Wednesday 1 May 2013

DIY Hair Repair Masks

Soooo ladies and gents....I did something very stupid. I dyed my hair. And now it's in shambles.

To back up a step, the week before Easter I decided I had had it with my hair:


(My natural color--virgin/uncolored)

...and came up with a brilliant plan to go dark:






(The three inspiration photos I gave my new stylist)


I went to a nearby salon that boasted '100% organic' hair dye....should've been suspicious from that alone, but I thought I'd give it a whirl:

(Excuse the early-morning, makeup-free pic)

Needless to say, not only was the dye NOT organic.....it was horrible.  It started out dark enough, but within a week it had faded to a light, light, brown, almost dirty dirty blonde.

Then I went to the desert for the weekend, and it went full-on BRASSY.

So I stopped by the salon again to get the chick to fix it. "Remove the brassy tones, please," I said. She must have heard, "Turn my hair into an 80s bleach-blonde nightmare, please," because this was the result:

(again....early morning, steam from my shower ;)

Sooooo I now have bleached-blonde hair that will take months of coloring to get back to a normal person's hair color, PLUS my hair is FRIED.  Like...crispy, straw-like, snapping off FRIED. Needless to say, I'm not a happy camper and wish I had just never dyed my hair to begin with (grass is always greener, right?).

I had a consultation with a stylist that my friend loves yesterday (I'll NEVER go back to the other salon), who thinks she can salvage this shit, but it will take lots more dye jobs to get it to a point where I can eventually grow out the dye without having obvious nasty roots from my natural color. Before I do that, though, I want to get my hair healthier so I'm more comfortable that another dye job won't make my hair fall out...

So I went to the interwebs for DIY natural hair masks, and I whipped up these little ditties over the weekend:


DIY Hair Mask Recipes



The Intensive Hair Repair Mask recipe is pretty heavy-duty, and it WORKS. I plan to do this once a week until my next dye job. I just mixed all the ingredients together with a spoon and slathered it all over my hair. I left it on for about 45 minutes then shampooed it out with my favorite Acure shampoo. Be careful not to use too hot of water, though--it could cook the egg! It took 2 rounds of shampoo to get this out, but afterward my hair was not the least bit greasy or weighed-down, which is saying something because virtually all hair products make my fine hair greasy and limp!

The next day, my hair was so much softer and more manageable--my boyfriend even asked what I did because it looked so much better! The benefits lasted about 2 days and then I could feel my bleached hair returning to its crispy ways (although still not as bad as before the mask!)

So, that night I made up the DIY Conditioning Hair Mask--I just mixed together almond oil and sea buckthorn oil in my palms and applied it all over my hair. I left it on overnight (do it on a night that you're not going anywhere, because it WILL make your hair look greasy) and washed it out with my normal Acure shampoo/conditioner. My hair is once again soft and manageable, but I will say it's not as soft as after the repair mask--I'll have to do that again soon.

So here are some inspiration images segue my hair light-light-light to more like my natural color:


My hair is about this light, but much more gold--I want some ashy lowlights to cool it down.





 


So hopefully between my two DIY masks and reducing heat (less blow drying/flat ironing), I'll get my hair back to a place where I can start the long process of dyeing it back to closer to my natural color.

What are your best tips and tricks for when you do utterly stupid things to your hair??



All images my own (selfies, obvs ;) or available from my Hairstyles Pinterest board.

17 comments:

  1. Thanks for the Repair mask recipe! I will try it, & I think I've got most of that in my cupboard.

    & It's not stupid to dye your hair. It's also not stupid to think that professional colourists will know what they're doing. It does suck that this person did a terrible job, but that makes them a terrible colourist. It doesn't make YOU stupid!!

    You gave something new a shot, & yeah, it didn't work out, but good on you for trying! If it had gone great, you'd be cheering right now!

    Dealing with my own hair Incidents? Patience, & getting a good hairdresser you trust (wait until you trust them!) to cut off as much as you can stand. My beloved hairdresser died quite suddenly, so I had to find someone new. She mistook "trim my long layers" for "give me a vintage Ashley Simpson Mullet Shag". I am not exagerrating. It was almost a year of straight-irons & searching for a new hair dresser I trusted enough to say "cut it off!" My adorable bob made me feel much better. Hair grows back, and good cuts in the interim will make it much better.

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  2. I definitely agree with you, I've finally found a hairdresser I like and she's working wonders on my hair now! And, I have to admit, except for the whole destroying-my-hair thing, it HAS been fun experimenting with different colors.

    One thing I'd add to my thoughts on the repair mask recipe is, I've since used it several times with a couple different variations--the recipe doesn't need to be exact, I tend to just slop whatever I have into a bowl, mix, and apply :) I've used honey in it and didn't like it as much, but I want to try avocado next. The recipe listed above is still my favorite.

    Thanks for reading! :)

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    1. don't do the avocado if you haven't already - same goes for banana! unless you get it whipped in to a 100% smooth paste, you're going to be picking chunks of it out of your hair for hours - it does not just shampoo out!

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    2. Oooh, good to know! Thanks for the tip!

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  3. I'm hoping that the DIY hair mask is working for you and your new stylist has salvaged your hair. We work with a company that does sell hair masks, feel free to check them out here, but I think it's great that you took the DIY route that way you know what you're putting in your hair. Thanks for sharing!

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  4. I'm hoping that the DIY hair mask is working for you and your new stylist has salvaged your hair. We work with a company that does sell hair masks, feel free to check them out here, but I think it's great that you took the DIY route that way you know what you're putting in your hair. Thanks for sharing!

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  5. Thanks for stopping by! I'll have to take a look at those masks :)

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  6. i loved this mask - thank you! a few tips though...
    1. when applying, work the mask in from the roots downwards, especially if you have long hair - your hair gets a bit matted together when you slather it on so it's easier to work in all over if you move downwards
    2. this gets messy while you leave it on! - wrapping a towel around your head or wearing a shower cap will make it melt faster so more of it will run down your neck - i made a little headband out of foil that held my bun in place on top of my head, and wrapped a towel around my neck - otherwise, i left my hair uncovered.

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    1. I agree 100% with tip 1! Personally I didn't have a problem with it running down my neck when I wrapped my hair in a towel, but it sounds like you found a good solution to the problem :) Thanks for adding that advice, and I'm glad it's worked well for you!

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  7. The best hair repair mask in my opinion is the pro naturals argan oil hair mask! I love how it smells, check it out!

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  8. Try a purple shampoo, that should help quite a bit with the brassy color. Purple is a blondes best friend.

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    1. Thanks Jenny! I'm finally almost back to my natural blonde, but I'll keep it in mind for the inevitable next time I screw up my color ;)

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  9. You should really use sulfate, silicone, paraben and alcohol free hair products. You have to always check the ingredient list of the products you buy for your hair and avoid those ingredients so you can get softer and healthier hair.

    There's this line called Pro Natural’s that is really good for damaged or chemically processed hair because its so gentle and it uses argan oil which is the best thing you can use on your hair. Look them up online and see if you like anything from them like shampoo, conditioner, argan oil for after a shower, hair masks, and other stuff. Also, it doubles as a heat protectant if you ever want to straighten or blow dry your hair.

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  10. The hair mask was both good and bad for me! I have recently bleached AND dyed hair (it's blue) so I really wanted to try a natural treatment to prevent it drying. I had it done about 2 weeks ago.
    I put the hair mask and I found it pretty gloopy and hard to wash out, as precautioned! I didn't have any coconut oil, so I put extra olive, this could have been the reason.
    It took me a LOT of shampoo to get it out, and unfortunately, because of that, way too much of my dye came out than I would've liked, and not all over either, just mainly at the front.
    But, my hair feels so much softer an it's shiner though!
    So, if your hair is bleached with a bright dye over the top, I'd recommend you do this treatment "pre-first-fresh-dye-wash" so you don't ruin your colour. Could also wash out easier mixed with conditioner :)

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    1. Great tips, Erin! Mask is definitely gloopy (best description ever ;) but I'm glad it made your hair softer! Bummer that shampooing it out caused the color to fade :( Are you using a color-safe shampoo? Olive oil is a bit thicker than coconut oil (when the coco oil is in liquid phase) so maybe using coconut next time would make it easier to wash out?

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  11. Nicely done! I'll see if I can recreate the mask after my business trip. I just regain my hair from getting bald, need a hair loss treatment to stop it from falling and then another for hair growth, it worked for me. I can now start with masking my hair but with natural products only.

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