DIY Ombre Hair

If you follow me on twitter or instagram you may have seen I went ombre earlier this month!

I know I'm quite late on joining the bandwagon, but I've been wanting to do it for ages and I'm so happy I finally took the plunge!
The main thing that put me off is the fact that already I dye my hair dark brown as I hate my natural hair colour, so I was worried I'd end up ruining my hair if I bleached my coloured hair - I really don't want to end up having to get all my hair hacked off!

Products Used

♔ Aluminium Foil ♔ 

♔ Tint bowl + Brush ♔ 

♔ Ion Blue Bleach Powder ♔

♔ Ion Colour 7.1 Performance Ash Blonde ♔

The Process

I took inspiration from this Youtube video (despite the warning in the title) and tested a small strand of hair to see if it would work.

It was quite a long-winded process to get the right effect, and I made sure I tested a strand of hair beforehand to see what I needed to do to get it looking the way I wanted. It turned out there would be 4 stages to get the look I wanted:

Stage 1:
I mixed the bleach with the developer and applied it to my hair in small sections. I covered each section with aluminium foil just to make sure I didn't get bleach everywhere.
At this stage I applied the bleach as high up as I wanted the ombre to go.
I kept this on for 15 minutes

Stage 2: 
I rinsed off the bleach and dried the ends of my hair so I could see the effect so far. At this stage it looked pretty awful.
I applied the bleach in the same way, only I applied it a little lower down than before and left it on for another 15 minutes.

Stage 3: 
I rinsed off the bleach and dried my hair as before.
At this stage I looked in the mirror and thought 'what the hell am I doing to my hair?!' - it was so orange!
I carried on any way and applied the bleach even lower down than before, only this time I left it on for 30 minutes.

Stage 4:
I rinsed off the bleach and dried my hair again.
Then I mixed the Ash Blonde dye with the developer and applied  it to the bleached ends to make it less orange. I left this on for only 10 minutes as indicated from my strand test.

I rinsed and dried my hair for the last time and here is how it turned out!

The Result

I'm really pleased with the results, although it took a few days to get used to!
I did think I would need to buy a toner to make it less orange, but I quite like that there's a bit of a coppery tint to it.

Whilst I was in Sallys buying the bleach etc I made sure I purchased a hair treatment, which I make sure I use every week and I haven't noticed any extra dryness to my hair. Though I'm sure I would if I didn't use a treatment.

The only problem now is that my lighter roots are coming through!
I need to come up with some way of colouring the top of my hair darker without ruining the ombre.
(If you next see me fully brunette you'll know it all went horribly wrong!)

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