Explorers of Beauty, Business and Sustainability issues from the inside.

The Root Diaries: Part Four

Read - Clean Beauty Insiders Back

The Root Diaries: Part Four

So I’m now over half a year into growing out my platinum blonde hair in a bid to improve the quality of my frazzled locks and get a glimpse of my actual real life hair colour. I must admit that I’ve found the last month or so pretty tough. Whilst definitely on their way out, the blonde bits have turned a real yellow colour and the condition compared to the roots is dry and hard to manage. This has meant that I’m now wearing my hair back a lot, thank goodness for the latest hair-in-a-low-pony trend. It’s been long overdue a cut too and I can’t tell you how tempted I’ve been to throw in a few cheeky highlights to at least blend the harsh contrast of the colours but the entire point of this whole exercise is to quit dying on my natural hair colour altogether. The alternative is to dye the blonde but there’s actually not much you can put on top of bleach blonde without it being disastrous; darker/brown tones and it’ll go murky or green, obviously you can’t go any lighter so the only choice really is warm/red tones which is a drastic change that I don’t know if I’m ready for.

One thing that blonde hair is the perfect base for, however, are pastel boosters. Boosters are conditioning treatments that have a temporary boost of colour. Glasshouse Salon are famous for their range of the most amazing pastel shades and use Organic Colour Systems, who have an excellent range of colours made with great ingredients. Boosters take particularly well to lighter hair but are temporary, so a pretty low-risk way of adding a splash of colour to your locks.

I figured that I may be not dying onto the natural colour, but dying onto the already-blonde is a great way to break up the harsh contrast without further damaging the fresh hair. So on a recent trip to Glasshouse for a trim, I figured I’d mix things up a bit and DYE MY HAIR PINK! Well, more of a light peach-pastel pink.

The result is pretty subtle – it was a brightish pink when it was first done but has faded quickly. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – the bright pink was a little too Avril Lavigne (particularly when coupled with the roots and my wrist tattoo, I was permanently on the verge of breaking out into a rendition of Sk8er Boi) – and the peach does a good job at blending the colours a little as it’s closer to my root colour than the blonde. A few washes on and you can’t really see the colour much any more which is a shame, but Glasshouse do takeaway pots of the colour so that you can refresh at home! So I’ll be topping it up from the comfort of my own bathroom.

L-R: Day one of fresh pink (with clashing red top) – not sure why I’m pulling this face tbh. A few washes in when it was more of a peach hue. How it is now – very subtle peach tone.

PART FOUR

Days since last colour: 239

Root length: NINE CM PEOPLE!! Can you believe how long that is?! It’s growing at a rate of 1.5cm a month, so I’ve calculated that I should be able to grow it out the entirely by December.

Condition: The blonde is still a little scratchy, I’ve resorted to regular coconut oil hair masks (literally just coconut oil on wet hair for 15 mins) to keep it well hydrated. I’ve also been trying to straighten it less to limit the heat damage which no doubt emphasises the frazzled look.

Look: Like last time, the cut has really helped to balance out the root to blonde ratio. I’m struggling a bit with styling it though as it’s hard to manage, could really do with some tips on good styling products if anyone has any!

I feel like by the time I get to writing Part Five, I’ll be well and truly in dip-dye territory.

Elsie

The Root Diaries: Part Four