Going to the Dark Side

I had to post this picture-- after going blonde this summer (I blog about my process here), I decided to embrace darker hair and go back to my more natural brunette self. When it came time to choose a color, I was feeling the pinch of a tight budget, and decided to use hair color that I already have on hand: the L'Oreal hair box that I am featured on. At first the transition was quite a shock and I kept protesting that I looked nothing like the model on the box, but after a week of getting used to it, I think you'll agree with me that my results do indeed resemble the hair color box.

Before (During the summer):


After (Now):

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: