A Year with My Hair (From Black to Blonde and back to Brown)

This year has seen quite a bit of change on the hair front for me. I had been home dying my hair black for years. What had started as dark rich brown eventually turned to black which i was then pretty much stuck with. Black is not the kind of colour you can easily shift. 

I had grown tired of my black mane, and felt it just wasn’t ‘me’ anymore. I disliked wearing any black on my top half as my hair would just blend in with it, making me look like a giant blob of blackness.. not a good look i can assure you. And with the impending greys that keep appearing, every time my roots grew back, i would quite frankly look like a badger. 

So i set about the mammoth task of having my hair stripped of all the black dye and on a hair lightening journey. I wasn’t entirely sure where i was going with it, all i knew was that i no longer wanted to be black haired. I wanted to be free to experiment.

And that my friends is what i did!

For fun, i thought it would be good to have a little recap of a year with my hair.

NB.. there’s a lot of photos of ma face here.. so apologise in advance 😉

The above photo is how i started the year, with my long black tresses.

Then a week or so in to January i went to the salon and underwent my first of many transformations. (you can see the full post here about the process)

Striped hair left me with a multi coloured flame head. Thankfully they didn’t let me leave that way. After stripping the hair by leaving the bleach on for as long as humanly possibly it was still kicking off a lot of warmth (reds) from the undertones of the black.  We ran with what we could and put a dark redish brown dye on which was only a few shades lighter but was a marked improvement on the black.

On my next trip we then added some really fine foil highlights to the under sections. They added a lovely golden glow which i was really fond of. But apparently i was on a go blonde mission it appears…

So with my mind set on going blonder we went for foils to the parting and scattered underneath.
The base was still very warm but it was definitely no longer black.
Blonde was insight.

My final blonde stage. Full on thick pannels of blonde.
And once i was there, was i happy? Um no. I mean yes i did like it, it was actually  really fun and such a marked difference from the black. My son Neo, actually loved my yellow hair LOL! But with blonde on a dark, fast growing haired person came roots and very quickly too.

This was the final stage and the blondest i had been since i was 18. But after 9 months of bleaching my hair it had left it feeling like straw, honestly it was awful, i could barely stand the feel of my own hair! I tried hair masks and things but the breakage had set it was snapping off in places hair really shouldn’t snap.
I knew it was time to quite the bleach.
Bye Blonde.. it had been fun!

With a lovely warm brown and a fair few inches off i walked out feeling like a different woman. 

Not only had i changed the colour but I had also had a massive chop which really helped get rid of all the damage hair and breakages (and FYI.. NOBODY noticed IRL! I mean c’mon surely that’s noticeable no? lol!) My son requested i put the yellow back in immediately as he didn’t like brown haired mummy. 

It immediately felt healthier and i could stand to touch my own hair once again. Always helpful. It held a curl well again. It was healthy happy hair once again.

And for me? Well i walked out of the salon liking it. Then i went through a few days of disliking it. 

I think it was the length, it threw me when styling, but after a week i absolutely loved it and still do now.

In-fact looking through these photos has made me realise that i don’t actually miss my long hair all that much. I mean sometimes flowing bouncy long locks is lovely. But i’m really enjoying shorter hair.. which leads me to my next hair appointment….

I’m actually thinking of going shorter again.

Here’s what I’m aiming for… what d’you think?

I think what this past year has taught me is not to be afraid to experiment with your hair. After all it is just hair and it will grow back andcolour can be changed.
Life is short, i say if you want a change just go for it. I know i will be in January!

And well.. there’s always great hats if things don’t turn out how you wanted 😉

Do you have any hair plans for the New Year?

rachel