Platinum blonde and pastel pink hair

Finally I have super blonde platinum hair. And a new, "longer in the front, supershort in the back" edgy haircut as well. A while back here in my hometown Turku, a local hair salon called Avantgarde decided to organize a happening where they would give free haircuts/colouring for about 80 people. However, there was a condition: the hairstylist would have totally free hands. This wasn't a problem for me because I've had supershort hair and I've tried literally every possible colour. You can imagine that people went crazy when they heard about the happening. Why is it that when it comes to getting something for free, people freak out?

Normally a haircut and colour would cost about 100euros. Me and my two cousins decided to be crazy and try our luck. Lucky enough, I live next to the hairsalon so we were looking from my balcony when people would start gathering in front of the salon. All in all we waited 12 hours before we were finished,crazy huh? 5hours waiting outside...In the middle of winter...in Finland. It was a freezing cold evening and I still shiver when I think of those 5 hours in minus degrees :)

 Even if it got very cold, I have no regrets. The people waiting with us were super nice, and we were all making jokes and cheering each other. I got a fabulous hair colour and cut. In addition my hair was shiny and felt super soft. My colour was very blonde in the beginning so the the stylist decided she would "alter" it just a "bit". I was a bit surprised when she started putting baby pink goo in my hair :D I was actually happy when the stylist said that the colour would be "icy strawberry platinum". I love Nicki Minaj's cotton candy hair! In the end the colour doesn't really look like pink, only in a certain light.

Hair in process

Paul Mitchell: Platinum Blonde shampoo

L'oréal Preferance pastel toning conditioner in Soft Rose

  I've maintained the platinum and "pink" hair with two products, Paul Mitchell's Platinum Blonde shampoo and L'oreal Preferance pastel toning conditioner. The shampoo is actually a violet shampoo which takes any brassiness away. I use it once a week for 5 minutes. There are many good violet shampoos on the market,but right now I prefer the PM. Good alternatives are Fudge's Clean Blonde Violet shampoo and L'oréal Professionnel Silver shampoo. The PM shampoo costs about 15euros, but it will last for long. The smell reminds me of cucumber :) 

As you can see from the picture, the L'oreal pastel toning conditioner is pretty pink. In order for the colour to show properly, you HAVE TO have blonde hair.  I've tested and come to the conclusion that if you want a truly light baby-pink shade of pink, it's best to mix the pastel conditioner into your normal conditioner. I use a quarter size amount of the pastel conditioner, and same amount of regular conditioner. But IF you want a pinker shade, use the toner conditioner only and leave for longer than 5 minutes. The colour will fade away in a few washs so you have to reapply pretty soon.

The next picture will show you how light of a pink shade I have, you can barely call it pink. But I assure in bright daylight it looks baby-strawberry pink :) I put a white paper in front of my face for the colour  to show better.

-Anne

New hair cut and colour

Lately I've been craving for platinum hair. After seeing these pictures I just had to do something about it!Michelle Williams has probably the nicest short hair cuts in Hollywood :) I myself have had a pretty short haircut for the last hmm, 4 years, but lately I've been trying to grow the asymmetric cut. My hair has grown, but the model was simply flat and horrible.  I've also been trying a more natural colour for about 4 months, something that is almost like my real hair colour.

Before colouring and the hair cut

 The fact is natural hair is just not my cup of tea. More edgy and strong colours as well as short haircuts suit me and my character better :) I thought that maintaining non-brassy blonde hair is way too time consuming, but now, to be honest I think that it's worth it! A few days back I coloured my hair at home with L'oreal Paris Récital Preference 10.21 Stocholm. It gave a nice ashy tone and made the previous colour slightly lighter. I still need to bleach my hair once ir twice to get just the right shade of blonde.

 Here's some pictures of my new hair :)

As you can see from the middle picture the shade is pretty blonde already. But as I said earlier, I want it to be platinum. When I was a kid I had almost white hair so that's the reason for my craving :) 

-Anne

Keeping that hair Blonde and healthy

T and I are both blonde, and sometimes even we feel a bit annoyed how much "work" it needs to keep the hair nice. It helps that we're not naturally that dark haired, but still the roots need to be coloured every now and then. I have actually been thinking lately that I will give my hair a rest and not bleach it in a few months. It will be hard, but thank god summer is coming, thus my hair will get light naturally :)

Women who have blonde hair know that sometimes the colour might change into an orangy or yellowy tone. Another problem might be that the hair is very dry. My hair gets quite dry during the winter time and I've noticed that the water in Toronto is weirdly drying! Here's some of my personal favourite products that help my hair stay shiny, conditioned and NOT yellow :

From left: The L'Oreal professional Silver Gloss Protect System Shampoo( what a long name!) has a lot of violet pigment in it, which in my opinion is a good thing. The violet in the shampoo is a complementayt colour to the yellow and it  makes your hair more of a silvery colour. I usually wash my hair with this 1-2 times per week and let it stay in my hair for about 5min. My "normal" shampoo at he moment is John Frieda's full repair.

The L'Oreal Shine Blonde Seraflash conditioner is my ultimate favourite conditioner. It makes my hair silky and also has a tint of violet in it to reduce the brassiness. I usually mix a small amount of this with the Tigi's Bed Head Moisture Maniac Conditioner. The Moisture Maniac is a great conditioner for anyone because you can also use it as a hair "mask" if you have very dry hair! 

-Anne