little bit and look more professional. No such luck! After a few washes it came out a very dull pink! Yes still pink! Still looked good but wasn't the look I was after. 

So onto the next stage of the colouring. Please bare in mind that I left my hair for a week prior to colouring again as u didn't want to do any more damage in terms of the chemicals in my hair. 

So I decided that because the colour on the top part of my head had stuck better (remember this is where I had coloured the whole hair with the permanent dye), I thought it would be a good idea to go over the ends with a more permanent colour. Granted the colour I used is semi-permanent it is stronger than the Directions range. So I went over the end with Loreal Paris Feria Dip Dye Excess in Red Rave.

Can't really see too much of a difference whilst it was developing, although it does look all one colour. Excuse the face! 

I let this develop for about 20-30 minutes and then rinsed it out and washed my hair again with the Directions Pre-colour Shampoo. 

Once I had dried my hair I decided I would mix up my own colour! I had a shade in my head I wanted to achieve and to do that I had to mix 3 different colours. 

Please use my proportions to give you the right overall amount of product to cover your whole head. When I say I mixed half of one colour and half of another this does not mean I mixed half a pot with half of another pot. I hope that makes sense :P. 

So I knew the amount of product I needed to cover my whole head and mixed an equal amount of Directions Vermillion Red and Rubine together I then added in about a third of the amount of those two of Dark Tulip. 

So again I let that develop for about 45 minutes and then rinsed abit out (you should wear gloves I didn't and got pink hands) and applied Mark Hill Colour Hydryation Bomb Intense Treatment all over my head and let that soak in for another 5 minutes. 

So once I was happy I had given my hair enough moisture and repaired it abit I styled it and was elated to find that I had achieved my goal shade! Which is suitable for work! Yay!!! 

Sorry I look grumpy I was driving, in traffic I might add! Either way naughty naughty! 

I hope you enjoyed the run through of how I achieved this colour and will do another post on maintaining it. 

Always be kind, you never know what personal battle people are fighting.