October Empties

Empties are rare for me. Usually I'll buy a product, and start using a different one a week later. This is mostly because I either didn't like the product, or I thought it was OK, but I could find better. So to get to finish up a product, for me, usually means it was a winner!

As even finishing ONE product rarely happens, I figured as I'd actually finished 4 products I'd let you know my thoughts on them all.

Mark Hill Glam Goddess Hot Air Review

One of the main things I struggle with is getting any kind of volume in my hair. I’m pretty uncoordinated so if I’ve never been able to get the hang of blow drying my hair, and can guarantee that if I do attempt it I will hit myself in the head/face with either the hairbrush or dryer at least once!

I've been wanting something like this for a while now, and originally went into Boots to get the BaByliss Big Hair, however I saw that this was down from £59.99 to £28.99. I took a bit of a risk getting this as I'd not heard of this before and couldn't find any reviews either. It would either turn out to be a huge bargain or big waste of money.

The box contains a large barrel brush, as well as two curling wands with the option to use them with or without the clips.

I will definitely be reviewing the curling wands at a later date, but my focus for this review is the brush.

On the front of the box is a QR code that brings up a youtube tutorial when you scan it, which I love. 

The styler works as a hair dryer, so the brush has holes/vents to direct the air flow. This way it blow dries your hair without all the faffing around. I dried my hair in layers working from bottom to top and, as you can see, the small section of hair I have done has already gained some much needed lift.  Naturally the hair at my roots falls flat against my head, so it's great to see a bit of volume there for once!

This is the final result, and it is a vast improvement from how it usually is - I don't have to worry about straightening it after either. 

I have to be honest and say that I didn't expect a lot from this, however I'm really pleased with the outcome and am glad to say this turned out to be a bargain! Before I dried my hair I used volumising mousse, however I didn't apply it to my roots so I'm sure I will get so much more lift if I apply it there next time.

One thing I will warn you though is, if you have long hair, you will need to keep pay attention when you use this as it's so easy to catch your hair in the air vent and rip out a load like I did towards the end. 

I'm really glad I got this, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the curling wands work out compared to normal wands.

What's your go-to hair tool for adding more oomph to your hair?

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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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Heatless Curls with Bantu Knots

I'm sure I'm not the only one with stubborn hair that wont do as it's told. I have tried numerous tools in an attempt to curl it, including heated curlers, curling irons, wands and straighteners (I'm nowhere near coordinated enough to curl my hair with straighteners :/). My hair just doesn't like to hold a curl, or the curl ends up being to limp and not as defined as I'd like.

You may have seen me tweeting about this a few nights ago, but I decided to try out Bantu Knots to see if it would reinforce a curl in my hair. I have seen a few mentions of this on youtube, and looks like it could be the answer to 'tricking' your hair into holding perfect curls.

I will start off by saying this is perfect if you also want to avoid heat, have stubborn hair like me, or are currently broke - it's FREE!

The Process

I recommend you do this in the evening. You'll need to wash/wet you hair first as your hair is easier to train/manipulate when it's wet. You'll be sleeping on your hair, and that should dry it by the morning.

Note: the thicker your hair, the earlier in the evening I'd recommend you do this. This will ensure it is dry by morning.

You Will Need:

Setting Lotion 

(I used a spray in gel, though in hindsight setting lotion is probably the way to go. I'm sure a mousse would work too)

Bobby Pins/Hair Ties

Curl Defining Spray/Product

If you're going to use mousse, apply it to damp hair as you usually would before following these steps:

1) What you want to do is comb through your hair to make sure it's smooth and knot-free. Then divide your hair into sections. The thickness of the sections determine the kind of curl you end up with:

Larger Sections = Bigger, looser waves

Smaller Sections = Tighter, more defined curls

As you can see my hair isn't that thick, so my sections ended up leaning towards the smaller side, particularly on the right hand side of the photo.

2) You'll need to twist each section, and THEN twist that into a 'knot' at the top of the head. (remember you will be sleeping on these knots, so think about where you place them).

As you twist each section I'd recommend smoothing on the Setting Lotion/Gel (ignore if you previously applied mousse).

Fix these knots in place with bobby pins or small hair ties.

3) Once you've done this all over, all that's left to do is sleep!

(Do not attempt to speed up the drying process using a hair dryer - or you will end up with a lot of frizz)

Revealing the Curls

I did my make up first and got dressed etc before I touched my hair, just to give it extra time to make sure it was completely dry.

4) Carefully remove hair ties/bobby pins, and unravel the knots. 

You'll end up with weird twisted dreads that don't really resemble any kind of curl, but don't worry it has worked!

5) This is very important - do not brush/comb your hair! Unless you want to look like a poodle.

Use your fingers to tease the strands apart. Try and shake/gently pull the twists until you get the desired look you want.

The Result

This is the finished look.

This was my first attempt, and have definitely learnt from this as I did make a few mistakes, but I can see this as having a lot of potential!

You can see how weird my hair has gone on the side where I had the smaller know, and how small the curls are on the rest of the hair - Next time I will definitely use larger sections of hair.

I will also use setting lotion instead of gel and see if that helps control the major frizz that seems to be happening!

If it does go a bit pear shaped like mine did, you can always put it up in a pony tail. I did this and I ended up with a nice huge ponytail, which made a nice change from the usual pathetic/thin one I have to put up with.

A better view of that annoying piece of hair!

Overall I would definitely recommend this as it has huge staying potential. It also adds a lot of volume to your hair, which I definitely need!

Its nice that you can tailor the kind of curl you get, depending on what size of twists you use. 

-It just takes practice to get it right. 

I will try this again, hopefully soon, and put up another post on how it went. This time I'll aim for larger curls and see if it works.

Have you tried this before? I'd love to know if you have any tips!

Modifying my Curling Iron

I recently saw a tutorial on how to turn you curling iron into a curling wand (here), and had to try it!

The difference between the two is simple: one has a clamp, and the other one doesn't. I know a lot of people prefer wands, and I've somehow ended up owning two curling irons, so I decided to give it a go! 

Note: If you keep the parts you take off, it's easy to put back together again if you change your mind.

The Process

So obviously you start off with your iron, and the first thing you do it pull off the metal stand, like below:

Next you want to remove the screws either side of the clamp (lets ignore the fact that I'm clearly using the wrong kind of screwdriver in the photo below!)

Once the clamp has been removed, you'll be left with the spring:

The last step is to unscrew and remove this spring.

(This screw was quite small, luckily I'd won a pack of mini screwdrivers in a cracker at Christmas! Haha)

And that is basically it! All you need to do is keep the parts in a safe place in case you change your mind.

(and in my case give it a good clean, as mine was quite heavily covered in hairspray :/)

The Final Result

Now you're left with a lovely 'new' curling wand!

I can see this saving me a lot of time creating curls, as I don't have to faff around with the clamp, or risk getting it tangled in my hair (-yes I am that hopeless).

Can't wait to try these out!

I hope you liked this tutorial and found it useful. 

I'd love to know your favourite curling tool/techique?

Denman Brush Review

With my hair naturally being very flat at the roots, I'm always looking for ways to give it more life and body.

I do back-comb my hair in order to achieve this, and I have heard a lot of people rave about back-combing brushes. Though I could not find them anywhere on the high street.

Whilst watching a youtube video by the lovely Sailor Jennie, I spotted she had one of these brushes. She told me she got hers from Amazon, so I went and purchased one straight away (I checked on ebay too, but they were more expensive there).

The Brush:

I chose the Denman brush for just £3.50. It arrived really quickly, and in great condiotion.

The bristles are very strong, and barely move. You can see from the photos below that the brush contains 3 rows of these firm bristles, and they are relatively compact.

How I Use It:

I used the narrow handle to section off the top half of my hair, and clipped the top layer up.

Holding my hair out at a 90 degree angle, I used the brush to backcomb my roots.

I then applied my favourite hairspray to hold the hair in place.

This process was continued all the way up to the crown of my hair.

To stop my hair looking like a birds-nest, I lightly brush the top layer of my hair to smooth it.

Before & After:

Before: Very limp roots                                                                           After: Lift & body   

Overall Effect:

As you can see my hair isn't stuck to my head (like it would be naturally).
This is more of a subtle lift for the day. If you want more volume you can easily achieve this with a bit more back-combing, and doing it further down as well as at the roots.

Overall I am really happy with this brush, and it was such a bargain!

Holy Grail: Haircare

This post was quite hard to write because I'm still learning what works for my hair, but here are the Holy Grail products that I continue to buy over and over.

Without further adieu, here are the products and tools I love:

HAIRSPRAY:

I use hair spray a lot, particularly when getting ready for a night out.

I use the L'oreal hair spray to hold any curls, or at the end to hold the overall style. I find this works really well.

My absolute favourite is Umberto Gianni's 'Backcomb in a Bottle' (read my review here).

I love volumnous hair, but naturally my hair is quite limp. I use this spray to aid in my backcombing, as it holds it well. Yet it feels like it does less damage when I use this.

-I recommend this to anyone who back-combs, or who needs that extra oomph.

VOLUME:

These are two more products I use to give my hair volume. In slightly damp hair I spray Catwalk's Root Boost into my roots (sectioning my hair to reach most of the head). I then massage it slightly in, and lift my roots up whilst blow drying.

I also use John Frieda's Blow Dry Lotion before hair drying, spraying it through sections and brushing through. It works especially well if you blow-dry with a round brush (which I'll admit I cant always be bothered to do!)

STRAIGHTENERS:

I have used GHD's for nearly a decade now, and I can't see myself ever using another hair straightener. In that whole time I've only had to replace them once, and that was only because I stood on my 1st iron :'(

DRYER:

If your hair is limp like mine, you'll probably find no high-street dryer has enough power to give it lift.
Sallys stock dryers with a higher wattage than on the high-street, and they supply hair dressers so you know you're getting the best!

This hair dryer came from Sallys, and it is amazing. With normal dryers I always felt like I'd get more power from having someone blow on my hair instead. It's a little pricey (around £40-50),  but the power is enough to actually give my hair body! Plus it comes with 6 attachments. I can't claim to know what they're all for, but I love using the 2nd one from the right to heat up rollers.

HAIR BRUSHES:

On the left is a cheap brush from Superdrug, which does the basic job of keeping my hair knot-free. The bristles are quite firm, so they are very good at getting through my very knotty hair.

The comb I use to section parts of my hair, and then tease/back-come it for more lift.

On the right is my compact Tangle Teaser. This is for when my hair is a little too knotty, and its amazing at brushing out back-combed hair.

HAIR EXTENSIONS:

I wear these on a night out, or if my hair is looking a bit limp or thin.
I don't wear them for length (my hair's the same length of them anyway), but I do wear them to make my hair look thicker.

These came from Sallys, and were about £20 each (I have 3). I got them nearly 3 years ago, and they've lasted amazingly as they're 100% natural hair.
I would definitely recommend this for people with limp hair, but don't want to back-comb for thickness (though I'd recommend 4 for volume, or 3 for length).

So that's it for this week! My next Holy Grail post will be up next Wednesday.
Until then I'd love to hear your Hair Holy Grails.