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New Hair

I changed my hair!


I wanted to grow it out really long, about to my mid waist, but it just wasn't growing. In fact it had been the same length for about three years and I couldn't figure out why!  Then just recently I realized that was incredibly damaged; the strands just kept snapping off and that's why it looked like it hadn't grown. It had gotten so bad that the hairs on the top of my head were only a few inches long, from where they had broken off. There was no saving it!  

I think the damage mainly came from washing my hair and using a hair dryer every single night, and then a straightener every morning for years. It was time to find a healthier hair routine! 

I bought myself a nice boars hair brush, some sharp scissors, a hair dryer with a cold setting and some lightener (One last round of damage!) 


I wanted it to be blonde again, because it's easier to upkeep than red hair and I can dye it less. Also I only need to dye my roots when it's blonde as opposed to my whole head. I decided to use this stuff because it's supposed to be less damaging than bleach, and when I used it the first time I lightened my hair it it worked well.

Here is what it looked like before, this photo doesn't show damage but it was there!


I realized that this lightener is mainly for un-dyed hair.. My roots turned blonde right away but the colored parts were stubborn!  I left it on for an hour and a half, the maximum amount of time it said to do.  The first time I had used it my hair wasn't that dark, I didn't take that into consideration this time.

'
Annnd this is what I ended up with. Blonde roots, red bangs and orange all over. So I ran out that morning and picked up another box of lightener.

An hour and a half later, it was still dang orange! But I didn't want to lighten it a third time so I decided to go with it.

I gave myself this haircut, but it was really hard to style, the ends were super poofy and I couldn't get them to do anything. It also sort of resembled a helmet. So I called my mom over and she gave it some layers to make it was easier to tame, and help it curl on its own.

And here is the result!  (The frizzy parts sticking out are the broken split ends)







 Of course the most annoying part of a new hairstyle is all the strange comments I have to put up with. When I showed up at work last Monday there were plenty of "What did you do?!" and "Was that on purpose?" My favorite response though was the lady who stared at me for a good 30 seconds before saying "You know, most salons can fix that." And then wanted to give me the name of a place I could go! Another person asked me when I was going to be fixing it.

But despite everybody's crazy opinions I really like it!  The orange has already faded quite a bit.

Also, the night before I took these last few photos I didn't used shampoo when I washed my hair!  I tried that "no poo" method, using only baking soda and apple cider vinegar to bring back my hair's natural oils. I expected my hair to be pretty greasy just like the tutorials warned, but it wasn't!  Aside from being hard to comb when it was wet, it wasn't any different from using shampoo. I think because I have been washing it a lot less for the past few months, it has already had the chance to start producing its natural oils again. I am going to keep it up this no poo thing and report back!



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