Wednesday 27 February 2013

The cheapest hairstylist I know

In the interests of thriftiness and financial necessity, I cut and colour my own hair. I've mentioned it before in an earlier post - I'm no expert at either, but to be perfectly honest, much as I like sitting in a comfy chair reading trashy magazines to the snip snip snip of the scissors and the endless chirpy offers of cups of tea, I can't really justify paying upwards of *£40. Not at the moment anyway.


My hair's naturally curly and dark. I usually wear it up. It suits me better. And it keeps a grabby baby from pulling strands out (which is painful). The bee clips, above, are lovely. I tend to stick to kirby grips but wouldn't say no to something as glamorous.


When I say I wear my hair up most of the time it's usually in a dishevelled-looking bun or something similar to the picture above. When I have the time and am feeling adventurous I go for Heidi-style plaits pinned up on top.


I tried to do something similar to this a few weeks ago using a new product I'd seen on TV. The results did not resemble either the advert or the picture on the box of dye. I looked bad. The ends of my hair went a strange shade of orange - which meant the scissors came out and yet more dye (a tried and trusted one this time) followed by lots of heavy-duty conditioner. All is well once more. And I won't be going and buying something just because it looks good on a model again - having been applied, photographed and no doubt airbrushed by experts. Silly, silly me.

Here's what I've learned about DIY haircare:

Only cut hair when it's wet
Use a decent (fine-toothed) comb and some very sharp scissors
A fringe can work but don't go too short or you'll look odd
'Dark brown' on the side of a dye box often means 'black' - so beware
Brunettes need to sort their roots out often, so...
You shouldn't ever need to buy conditioner as you'll always have tubes of the ones which come with the dye
Keep a manky old towel just for hair colouring
Rinsing the cut-off hair trimmings down the plug hole will come back to haunt you.

Of course, if you're grey(ing) and proud, good for you. 

*If you live somewhere that isn't Up North, £40 for a cut and colour may sound like a bargain. I wouldn't know.

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