MERMAID HAIR! How I dyed my hair, using BLEACH LONDON: WASHED UP MERMAID

What I used:
Directions Silver Toner
x2 bottles of Bleach Washed Up Mermaid Hair Dye
Bleach Silver Shampoo
Aussie Three Minute Miracle Conditioner

To Maintain:
Aussie Miracle Dry Shampoo - Mega Instant
John Frieda Intensive Hair Mask Satchet
Pro:voke Touch of Silver Shampoo
Organix Coconut Milk Hair Serum

I will just mention now that I'm not a professional hairdreser (disclaimer time), so I'm not telling you how you should dye your hair, I'm only explaining how I did mine. Ok...here goes!

1) This is how my hair started. On the morning of dying it, I washed it with Bleach Silver Shampoo to help tone out any yellow but I put no conditioner or other products on it. Ideally you shouldn't wash your hair on the same day because dye doesn't take as well to super clean hair, but my hair was disgustingly greasy so I just had to wash it. I then waited until later to dye it

2) Skip to the evening...I brushed it through thoroughly. Make sure you don't skip this step otherwise the colour will not be applied evenly. I also took note of the most brassy coloured areas of hair - which were the roots and some of the strands at the back, these would need the most toner

3) I applied Directions Silver Toner (this cost £3.99 from a local store and is the cheapest and best toner I've found). The instructions suggest to put it on wet hair, but I applied it to dry hair because it's more effective. My hair is naturally dark blonde but having already treated it with bleach, it was only the darker areas I needed to focus on. I rubbed the product through the roots thoroughly, waited for an hour and then rinsed it out. To get the best, most vivid result you need to start with the lightest hair colour that you can achieve. I would ALWAYS advise getting the lightening process done at a hairdressers, following an incident a few years ago where I tried to lighten my own hair from black back to blonde at home and it started to break and fall out

4) After rinsing the toner out, I towl dried my hair gently, brushed it through and hair dryed it so it was completely dry. The toner didn't actually lighten the roots, it just removed some of the brassiness and gave my hair a slight lilac hue which was actually quite interesting as a colour. But, onwards and upwards. Also, I think I timed the whole dying process pretty badly. By the time it came to actually dying my hair, it was late at night, having started mid-evening, and I was tiiii-red

5) Next I poured a whole bottle of Bleach Washed Up Mermaid hair colour in to a bowl, and mixed with it a small-ish blob of Aussie Three Minute Miracle Conditioner, as a treat for my hair and to make the dye go further (tip: if you have medium length or thick hair buy two bottles of dye in case you run out, it's always better to have too much rather then too little). I applied this all over my hair, starting at the right front, taking a small section and working the product through and then clipping it up. I found that rubbing the product it in to the hair helped the dye penetrate better. I did this all the way around paying special attention to the roots and trying my best to reach those pesky areas at the back that usually always get missed out. I ended up using half the second bottle of dye to cover all of my hair, so I was happy I bought two.

I didn't wear gloves which was really really stupid, just wear gloves, or prepare to have dyed hands for the foreseeable future. Bleach dye isn't like Directions - it's stronger and definitely stains surfaces/skin more

6) I left the dye on for around an hour, against the advice on the bottle - which instructs to apply to wet hair and leave for 15 mins, but you know, go wild, and those in the know, know the longer the better with this dye. As I'd mixed conditioner in and the dye doesn't contain bleach I knew it would be ok to leave it for a longer amount of time. After the hour was up I rinsed it all out and applied the conditioning hair mask to make my hair extra shiny. I left this mask on for a further 45 minutes

7) After 45 minutes I rinsed my hair through, finishing with cold water because this makes your hair extra shiny. I towl dried it and rubbed a small amount of the Organix coconut serum through it, I then left it to dry naturally. Et voila! The colour was super super bright when it dried, which is kind of what I wanted. The Washed Up Mermaid colour is supposed to be a pastel turquoise, but knowing  this would fade quickly I wanted it to be darker and brighter at first. If you're going to use this method be prepared for it not to be pastel but then for it to fade out to a more muted tone after a few washes. It took me and my wardrobe some adjusting to get used to the radical new colour (I always need a few days to learn how to dress accordingly to any hair colour change)

Maintaining:

The upkeep has been a bit of work...I've been using Pro:voke Touch of Silver shampoo when I do wash my hair, but I've been trying not to wash it as much and using Aussie's dry shampoo (which I accidentally missed out of the photo with all the products!) instead to keep it looking fresh. Admittedly it feels a bit grose after a few days of not washing it and the dry shampoo builds up in your hair so it needs a good wash now and again. The Aussie dry shampoo is a new thing they've brought out which I tried because I love their shampoos and conditioners - but I wouldn't really rate this to be any better or worse then the Batiste ones, and it's more expensive.

I've also been using the Bleach Silver Shampoo for the occasional wash too. I find the Bleach  shampoo is a lot stronger then the Pro:voke one, it adds colour to your hair and is a thick consistency which is strong enough to stain the bath/shower if you don't rinse it off in time, where as the Pro:voke Touch Of Silver Shampoo is better for daily maintenance, it's lighter in colour and consistency and it's great for preventing colour fade rather then maintaining the colour

I hope this is helpful! If so let me know and I'll do a hair update  ;-)

Peace out