I have had every kind of coloured hair.
Box, Salon, Powdered fruit drink. Pink, red, brown, black, ombré,
opal, platinum, two tone blond and brown, two tone purple and blue
and galaxy. Many people wonder how I still have hair on my head.
Me, for now.
My recent hair experiment lead me to
type up this blog. I am a mixture of Jeffree Star and Kandee Johnson.
Here are my 10 commandments for keeping
hair on fleek:
Thou shall take pre and post hair
colour care.
Don't wash your hair 24 hours before bleaching and 48 hours after
colouring. What? You heard me. Not washing before colouring makes
sure that the hair gets less damaged. It's protected by it's oils.
Not washing afterwards make sure the hair colour bonds to the hair.
Yes even though it's dried and you already carried on with your life,
there is still sciencey things happening. Even if you just bleached
your hair you must wait.
É note: If you are planing to get fashion colour hair.
Be prepared to spend a while in a salon/ bathroom. My galaxy hair
took me 5 hours by myself and the Barbie inspired hair took me 2.5
hours in the salon. It may take longer as my hair was already like a
Level 7/ 8 on the bleach scale.
 |
| 5 hours of questioning every decision I've ever made |
 |
| 2 and a half hours of thinking of the final scene of Barbie in Rock
'n Royals |
Thou shall cleanse hair
sparingly. . .
I had to “train” to get my hair to need a wash twice a week.
Mondays and Thursdays. See I can even tell you the days. The more you
wash the more the colour fades. Over washing also causes damage to
hair. For days I just want to shower, I bought a more
robust showercap from Dischem. Other days dry shampoo is your friend.
é Note: If you are going the lighter or full on blonde
route, purple shampoo is a must. It tones out yellow and lessens
brassiness. I also suggest to only use it after the second/ third
wash because depending how pigmented it is it can tint your hair
purple. Not ideal.
. . . and with grace
Here
is where you have to read labels. Not all shampoos are the same.
Sulphites causes colours to wash out faster. I use Tresemmé
Naturals. It has a low SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate)
content. It's a basic foaming agent you get in anything that bubbles.
Toothpaste, Floor wash, face wash, dish soap, if it makes bubbles,
it's in it. (Queue those Facebook posts and e-mails with factoids
telling us how bad it is.)
Then when you wash, ONLY wash your
scalp and condition ends. You don’t need to shampoo your whole
head. As you rise it rinses over the length of your hair, which
cleans it. Also the condition only the ends and the length.
Thou shall not do excessive
mechanical or heat damage.
Don't rub your hair dry with a towel. I
squeeze out most of the water and just wrap my head in a towel. Let
the towel do the work by sucking up the moisture. (Also make sure to
use a towel that you wouldn't care to get stained. Though it would be
a conversation starter if your guests ask you why the towels are tie
dyed pink.)
If you have long hair I think that the
Invisibobble type hair bands are the best. I don't get as many
tangles or breakage with them as with normal or rubber bands.
I also stopped using a hair brush and
opted for a wide tooth comb. I'm less likely to rip out my hair with
it. It's also the best for combing out wet hair.
I also stared embracing heat free
styling. I let my hair mostly air dry. If I have to, I make sure to
spray it with heat protection before styling it.
Here is an educational film by Guy Tang.
I also switched up my cotton pillow
case for a satin one.
Here is mine from MrP Home. I also
found them to be better for my skin. They also don't make those weird
sleep marks on your face.
Thou shall maketh time for
conditioning . . .
Once a week I super deep condition my
hair. Bleaching is damaging and if it's not treated it will feel like
hay.
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| B*tch stole my look! |
I switch up between natural and
commercial. Sometimes I smear on some coconut oil. This I leave on
from a half an hour to unlimited. When I clean house I leave it on
for 8 hours. I also like castor oil.
Commercial stuff I like Garnier's Honey
Treasures mask. Or just normal conditioner. I leave it is for 30
minutes and my hair feels great. Also try
Palmer's Coconut mask. That
stuff changes chemically damaged hair like a boss.
. . . And useth finishing oils
It was a trend so most oils were phased out. Luckily in ZA most women
have ethnic hair and ethnic hair love the moisture oil gives.
I usually use oil after I washed my hair. It makes the drying process
faster and makes my type A1 hair more manageable. Sometimes,
especially more in winter, my ends feel gross and dry so I just work
in some oil on the ends of my hair.
Thou shall nourish thyself for
hair in future
Now not all of us get those free blue gummy sweets for our Instagram.
#Spon #ad. But there are things you can buy for a fraction of the
price. If you have a good Multi-vite you are already good to go but
because I know I put my hair through a special kind of torture:
Bleach
I like Vital's Hair, Skin and Nails gel capsules. They are literally
available every where. Dischem, Clicks, Checkers, PnP and even on
Takealot.com . If you want to take the vegan route try
Natura'sCombin Assist tissue salts Hair and nails. They are also available
every where online at Faithful to Nature.
Looks may be easy to come, yet
decide on how thy display
I started a hash tag to group all my hair selfies. #Kyknoudiehare. It
was two old ladies who obviously didn't think I could understand
Afrikaans: Look at the hair. Like I'm not a person. I had people
physically stop and stare at me with their mouths open. (For me weird
hair feels like normal hair as my Instagram feed normalizes this for me. I
follow A LOT of fashion coloured hair women. When I see other
unicorns, mermaids, mermicorns I always compliment them.)
Because my hair to so bright, I tend to lean more towards more
“natural” coloured neutral make up. I'm not really going for
pastel Goth, club kid, Harajuku, cos-player look that is normally
associated with fashion colours. Fashion hair with other excessive
colours (make-up and clothes) can quickly look like a costume. Even
my eye brows are still their normal colour.
If you are not doing the fashion colours and you do a change like
from brown to red/ blond or blond to dark you still need to change
make-up. When I dyed my hair dark brown after being blonde for seven
years I felt like I looked weird until I got a darker brow pencil and
got darker lip stick.
Love they hair as is discolours
or fades . . .
And it will fade. But not all colours fade equally. Blue and green
become muddy but purple and pink become a cool pastel colour but then
the roots come out. * eye roll *
Here I usually enlist the help of Platinum/ purple shampoo. Recently,
since I coloured my hair with it, I would mix some of Renew's Perfect
Colour with it's in-box conditioner with a few drops of the
colouring. That is then tones out some of the weirdness.
. . . and know the one that will
who will assist when if fails
Let's say it's been 10 weeks, by then your hair is going to be
looking pretty real. You need someone to make you come right. I tend
to mess with my hair on my own because I understand the basics of
hair and hair type science but we can't all be our own Guy Tang.
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| Come though for us Guy |
Now and then it's best to get in a chair of a professional. Look for
someone who suits your needs. I had the worst experience at a more
high end salon where I spent a lot of money and just got treated like
someone they wanted out of their seat for the next one. The next time
I went I got second rate service from the stylist because she double
booked me with a bride so I got stuck with a junior stylist who
couldn't stop complaining about how the other juniors should be
helping her.
At the moment I'm at a more old school stylist wit a two chair salon
where we judge people who think they can colour their hair blonde in
one sitting with a home kit. We also laugh at people who mess up
their hair at home and she has to fix it.
If you aren't confident colouring at home, buy the colour and most
stylist will assist you with application. They are trained and have
the knowledge and the right tools for the application.
That is my commandments for healthy coloured hair. Amen to healthy
hair.
é
