The anxiety that comes with pink hair.

Not entirely sure why, but it's been a rough trot for me lately.  Been feeling unmotivated - in general life.  It has been a bit of a struggle to get through the daily grind, when I would typically just potter along and not take notice of things so much.  Right now, all I seem to be able to stay on top of is the laundry, and sleep.  I haven't really cooked anything for weeks.  I'm grateful for a husband who realises I'm not myself and doesn't mind that I haven't made him a roast dinner or something delightful.  He's happy with a frozen meal, or some steamed dim sims.  My craft room has barely been graced with my presence lately either.  I have done a few projects.  Projects which I normally would have shared with you, but lacked the desire to photograph and load them up, and edit them, and then write a blog post.  You get the message. 

Yesterday I decided I wanted a pick me up.  Some may or may not know, I am a hairdresser.  I no longer work actively in the industry because it's RUBBISH money :)  My sister is a hairdresser too... which comes in handy.  I have been talking about going dark for quite a while now.  I have been blonde for around 3 1/2 ish years.  Naturally, I am a medium brown colour.  I decided I wanted to go back to my natural shade, but add a little touch of mahogany, just cause it's always looked nice on me.  My skin is quite pale, so going really dark doesn't work for me.  The word 'gothic' usually comes to mind :)

Yesterday didn't quite turn out as planned.  My knowledge of colouring chemicals was proven to be faulted from my years of not working in a salon to keep up to date.  It was also tested on information that you don't usually need.  Let me expand on that for you.  

Here is my hair before.

 

One hour later I was left with this.

Along with this pink hair, came a mild panic attack accompanied with chest pain.  This was NOT what I wanted.  This was supposed to make me feel better.  After a little cry, and after I calmed myself down from the panic and anxiety, I got myself together and went to my supplier.  Walked away with 2 lots of hair colour erasers, and 3 boxes of different shades of brown semi permanent colours.  You see, I had to buy everything I could have possibly needed at that time, because two hours later, I was due to have a client come to my house to have HER hair done, and by the time I finished her hair, all the supplier stores would be shut for the day.  SO I had to purchase all that I needed however way  my hair turned out.  Sorry, I suck at explaining.  Let me try again.  I was prepared for whatever my hair threw at me. 

So I started with Eraser box 1.  It smelt bad.  Like perm solution.  But I read all my instructions, got everything set up and slapped it into my hair at super speeds.  Five minutes after application... it looked like this.

Notice I haven't been including my face since I stuffed up the colour?  Yeah.  You don't need to see the look on my face!!

The eraser is fantastic.  It is new technology and doesn't use bleach - which destroys your hair!  It literally goes into your hair and erases as best as it can.  When I saw how well the eraser was working, I started to relax a little.  Lighter weird coloured hair, I can work with.  Dark weird coloured hair.. not so much.  

This is my hair after the first colour eraser.

At this point, I felt like a teenager who had black hair and tried bleaching it myself resulting in patchy nasty colour.  But, it was better then what I started with.  Afterall, in a short 15 minutes my hair had gone from super dark fluro pink, to random cherry red & blonde - not to mention the still dark roots in some places. 

I did another round of colour eraser on the red ends, and then for the last 5 minutes massaged it into my dark roots.  I didn't take a photo of the outcome because I forgot, and had to duck out to pick up husby from the train station to scare him with my hair :)  Basically I was able to reduce that cherry red by about half, and removed the dark from my roots.  So I was left with blonde at the top and red on the ends.  How delightful!

This is with the second lot of eraser on.

After dinner, husby came to my aid and helped me get a medium brown semi permanent colour in my hair.  The colour I ended up selecting to use was just a basic plain brown colour with a little bit of toner.  I didn't want to try anything too experimental - I just wanted to achieve something socially acceptable.  But of course, by this point, I was OVER IT.  I had showered 3 times that day, shampooed my hair about 8 times.  My scalp was mighty sore.  As the photo shows, I was spent.



 I don't have an after picture of the colour with my hair down, just one how it is pinned up for work today.

So it's back to being socially acceptable.  The roots are a boring flat brown, then all the ends are still quite a bright reddish brown.  I am going to let it rest for about a week.  Put in lots of treatments, and just deal with how ugly it looks (to me).  Then I hope to put in a permanent colour that will deposit a LITTLE red into the root area, and then cool down that red in the ends so that it's just an even medium mahogany brown. 

So I am REALLY looking forward to this gigantor long weekend approaching.  For those who are not Aussies - we not only have this Friday and Monday as public holidays for Easter, we also have Tuesday off for Anzac Day which is our version of Memorial Day.  So that means a 5 day weekend.  I have NOTHING planned.  NOTHING!!!  I am absolutely thrilled and have been thinking about how I want to spend these upcoming 5 days.  

A few things came to mind:

-  self administered pedicure

- doing a corned beef roast

- eating hot cross buns till the cows come home

- snuggling up on the couch with husby watching DVD's

- putting a few things in my madeit store

- putting together a few packages of goodies I want to sent to some friends

- maybe putting together an inspiration board

- make a few more rosette headbands like I'm wearing in that last pic

What do you have planned for the long weekend?

Hopefully next week I will come to you feeling refreshed, and know what the bejingies to do with my hair!!!