New color = YAY!!!!!

Yesterday I got my hair colored. After being at my in-laws at Christmas, I decided I didn't want all the red that had accumulated in my hair. I'd done my hair in the bedroom at their house where there is a ton of natural light. I couldn't believe the color of my hair. There was so much red in it.

Last time I colored my hair, I wanted really thick, strong red streaks. In order to get them that way we had to bleach out parts of my hair and then put color on them. Well, it didn't work out exactly the way I wanted. The person that was doing my hair kinda freaked and didn't leave the bleach on my hair as long as she should have. In the end, I had to put a semi-permanent color over it that had a ton of red in it to match those streaks. It just didn't look good. Actually, last time I thought my hair turned out rather purple. So very nice (in a NOT REALLY kind of way). Here, see for yourself.
Finally I decided it was time to color my hair again. I didn't really want to go back blond - that was Justin's suggestion. I just don't feel like a blond person anymore. I just wanted to be brown. A rich, chocolate brown. Like you open up your Hersey's candy bar - brown.

I realize if you don't do hair then you probably don't understand what an undertaking this is. I wanted to do a bleach wash on my hair, but I didn't know how. One of my friends from high school does hair in the City's and I figured she must have had to have done one by now. I e-mailed her and told her what I wanted to do and she gave me her opinion of how to achieve the color I wanted.

First, I had to do the bleach wash. The poor woman that was doing my hair JUST about died. She likes hair to be low key - and easy. Poor thing was just freaking out about it all. Anyway, we did the bleach wash - twice. Then I put a product called Pre-Art in my hair to even out the porosity - so that my hair wouldn't turn jet black the second the color hit it. Here is what the bleach wash made me look like.

It left me a really ugly orange color. I knew that it was going to do that - and I needed it to. Hair color is tricky. In order to be a warm chocolate brown, I needed my hair to be an ugly yellow/orange color. I sent this picture to Tracy yesterday. "OH wow!" was her response. Ha!

After lifting my hair, LaVoy put 5AV in my hair with 20 volume peroxide. Oh! After I did the two bleach washes - you should have seen my hair. It looked harsh....frizzy. It doesn't feel too bad today, but yesterday = wowza.

Ok, so she put the 5AV on my hair and left it for 20 minutes. We washed it out and the top of my head looked - not right. I couldn't figure out why that didn't work. Well, I should have mixed a batch of 5AV with 10 volume for my new growth. So - one of the other girls put that on the top of my head for about 10 minutes or so. It's PERFECT and I LOVE IT!!

Here is a picture I took of it yesterday. It's not a good picture because I took it with my phone. What you can see is that there is no red in my hair - just brown. What you can also see is my face - with no make up. Not a speck. I worked all day with no make up on. Nice.

BUT my hair is EXACTLY the way I wanted it. GO TEAM - and Paula rocks...all the way from Minnesota!