How to repair very damaged hair

If you guys read my post about my big hair change then you might be wondering why my hair isn't damaged at all. If you haven't, you can read it here: http://kaleidocolours.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/ch-ch-changes.html . Or if any of you have damaged hair from heat or colouring it then hopefully this post can help you.

Whenever I colour or bleach my hair, I always use the little conditioner it comes with. In my opinion, the Napro Pallette one is the best because it contains 7 different oils that are good for restoring the strength and shine to your hair. An added bonus is that it smells amazing because of the apricot oils it contains. I've had a few of these lying around recently, so every second or third day I've put these in my hair for about 5 minutes. 

Every other day that  I don't use those, I use a hair mask. I have been using the Schwarzkopf Kertain one for very damaged hair. I leave this on for about 5 minutes, even though the instructions say to only leave it on for about a minute. 

About once every two weeks, I use my purple shampoo. Now this is for a number of reasons. Mainly it's to tone my hair and remove any yellowness from my hair. But Fudge's Violet Toning Shampoo also helps to cleanse, restore strength and moisture as well as shine to your hair, so it does a number of things in order to restore it to it's healthier state. I leave this on generally for my whole shower as I like my hair very ashy, bordering on silver.

I always rinse out conditioners with cold water. It seals the cuticle and keeps the moisture in. You will also end up with shinier locks once your hair is dry!

When I get out the shower, if I've wet my hair, I will apply a few drops of macadamia oil to my hair. I'll also apply a pump of anti-frizz serum to my hair, because when my hair is dry it gets really frizzy at the ends. Sometime, if I don't use the anti-frizz serum, I'll spray some of this Schwarskopf spray into my hair. It's from the same line as the hair mask. I normally shower at night so my hair has all night to soak in the beautiful smelling oils and moisture from the products I use.

Something to keep in mind if your hair is damaged is to wash it up to 2 times a week. If you are normally a 'wash my hair everyday' type of person, you can train your hair into only needing to be washed once or twice. I used to wash my hair every second day, but even that is bad so I trained my hair into only needing to be washed once a week. I've saved heaps of money doing this because I don't go through shampoo and conditioner as fast. After one to two days after washing my hair I sometimes use dry shampoo. My favourite brand is Batiste and you can get this from Farmers.

Another thing to avoid when you have damaged hair is heat tools. I have a post on one way to do no heat curls, with more coming. But the simplest way to do it is to put your hair into braids and sleep on it. When you wake up you'll have beachy waves. If you must use heat tools, always use a heat protectant. Once i've styled my hair, I use Lush's Shine So Bright split end balm. It helps seal the split ends so they don't travel further up your hair. Split ends take about 3-4 months to form so this is when you should aim to have your trims, not every 4-6 weeks. Unless you aren't bothered about your hair growing that is. 

Once you've got those split ends though, the best thing to do is just cut them off before it gets worse, which is what I did. I'm quite lucky and have hair that grows fast though, so it won't be long before my hair is back to the length it was before I got a cute bob.

I hope this helps with your damaged hair problems. If you have any questions or feedback, hit me up and I'll get back to you!

Shannen xx

Photos taken on a Canon 600D

18-55mm lens used

Photos edited on fotor.com

DIY: Vitamin C Hair Stripper Treatment Thing?

Remember when I had red hair? Remember how I stripped it? Remember how I tried to lighten it a little bit more and it went mauve? This is how I lifted the ugly mauve colour to bleach it platinum.

After I lightened it (FAIL), I did some searching on Pinterest. I didn't want to bleach it straight away in case my hair went even darker. I found a few different methods that said they could lighten a few shades. I found one that seems really promising so I youtubed tutorials and reviews and whatnot. The vitamin c method seemed to be the best bet.

The vitamin c method had a few different variances on the ingredients aside from the vitamin c. You could use clarifying shampoo, baby shampoo or dish soap. I used clarifying shampoo because I'd had a good experience with it when I was trying to get green out of my hair.

So once you've got those 2 ingredients, what you do is, get a bunch of vitamin c pills and smash them up into a powder. Again the recipes varied. Some only used a couple while others used a whole jar. I suppose it depends on how much hair you have. I used 10 pills. I also got Blake to smash up the pills for me because they were tough little buggers. Once you've smashed all the pills ups, mix it with your choice of lather. Like I said, I used clarifying shampoo. You want to use enough to make a paste with the powder. Then once its all mixed, you smoosh it into your hair, covering everywhere that needs to be covered. Once its all lathered in, chuck a shower cap on and leave in for an hour. Or longer if you want, that also varied on the instructions. After an hour, I got in the shower and rinsed it out with my clarifying shampoo. 

The outcome of this was  so much more better than what I was expecting. Once my hair dried, it was a light peach colour, similar to what I had when I bleached Manic Panic's Shocking Blue. I kept it like that for a couple of days before I bleached it properly blonde. 

I definitely recommend this method if you just want to get rid of a semi permanent dye if you don't want to bleach your hair. I think it will work amazing. It won't lift all the colour out, but it will probably get most of it out. 

I do recommend conditioning afterwards, as it does dry the hair out a tiny bit. 

Let me know how you go if you try this!

Shannen xx

Photos taken on my iPhone and Canon 600D

Edited on fotor.com