Lighten Up

I love colouring my hair; every spring I start the lighter and medium blonde highlights, and every winter I do caramel and dirty blonde lowlights (For reference, I get the 'Nicole Richie' look). Since I'm broke as all hell, and highlights start to look really bad if you don't keep up with maintenence, sometimes I go to the esthetics schools here in town to get my work done.

Whoa, whoa whoa, you say? Don't I end up with blotchy crap highlights that make me want to cry, you say?

This is what FEAR looks like...

Well, I reply, the esthetics program is winding down right now, so most of the students are basically fully trained hairdressers that just haven't gotten their little piece o' paper yet. And, if you happen to be a student, Marvel College (Kelowna, Red Deer, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg) has a 50% off deal if you have a valid (or still passable as valid) highschool or post-secondary student I.D. A full head of foils will set you back only $25 bucks. Yeah, seriously. Even if you aren't a student, foils will only cost you $40-$55 bucks. That's at least half price from what you would pay in a 'salon'.

I think everyone needs a little foil-age in the summer, even you dark haired girls. I'm not saying go get Russian Mafia wife or bad asian teen bleached highlights, I'm saying get a colour one or two shades lighter than your base colour. It really brightens things up, without you looking totally fake or like your best friend combed L'Oreal's Chunking through your hair. So, if you have nearly black hair, get a deep auburn or medium chestnut shade partially foiled through (a la Megan Fox), and you will be looking at your self in store windows as you pass. Or, if you'd rather D.I.Y., Sun-In starts to hit the shelves at this time of year. (Please...no...)

Listening to: Just A Phase - Incubus

I WILL NOT Be Inviting YOU To Tea!

No.

Just...No.

I am constantly on the lookout for something that will give me pretty, sexy beach hair. I am essentially a lazy creature, but my vanity demands that I look good. So, I try to find the shortest route to pretty that I can. Always.

I was hopeful that this would be a shortcut to my hair in the morning - texturized and wave inducing without being crunchy, wet-gel looking, or terribly expensive. "Separate curls and waves to create a dishevelled, loose, beach life effect"? Sign me up!

It. Did. NOT. Deliver.

This smells like you have doused your head in Acqua DiGio, the scent of douchebags and popped collars world wide. I'm not talking 'just a little' masculine...this is full on gross. When I got into the car, my boyfriend sniffed and asked me what in hell I had put on. He doesn't notice this stuff unless it is bad.

And it did not wave my hair. It just looked chunky and a bit stiff, like I had sprayed the bejeezus out of it with spray starch. This morning when I woke up, I noticed that my hair had literally felted together in some places.

No.

My Anglophilia stops here. Well...except for the hot mess below...

Listening to: Not Fair - Lily Allen

Glorious, Simply Glorious!

Last week I told you about my minimalist hair routine, and I mentioned that I use BioSilk Therapy to calm the frizzies and protect. This isn't a new product for me, I've been using it since I was 12 years old. My hairdresser gave me a sample after I got my *first* layered haircut (the 'Rachel' was in, to give you an idea of how long ago this was, and what my hair looked like...). I fell in love with it then because (sigh) I liked the way it smelled. Maybe I should change my blog's name to "Things That Smell Good!"

Anyway, I became addicted to the way it smelled and how shiny it made my hair. I would seriously flip my hair upside down and dry it into crispy obedience. Silk Therapy made it all better...or at least bearable.

On MakeUpAlley, this stuff has a bit of a bad rap for making hair look 'greasy'. To which I say: Of course you look greasy when you throw silicone onto (or into) your body willy nilly! You do need to exercise your brain and some caution when applying this stuff. First of all, I have long, thick hair and I only use a dime sized amount. You only need a little bit. More does not mean that your hair will be shinier and prettier, I just means that you will look like you crawled from bed after a week long bender.

Take a small amount in the palms of your hands. Rub them together vigorously for 10 seconds. This stuff needs to warm up quite a bit to apply smoothly. Both of your palms should be thoroughly coated. Use ONE palm to get the very ends, or the last 1/3 of your hair. Then rub your hands together again, coating both palms. Again, use ONE palm to get the next 1/3 of your hair, or the middle. Then, rub your hands together once more. You should have only a tiny bit of glisten and slickness left on each hand. With swift sharp movements, brush your hands over the last 1/3 of hair, or close to your roots. This method obviously works best with medium to long hair, but I'm confident that you could use do this on short hair as well. I use Silk Therapy before I blow dry to protect, and then a smaller amount after drying and flat ironing to add shine and smell. When I go on my reconstruction binges, I use it on wet hair, and let it air dry. Use some common sense, and tailor your useage to what kind of hair and routines you have.

Finally, I know this stuff is expensive. At the salon, it costs about $18 for a small bottle. I buy mine at Winners (usually about $7 for the medium sized bottle) or at Costco. It's so much cheaper at these places than it is anywhere else, so snap it up when you see it, as supply comes and goes. If you want to try it out, but don't want to commit to buying, ask your stylist for a sample. But be warned: This stuff is like opium for the hair.

Listening to: Girl With One Eye - Florence And The Machine

I'm Seeing A Hair "The-rapist"

I have been dying my hair for so many years that I'm not really sure what colour my hair would be if I went natural again. So, needless to say, my hair is rather damaged. On top of this mess, my hair is of the 'in between wavy and straight' persuasion. This means that it never dries straight, and it never dries in sexy beach waves. It just looks limp and like I've just rolled out of bed...but not in a good way. So to look like I've pulled myself together, I need to blow dry and flat iron my hair into submission.

What this means is I have damaged my hair beyond recognition, and need to take it easy for a while. See, I cut my hair off into one of those trendy short swing bobs about 2 years ago, and I've been slowly and painfully growing it out. It is now at my shoulder blades at the longest point. I say at the 'longest point' because I was an idiot and told a hair stylist that I wanted layers, but beyond that she could do what she wanted. In my defence, this usually works out in my favour, since the hairstylist gives me a great cut because she's having so much fun going hog wild. Anyway, this particular hairdresser gave me layers stretching from the crown of my head to my shoulder blades. Yup, full on mullet. I'm not kidding. Needless to say, I'm letting this grow out too...

With all of this crap damage and the need for my ends to stop breaking so that I could grow this monstrosity out, I have resorted to limiting my highlights to every 5 months (easy on the hair AND the wallet!) and letting my hair air dry almost all of the time. It sucks and I often look like I spent the night under a bridge somwehere, but my hair has slowly been getting shinier and the breakage has stopped. I've also taken to coating it with a mixture of the Body Shop's Macadamia Straightening Balm (which, by the way, does NOTHING for heat styled hair. It smells yummy though!) and Biosilk's Silk Therapy. This decreases the frizzies and keeps my hair soft.

In conjunction with my skincare regimen, I hope to have a pretty, healthy body by summer. Wish me luck! Oh, and if anyone has any suggestions for products that boost wave without becoming stiff, gimme a shout in the comments. I'm on the lookout for something that can make me look less half drowned kitten.

p.s. I can't type 'therapy' without thinking of the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy sketch about "the-rapists". Now you won't be able to, either!

Listening to: Jerk It - Thunderheist

I Guess Their Key Demographic Is The Bar-Star Set?

So I was gadding about in Wal-Mart yesterday, and came across this:

I got pretty excited because this shampoo really plays to the elements that draw me in - pretty colour on the package, label touting colour care, and a herbal rosemary - juniper scent. By now, you guys have to know how much I love pretty smells. This is pretty much the biggest selling feature for me a lot of the time.


So...I popped open the lid, squeezed the tube a bit to catch a whiff...and just about gagged.


This stuff smells like gin.


I instantly had a vision of myself in the shower with a hangover, trying to wash my hair with this terrible gin smell. I got gaggy just thinking about it. This is the worst idea ever.

Listening to: Come Undone - Duran Duran

Brass Tacks

This is an important public service announcement: If you don't want your hair to look like this, go buy some purple shampoo! This is important for bleached blondes, highlighters, and natural blondies - to keep your hair from getting brassy from water, sun, colouring, etc, buy a purple or blue shampoo. Scrub it in once or twice a week and I promise everything will be better. Try Biosilk Silver Lights (by the same people who make CHI products), or even the drugstore brands Light Blue Shade or Pantene Silver Expressions.

Oh yeah, and Happy Valentines!

Listening to: Love You Madly - Cake

Using Math To Justify Expensive Shampoo In These Trying Economic Times

For the last year or so, I've been splurging out on salon shampoo. I have long hair that I'm trying to grow out, and the cost of drug store shampoo was getting outrageous. I was going through two or three bottles of Herbal Essences a month, and my thick hair never seemed to soak any moisture up from that crap. It was about $4 a pop for conditioner, so $12 a month for stuff that didn't make any difference. Not much, but it still adds up...just stay with me now.

Bed Head by TIGI is a more "affordable" line in salons. No, really. They usually have sales on at the mall hair shops, and you can get the big duo for $25. There are 2 elements with this one-time expense of $25 that persuaded me that it wouldn't be a bad idea to just go for it; 1.) these shampoos come with pumps, and therefore you use less. You don't eyeball out a quarter sized amount from the bottle, then it doesn't lather, so you add another, and another... You take two pumps. If you need another, take one more. That's it. Soon you have a set amount that you take every time. 2.)They also lather better, and seem to make a bit of a difference to your hair. No kidding, I didn't use conditioner for the first couple of weeks after I bought a bottle of Dumb Blonde, that's now nice my hair was. So, let's recap: less shampoo and conditioner used, actually worked, and (drumroll please) I actually SAVED money. Yeah. It took me 6 months to finish up the bottle of Dumb Blonde. Let's have a little math lesson - 25/6= $4.17 a month for BOTH salon shampoo and conditoner.
Now, drugstore- 4 x 3 = $12(for 3 bottles that I used a month.)
12 x 2= $24(for a month of both shampoo and conditioner)
24 x 6 = $144 (for six months of crap shampoo)
I rest my case.

Actually, what I wanted to talk about was a Bed Head shampoo that you shouldn't buy. But, hey, if you would never have bought this stuff in the first place, my warning would be useless. So, anyway, don't waste your money on the Self Absorbed Shampoo. The conditioner is fine, and works great (smells great, too!), but the only thing the shampoo has going for it is the pretty candy-orange smell. It doesn't lather, doesn't clean, and I actually have to mix it with another shampoo to get my hair decent. And when I have to buy a totally separate bottle of shampoo because one doesn't work, my brilliant math is thrown off. If you'd like to try out some sneaky-thrifty Bed Head products, go for Dumb Blonde if you have colour treated or damaged hair. It says blonde, but it works as a colour preserver and a reconstructor for all haircolours. If you are a natural dark beauty, try Brunette Goddess, or if you let your hair air-dry but want some frizz control, try Control Freak. There are a ton of different kinds for all types of hair, so ch-ch-check it all out. Or, if you don't mind spending a bit more, go consult with your hairdresser. He or she will know what your hair needs most, can make a recommendation, and you still probably won't go over $40 for a duo. Just make sure it has a pump, and don't buy any of the Pureology stuff. I'm sure it works great, but the prices are nuts. I don't guarantee that the economic advantage will carry over with this stuff. But you would probably have great hair...

Listening to: Beating Heart Baby - Head Automatica