Saturday 10 May 2014

My Three Favourite Hair Things!

We've got the scoop on how to create the full roots-to-ends curls from Marc by Marc Jacobs' FW 13 runway show.
Marc Jacobs Fall 2013

Hi Guys,
So I am the worst person ever. I haven't written on here for months. I am a grad student, cut me some slack. I haven't slept let alone blogged. Anyway... long story short, I think I am going to post on here some blogs to get myself back into the grove of things.

I have been out of beauty now since Christmas... and just to let you know, things have gone a bit to seed. You would think moving to New York would up my beauty game, but alas, I am broke and being a grad student I have been somewhat sloppy. I could be a grad student in Zanzibar for the amount I have been out and about in New York. Anyways my posts are going to be slightly different, more cheap finds, more how tos, less new collections, since I am sure you are already seeing enough paid promo for that anyway. Tell me if you are down with this and more of what you would like to see in the comments. So without further ado...


Japanese Foam Rollers!!!

Sponge Hair Curler - Star
Sponge Hair Curler- Star

So these are awesome. $5 dollars for six, I use twelve for my entire head so that's $10. Yes, it looks like you are paying $5 for a bag of clown noses. Get over it. You can get them in other colours and shapes, the strawberry are very popular:

Strawberry Hair Sponge Curlers
If you have seen these, you have probably seen these ones

These are really awesome because they are a non-heat way of styling your hair. This important to me for two reasons right now, a) I just had a bunch of dead hair chopped off and now I have to grow it back out and b) I am in New York and it is approaching summer again and the whole idea of heat styling is...ick and it doesnt seem to want to stay because of the humidity. Dandy. If anyone has any other non-heat styling tips let me know!

I first saw these on xovain, when Annie had them. Only they were the Fekkai Wave Makers and you know, cant afford that. Still wanted something non-heat for styling. Then Madeline posted a reply on xojane for the real (Korean?) version (still not sure if these are Japanese or Korean, lets say Asian). Then I found an amazing Japanese beauty supply in China Town in New York (now this is really getting ethnically confusing...) and it turns out it is one of the best Asian beauty supplies in New York and I just stumbled across it (go figure). Long story short, I got some here. This is also a reputable place to get other Asian goodies that are often knocked off on the net.

So you wait until your hair is almost dry, only slightly damp and then separate in even-ish sections and roll them in, twisting each side of the foam at the end so they stay there. You are only suppose to do the ends, but I roll them all the way up and it gives me great Shirley Temple ringlets which I just brush out in the morning. Awesome. I feel like a Renaissance woman with this hair. And as a chubby girl with an art degree this is a very desirable quality. I don't normally show pictures of myself on here but I have to show this off because rolling them all the way up when slightly damp seems to give totally different result to those I have seen so far on the net.

Me! after foam rollers

  The underneath sections aren't as curly because this was only my second or third attempt and the underneath part could have been a bit less damp. Overall though, really not bad for something you sleep in. Plus, I would never be patient enough to do this with a curling iron. The only downside is you have to be careful as you are putting them in so that it isn't a big tangled mess when you take them out (see the Annie video). I find doing this when you have a lot of split ends isn't great either because it just adds to the problem and you end up tearing it off (eek!) which is not good when you are trying to grow out your hair, which leads us into my next cheap hair thing!

Tweezerman Stainless Styling Shears

Stainless 2000 Styling Shears
Of course its Tweezerman

Ok so I am normally afraid of dyi-ing anything to do with my hair since an early teenage experience involving a croshay hook, a cap and some frost and glow. But salons in NYC are really expensive and even if they weren't, I am now a grad student, and now I can't afford it even if it was as cheap as Canada so it has made me re-think my comfort zone a little. That, and now I need to grow out the bad haircut I got when I did go home. I know it need a bunch of fried length chopped off from a bad colour experience, but now I have some weird layers going on.
Six weeks after the fact, I felt like I needed a trim again, but I really didn't want to loose any more length, the weird layers need to be grown out. My friend back home whose hair grows really slowly recommended just trimming the split ends. Which to my salon loving self decided was a horrendous idea. So I went to the internet, as you do, and found some great info from all the people that do this on Pintrest. I found this video super helpful:


I gave the twisting a go, as well as sliding with a comb along the length afterwards to better get the ends of the layers. I was pretty timid as first, clipping the occasional hair, and then I found this not-very-professional looking chart:

If u dont get a trim when u get spilt ends and your trying togrow ur hair our it wil appear to stop growing cuz ur split end travel all the way up the hair shaft n breaks off:)
What is a split end exactly?
Sometimes I am not as smart as I think I am; I had no idea what a split end looked like. Pretty self explanatory but still. I clipped off anything that resembled anything on this chart. This takes some time really staring at your hair to do, but gives amazing results. The ends of my hair are so soft now you don't even know. Now I just clip one whenever I see one, which has given me a new OCD habit. 

The shears themselves are awesome. I gave them a go because Tweezerman makes my favorite lash curler, tweezer, callous remover, etc. Just a good go-to when you need some descent tools and this does not disappoint. I got them at a beauty supply here in NY called Riky's (which is amazing) for $15. On the website, it says they are $27 and in Canada I swear they were over $30 so its worth going to a beauty supply for some descent sheers.

Clairol Professional Colorgloss 
Translucent Deposit-only Color

Radiance Colorgloss Semi-Permanent Hair Color
Obviously I don't use black

So glossing came about at the end of last summer when I went to my first fancy salon in NY. She used a ($60!) gloss on my hair after my highlights and honestly I think that made all the difference in cheap to expensive looking hair. I have had my hair highlighted a lot, at a lot of different salons and what the gloss does is harmonize all the colors together, makes the color look richer and the hair shinier. I honestly think this would make anyone's colour look better in the right shade. Just ask your stylist what colours she uses. This line runs like regular salon color; 1-10, ash, neutral, red, and gold. I usually use the 10GB and the 8GB. You can combine and mix colors as well to get the perfect tint. The few recommendations I would make are:

-Choose a colour one shade lighter than what you are to avoid going much darker
because it is deposit-only, it will only make your color darker, not lighter

-Mix with Clear Shine if you are feeling timid, or want to keep the difference in your highlights and lowlights
using one part clear and one part color will just give an overall tint. 

-Don't let it sit too long!
It doesn't have ammonia but it still has peroxide so leaving it on too long could be damaging. Again it is deposit only so you could go a little too dark also. 

I am making it sound scary, but it is just an overall shiny tint. When I went home at Christmas I just got lots of complements on how good my hair looked, not the colour change. Don't expect it to drastically change your colour. It seems to wear off after about a month on me, but I have been washing my hair fairly often, if you don't, I imagine it would last longer. The big benefit is it has allowed me to drastically stretch my highlights, blending them more with me natural color. I have been using the gold based colors also which warms up my natural color making it a bit more flattering on me, I think. It is really simple to do, just follow the instructions on the bottle; shampoo, dry a bit, mix two parts colour (or one colour, one clear) and two parts developer (the developer that goes with it in the line), leave on for five-ish minutes, rinse. I like to apply a really good conditioning mask for a bit afterward too. It is very affordable at $5.99 a bottle of colour and $10.99 for the developer (which will give you about three treatments) it is cheaper than drugstore. This is again at Ricky's in NY but you have have to go to some sort of beauty supply for it anyways.

So these are all the magic things I am doing to grow my hair out. Hopefully all this diy will do it and I wont have to step back into a salon for the rest of the summer. so...

What are your favorite diy hair treatments?
Have you found any other great non-heat styling methods?
Have you tried glossing?
Are you into crazy Asian beauty supplies?
Are you interested in seeing more of "me" (ie. the final product)?    



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