A Day In Photos #1

Today I had a Saturday off, and I don't normally have a weekend day offal I made the most of it. I started the day off with catching up on my tv shows and YouTube subscriptions. Once that was complete,I rang my sister and we made a time to hang out. Before she got to my house, I did a heap of house work. I was super productive and got most of it done. Justine and I hung out for a bit at home. We then went to Feilding for lunch. As you can tell from the photo we decided to pig out a bit and had KFC. After lunch we still had time to kill before she had to go to work so we wondered around the Warehouse for about an hour. I ended up getting a top and she got 2 skirts. We came home again and played with Carwen before Justine had to go. I then worked on my blog, gave it a bit of a redesign. I also filmed a video to go up on Monday. It was quite a productive day in my opinion. 

Let me know how your day was in the comments below! Maybe even do your own day in photos? 

Don't forget to subscribe and follow me on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and facebook. 

Shannen xx

Photos taken on my phone

Edited on fotor.com

YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCjNKymrFCLKvcEZ4rqupZQw

Instagram: _kaleidoscopecolours

Twitter: _kaleidocolours

Facebook: https://facebook.com/kaleidocoloursx

Movie Review: Annabelle

Now I know this is something I wouldn't usually post. But I love movies and TV shows, and own a few hundred. I get excited about new films coming out and always hope for the best.

Horror is one of my favourite genres. I love the twists and turns, the frights and the jumps. I live for the suspense. The predecessor to Annabelle, The Conjuring, was awesome. So I had high hopes for this film. As these are based on true stories, there should have been more terror in my opinion, but I just couldn't get into the story. I didn't find the characters that easy to get along with or to sympathise with. 

It was filled with a lot of cliches. The neighbours have a daughter that ran away, there's foreshadowing that she's coming back with mention of Charles Manson and his followers. And of course a creepy doll gets brought into the house. Weird stuff starts happening after that. Who would've guessed?

The doll on the left is the real life Annabelle, while the doll on the right is the Hollywood version.

All I've got to say about this film is that I was very disappointed. It had high standards to follow after The Conjuring, and it didn't quite make it. The directors work was excellent, the editors did a great job, and the actors did bring the story to life. It was the plot line that brought the movie down, the way the story unfolds wasn't interesting, and I struggled to pay attention.

Overall I give this movie 3.5 stars out of 5. 

I might watch it again and give it a second chane. 

If any of you guys have seen this film, how'd you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments below.

Shannen xx

Photos taken from google.com

Toning Platinum Blonde Hair

When I tone my hair, I mix a little bit of toner, I use Fudge's Clean Blonde Purple Shampoo, with a conditioner, preferably a white one. I make a pale purple mixture and apply it to dry hair. If I have some on hand, I will add a dollop of pink hair dye to warm up the mixture a bit. I leave this on for like 15 minutes, enough to just take away any brassy tones.

Today I used a pre made purple mixture of Manic Panic's Cotton Candy Pink, Manic Panic Shocking Blue and conditioner (Organic Care's Colour Shield). I put that all over my hair, but I ran out halfway through doing my hair, so I super DIYed it and mixed my toner with my conditioner to make a similar version of the pre made mix. I smooshed this into my hair, blending it as much as possible so the two colours don't turn out too different. I then leave this mixture on for about 45 minutes. I'm aiming for a lilac look so I don't have to tone my hair for a while.

To maintain the toned look,  I use Fudge's Clean Blonde Purple Shampoo once a week, in the shower. I wet my hair, and then use a little bit and smother it over my hair. I wash my face then rinse it out. I always do it in between washing my hair and conditioning. I don't know why I do it in this order, it's just the way it's always been.

That's basically all there is to how I maintain white blonde hair. To make it easier I do all my hair care/maintenance the same day. So on Tuesday night, I soak my hair in coconut oil (sleep on it) then wash it out the next morning. I then tone and condition and carry on with my day.

Shannen xx
Photos of products: stock images off google.com
Other photos taken on Canon 600D
18-55mm lens used
Edited on fotor.com

Easy Eyes (Eyeliner Tricks)

If you aren't an expert at winged eyeliner, or can only do it with liquid or gel. but not both, then I've got a couple of tricks and tips for you. If you're anything like me, gel is easy to get symmetrical wings thanks to the angled brush, but liquid or pen liners can be a-whole-nother story.

The first tip I have for you is super easy and doesn't need any pictures to demonstrate because all you need to do is grab two strips of sellotape about an inch long. You needs to line them up from the outer corner of your eye to the end of your eyebrow. Before sticking them to your face after you've put your foundation and stuff on, stick the tape to the back of your hands a few times to remove the adhesive. This will make taking of the tape less damaging to your foundation. Now draw your wing right next to the tape, using it as a guide. This should help give you more symmetrical wings than doing it free hand. 

The second trick I have is a lot more difficult and I will have a couple of pictures helping to demonstrate how to do it. All you need is your eyeliner and a teaspoon. The teaspoon acts as a guide to get the perfect cat eye. 

Using the handle of the spoon, line it up as you would with the tape, then draw the line using the handle as a guide. Make sure the spoon is pressed against your face so that the eyeliner doesn't get underneath the spoon. This gives you a nice straight line to start your wing off. 

Now to get a nice even curve at the top of the wing, to connect it to your eyelid, you use the curve of the actual spoon. Line it up so it connects the tip of your wing to your lash line. This gives a nice curve and helps prevent you from having a super thick line that you can get from attempting this free hand. Again you need to make sure the spoon is pressed against your face so no leakages happen.

After using these two tips and tricks you should end up with pretty symmetrical wings, and in my honest opinion, it speeds up the process heaps! After tonnes of practice you'll be able to do it wonderfully without using the spoon or tape. Practice makes perfect! You should end up with something like this:

But remember, it may not look exactly like this because everyone has different eye shapes!

Let me know how you get on with either the tape method or the spoon method!

Shannen xx

Photos taken on a Canon 600D

18-55mm lens used

Photos edited on fotor.com

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

Review: JoBaz Hair Colour Remover

Do you ever dye your hair and hate the outcome? Or maybe you wish you could get rid of the colour buildup in your hair to start all over again, nice and fresh? Hate bleach, but want to go from dark to light?

I've found the product for you!

JoBaz Hair Colour Remover is a miracle sent straight from heaven itself. As you all might know, I had bright red hair. I even had some buildup from dying over the red with more red. 

When I was thinking about going back blonde, I did a lot of research on this product. I read reviews, i watched youtube videos. I did everything I could. I bought it from Countdown. It's a pricey product, I got it for $35 on sale. Normally it's $40. I haven't seen this product anywhere else, just at Countdown.  They also have a chemical straightener type product by the same brand. 

There wasn't too much reviews on people who had used this on red hair, so I wasn't completely sure if it would work as red is a stubborn colour to remove, and my hair being so porous, it could have stained. So I bought it. And I followed the instructions to the t. I didn't want anything to go wrong with this at all. I needed this to work. 

The great thing about this product is that it doesn't damage your hair like bleach. It dries your hair out a bit, but nothing that leaving your conditioner on for an extra couple of minutes won't fix. 

I was completely blown away by the outcome of this product.

It left my hair a orange blonde, where I only needed to lift it a few more shades to get it to yellow so I could tone it to an ash blonde. It removed all of the red, except for one tiny strip that I missed. It was all gone. All of it. And I was pretty much a blonde again in one easy step.

I highly recommend this product. For anyone. But do follow the instructions or you might not get the outcome that you desire.

By the way, this stuff stinks, so do it in a ventilated room.

Five out of five stars from me!

Let me know how you went with it if you've tried it.

Shannen xx

Photos of myself taken on either my iPhone or Canon 600D

Edited on fotor.com

Photo of the JoBaz product taken from Google