Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Blonde Ambition: Lessons in Hair Color



Above: the hardback version that I use and the new paperback version due out later this month.
Both are available here.



A couple of weeks ago, I found a book at the library that explains in detail how to color your hair. The author, Lorri Goddard-Clark, begins by having me decide what color "tab" my hair is, i.e., what the natural color is at the root. I was a tab 6, which means my hair is sort of a medium to light brown, without any reddish color to it. I had thought I had red tinges to my hair, but my sister insisted that when looked upon in sunlight, my hair is medium brown: tab 6.

After determining your true color, you view photos of celebrities with various hair colors and decide which one you desire. I settled upon Mary-Kate Olsen's color, which was sort of honey-colored with little ribbons of delicate blonde highlights.



Following the instructions for my tab, I bought a box of hair dye in the color Light Golden Blonde, as well as a box of Clairol's highlighting kit (see pictures below). For the hair dye, I went with the same company that I've modeled for, Preference by L'oreal. As you can see from my boxes, my natural hair color is close to chocolate brown, and the color the haircolor recipe uses is light golden blonde---an extremely blonde-colored hair box. I was terribly worried that by using the blonde color they called for, my hair would turn out orange, but I have to say that it came out quite lovely---surprisingly, it is not the light blonde color depicted on the box, but the amber honey color that I was trying to achieve. My sister, Erin, helped me to color it and did a nice job. I'll see if I can find some pictures from this weekend that show my new and improved hair color (although my favorite on me is still brunette.)








Above: The top two are of me with the top one having the color most like my natural color.
The two blondes are the hair color boxes that I used to achieve my new look.


And now, without further adieu, here is the result of my do-it-yourself (with help of my sister) hair color job:

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK now. You cannot post something like this and not include PICTURES!!

I can't wait to see you as a blonde so get some pictures posted ASAP!

xoxo

elventryst said...

I will, I will. I've been lazy uploading pics-- and I need to get a hold of Corrie's pics, too. I will very soon and I'll let you know. It's not drastically different (I don't think-- I lost the nerve to go, say, Brigitte Bardot blonde), but this is definitely a warmer, summer color.

elventryst said...

I finally got around to uploading a poloroid of me with my new hair color. What do you think? I'm still waiting to see if blondes have more fun...

Emma said...

Hello
this color really bring out your eyes, I must say even more than the brown one. I was wondering which one did you put first, the claior or the loreal?

elventryst said...

Hi Emma! Gosh, I colored my hair so long ago that's it is hard to remember, but I definitely would have used the Clairol highlighting kit last, as highlighting was the final step. I did like the results, but didn't like the upkeep, so now I'm back to brown. If you're interested in coloring your hair, I definitely recommend this book. You can probably even find it at your local library. Good luck!