How I Achieve Platinum Blonde Hair!

Hello everyone! I recieved a request from Jessy from Liner and Lashes for a tutorial on how I get my hair the white-ish blonde that it is. I have gotten a lot of compliments on my hair color and questions on if I get it done at the salon or how I do it myself. The answer is that I dye my hair myself. 

First I want to give you a brief history on my hair..

My hair color, when I was a child, used to be a light golden blonde. As I got older, it faded out into a dirty gray blonde (ew). The first time I "colored" my hair was in 6th grade when my mom bought one of those "Do it yourself highlighting kits" from the store and put blonde streaks through my hair. That was what started my blonde kick. After that I discovered "Sun-In" and I continued to use that to lighten my hair until I went to a hairdresser and was told that using Sun-in often would damage my hair. I continued going to salons asking for highlights, or malibu treatments, or just plain dye that would achieve a white, ashy, blonde hair color. I absolutely hate my hair when it comes out with a orange or golden tint. After paying $50 dollars each month for my hair and not seeing the results that I wanted, I decided to try dying my hair myself. I went to Sally's and pick up some bleach and toner and the combination turned out to be perfect! I can finally have my white platinum hair at half the cost of going to local salons! 

The process is quite easy but I want to let everyone know that trying to go this blonde can sometimes not turn out perfectly. If you do not get the process right for your hair, it will turn out orange. Bleaching your hair is also very damaging and drying. The results turn out much better on virgin hair, or the hair at your roots. I have tried this process on my grown out, previously dyed hair and it does not turn out the same way.

  I recommend doing a strand test before trying this process out on your whole head. 

I do NOT recommend this to anyone who has medium brown to black hair, or those with red hair. Your hair will most likely turn out orange. I also do not recommend this for those who have not dyed their own hair before or are unfamiliar with the process and mixing. If you do not dye your own hair, but still would like the same result, suggest this to your usual hairdresser. This is just what works for me, it is not right for everyone. 

Supplies 

All can be found at Sally's Beauty Supply.

I use just the standard mixing bowl and brush as well as gloves. 

The bleach that I use is Loreal's Quick Blue. This bleach is tinted to a light blue color which helps to eliminate yellow tones. This is sold in either packets or a big tub. The packets, which I buy, are around $3.

 With the bleach, I use a 30 volume developer. This volume helps to lift the hair color several levels lighter than my natural color. 

The toner that I use is Wella's T18 (or white lady as it used to be called). It is a purple colored toner which really is the key ingredient in eliminating yellow and orange tones after bleaching and achieving the bright white color. This is also used with the 30 volume developer. 

The Process

When dying my hair, I never overlap the color on previous colored hair. I also like to color my hair a day or two after shampooing because I feel that it helps when the natural oils in my hair are still present.

I first pour the developer into the mixing bowl. For on the scalp applications, you are supposed to mix 1.5 to 2.5 fl oz.s of developer with the bleach. I mix them together until there is a thick "cottage cheese like" consistency. 

I then apply the bleach using the Sally's brush to the roots of my hair. 

I leave this on my hair for usually 50 minutes. I do not use heat or wear a cap over my hair.

And here is how it looks like on.. haha

After the bleach has been on for about 50 minutes, I jump in the shower and wash my hair using shampoo.
I do not use conditioner.

Here is what my hair looks like just after washing out the bleach. 

It is now time for the toner
For the toner I mix it by 1 part toner to 2 parts of the developer. 

I then apply this to whatever area that I bleached and leave it on for 10 to 15 minutes.

This part can be kind of scary because the toner is straight purple. But I promise it does not turn your hair purple unless you leave it on a long time. haha

After the toner has had time to develop, I jump in the shower again to shampoo and condition my hair. 

The process is now done! 

Here is what my hair looks like right after washing the toner out. 

The Results!

Platinum Blonde Hair!

Maintenance

Keeping ash blonde hair from turning orange or golden can be difficult. I find this especially hard since the apartments that I live in now have rust in the water. :( 

To keep my hair on the whiter side I use Shimmer Light's Blonde and Silver Shampoo. This stuff is amazing! It is tinted purple (very purple) so it will cancel out any gold or orange tones. I wash my hair 3 or 4 times a week and use this half of the time. It really keeps my hair looking as bright and white as possible. 

Thank you so much for reading. If you have any further questions about how I dye my hair please let me know!

March Glam Bag

Ok, so I just realized that it is almost April and I haven't shared my March Glam Bag! 

So sorry about the lack of posting. School and everything else is keeping me SO busy. But I will be posting a "How to Achieve Platinum Blonde Hair" very soon as requested by one of my followers. :) 

What did you receive this month?

Recent MAC Lipsticks

First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you who left me a comment on my last post. You are all amazing. Thank you all for your encouragement, sympathy, and prayers. It really means a lot. I also want to give a special thank you to my girl at Life size Barbie for her beautiful post that made my day. :) Thank you.  

I have purchased a few new MAC lipsticks this past month that I would like to share with you all. Two of them, "Watch Me Simmer" and "Innocence Beware", are from the SHOP MAC collection that came out this past February. All of the lipsticks in this collection sold out SO fast! I literally stalked the website every day to see when they were going to restock. It took them a while and I randomly checked one morning and they were back in! 

The other lipstick I purchased was "Viva Glam Nicki". Which I am sure all of you have heard much about. :)

MAC Watch Me Simmer 
"Watch Me Simmer" is the lipstick from the Shop Mac collection that I was most excited about. I kept looking at pictures of swatches on other blogs and became obsessed with it. I was kind of apprehensive about buying it online before trying it out on myself before hand. But it turns out.. I LOVE this color. It is a very flattering bright coral pink with an amplified finish. I feel like this bright color is more flattering on me than any other bright lipstick that I own. If they restock these lipsticks I would recommend that you snatch this one up! 

MAC Viva Glam Nicki

"Viva Glam Nicki" is a bright yellow toned pink with a satin finish. I had heard a lot about this lipstick before I went to my MAC counter to try it on. When I first put it on I was like "wow, this is way too bright for me". But, after pairing it with a lip pencil and lip gloss on top, it toned the color down a little without loosing the fun bright color.

MAC Innocence Beware! 
"Innocence Beware!" is a pink nude with a cremesheen finish. I really hadn't planned on purchasing this lipstick before hand so it was more of an impulse buy when I saw that the lipsticks were back in stock. Since I am a nude lipstick kind of person, I knew that I would most likely love this color and I do! The formula of this lipstick is smooth and moisturizing. It does not give a great amount of color when first applied, but it is buildable. I love it for every day wear. 

"Viva Glam Nicki" is still available on the MAC website and in stores for $14.50. All of the money from this purchase goes to the MAC AIDS fund. 

The other two lipsticks are currently sold out on the MAC website. I do not know if they will be restocking them. :(

What lipsticks have you purchased for Spring?

Where I Have Been and A Tribute to my Mom.

I am not sure if many of you have noticed, but I have been absent from my blog for the past couple of weeks or more. It is not because I have given up on my blog and posts at all, but it is due to events that were happening in my life at that time. The past couple of months, my mother, whom I live with, has been in and out of the hospital. On her last hospital visit this past week she passed away. She was one of the closest people  to me and my inspiration. Here is her story and some of her favorite makeup products...

Debbie Vaughn

May 14, 1954 - February 29, 2012

I have always been close with my mom, closer with her than any of my other family members. She is the one who passed on her love of all things makeup, hair, fashion, and shopping to me. 

About 5 years ago, my mom was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. This is a lung condition that turns the normal lung tissue into scar tissue, hardening it, with no known cause. This condition made it so my mom was barley able to breath and needed to be on high doses of oxygen in order to walk the shortest distances. There is no known cure for this disease besides a lung transplant. And, in September of 2008 my mom was able to receive a life saving double lung transplant. It was like she was born again. She began doing things and going places that she would have never been able to do or go before. 

Prior to this, my mom had never worn any makeup besides some mascara and maybe some lipstick. After her lung transplant is when she really got into makeup. She started going to Ulta and Sephora and bringing back brands like Urban Decay (one of her favorites), Too Faced, and Smashbox. It was her doing all of this that really inspired me to start wearing and experimenting more with makeup. We loved going on trips to Ulta and trying on all of the makeup together. Not only did she love makeup but she loved anything with sparkles or very dramatic dark colors. 

I want to share with you some of her favorite items of makeup. 

Here is a picture of some makeup products that she used often. 

Like I said she was a BIG fan of Urban Decay, especially their eye shadows and the Naked Palette. She also  really loved the Kat Von D line of makeup. I think she liked how dark and dramatic her eye shadows are! 

One of her favorite lip combos that she wore every single day was Victoria's Secret Limelight lipstick paired with Victoria's Secret Beauty Rush lip gloss in Grapefruit Blast. She loved both of these lip products because of the massive amount of sparkles in them. haha

 Back in November, my mom caught a bad case of Bronchitis and after about a week she seemed to have gotten over it. In late December, she noticed that her breathing was becoming more labored and that certain activities were making her more out of breath than previous. She had to go to the hospital and they said that her body had started to reject her lungs. The doctors tried multiple procedures and drugs, but her breathing never improved. She finally passed away from her chronic rejection on February 29th. 

I had never expected this to happen and it seemed like her health declined so quickly. She was invincible to me. 

Although her physical being is gone now, I feel and know that she will always be with me watching over me. It almost gives me a sense of calm that she will be able to protect and watch over me far better than she has ever been able to since she is in Heaven and on God's team now. :)

Even though her internet and computer usage was almost completely non-existent, she understood and appreciated what I was doing with this blog that I started up. I know she would have loved to be featured on my blog and share with you guys her favorite makeup products. 

As for now I will be back to blogging and have started working on a few posts. The next couple of months are going to be hard though because I will be having to go through all of my mom's things as well as looking for a new apartment. I have missed all of my fellow bloggers and can't wait to get back into contact with all of you!