A topic I haven't talked about much here on my blog is my hair, and the fact that I've been dying them for quite a while now. I always feel more “me” with something closest to my natural hair colour, but I have experimented a fair bit in my life, and today I want to share it with you!
I’ve always loved my natural hair colour. After a blondish childhood, my hair colour turned a warm shade of brown growing up, and I’ve always loved it. Fearing I would develop grey hairs pretty soon just like my mum, I’d always been afraid of the day dying my hair would become a necessity… And like a lot of teenagers I decided to suddenly go against that at 16.
Luckily I don’t have any pictures of that time on my computer and I don’t feel the urge to look for them anywhere else, as what I did was not pretty. I went into the hairdresser with long hair, asking for a shorter do and some purple hues. Instead of dying my hair, he decided to bleach a few strands and dye them bright purple. Obviously he didn’t tell me anything about the purple dye fading quickly and I was soon left with light blonde strands in random places, and a terrible hair cut. Have you guessed I’ve never walked into that hairdresser again?
After that horrible experience, my fear of hair dye grew stronger, until one day my mum convinced me to get some highlights done at her hairdresser. Another big mistake: I don’t feel like me with lighter hair. I generally don’t really like blonde highlights on anyone unless you already have blonde hair, and that was not my case. What makes me feel more “me” is a darker hair colour with some coppery tones, and blonde highlights (even if they were done amazingly, I have to say!) just aren’t for me.
Then the day came. One grey hair after another, I really needed to do something. And I though to do something different for a change, this time loving it. A mahogany shade in a 4 weeks lasting formula, that looked really good on my long hair. I loved it! But there was something else I had wanted to try for ages, and that was red. And red I went!
The first couple of weeks it was gorgeous: a rich red that complimented my skin tone really well, and was very fun but classy. But I had two problems with that shade: it was turning orange incredibly quickly (probably because of he warmer tones in my natural hair colour), and how much it had restricted my makeup palette. Trust me, I was shocked. So many things I used to love, I was now unable to wear. Anything cooler that a coral looked terrible against my red hair. And so, I said bye to red.
I started going shorter with my haircuts, and needed to cover the red (that only looked good on my long hair, I have to add). My hairdresser at the time went for an almost black shade, and whoa, I was different! Too different, I’d say. A lot of people loved it on me (but not my mum, that still thinks of me as a blonde, lol), but I wasn’t myself. It looked lovely against my light skin tone, but something was wrong.
And here I am. With a short do I’m trying to grow back to shoulder length, and a warm brunette hair colour I regularly get done at my now trusty hairdresser (since I met him I stopped letting months pass between one visit and the other and changing place after two times at most - it’s love!) that it’s the closest I can get to my natural hair colour - just a tiny bit darker to avoid it fading too quickly.
If you want to change your hair colour and need some inspiration, I recently found the Color Advisor page on the website of the hair dye company Madison Reed, which makes harsh chemicals free hair dyes, and it's amazing as it gives you detailed options and gives you a lot of choice.
Experimenting is fun, and your personality needs to shine through your hair colour, but I think that probably the color you were born with is what suits you most. You can play with it and change it a bit, but it’s what personally makes me feel more me. But if a drastic change is what you need, don’t fear it. You can find your new you, or you can always go back!
This post has been written in collaboration with Madison Reed. I didn’t receive any compensation for this post.