Ten Days: Hair Confessional

Warning: longest post ever...

Alright, so remember when I promised you good folks a while ago that you'd get to see my number one most embarrassing photo? That time has finally arrived. I re-dyed my hair for my Ten Days quest, and thought this would be a good time to confess to my love-hate relationship with my hair and show you what I've done with it over the years.

Begin.

Presenting: roughly 14 year old me at my great-uncle's New England cabin, complete with post-lake air-dried hair, corn shucking, the most unflattering pose ever, a dorky/toothy smile, and untimely blinking.

I'll wait for you to stop crying from laughter. No really, I'll wait.




Done yet? No?


How about now? Ok well I hope so.
In any case, although my hair is still a terrifying beast today (see photo 9 below), I've learned to tame it through copious amounts of coconut oil and learning how to properly blow-dry it. But because my locks have never been terribly beautiful on their own, I've never been afraid to dye and cut and change it frequently, which is the point of this post:

DO NOT BE AFRAID OF YOUR HAIR.

It is only hair, and it will grow back. Want turquoise tips? Do it (see how I did them here!). Want a dark brown blunt bob? Go for it. Side/full bangs? Done/done. Hate it? Wait a little while or go back to the hair stylist! Here's a brief synopsis of my wildly fluctuating hair styles over the past 6 years or so, ending with my current 'do!

Oh the crunchy curls I rocked at my Dad and stepmom's wedding... my natural color though!

One of my high school grad photos. Super dark brown! My sister makes fun of this one since it looks like I have gray hair... 

Freshman year shaggy bob... still dark brown.

Slightly more blunt bob and still dark brown, but more reddish.

SUPER DUPER PROFESSIONAL BLONDE WITH AWESOME HIGHLIGHTS for a play my sophomore year (wassup Helena??)

Fuuuuuuuudge that, back to dark brown summer after sophomore year.

Aaaaaaand then back to a lighter brown/blonde-ish shade later that year.

Frizzy beach hair - Spring Break 2011 baby! Slightly more blonde/massive roots.

BAM SIDE BANGS. Also, junior year ultra-frizz. Not even kidding, this is what my hair looks like right after I blow-dry it.

Not a fan of this weird/uneven brown dye job the summer after junior year.

Curls were my jam senior year - back to a more neutral brown.

Much more natural looking brown curls for my college grad photos

Turquoise tips, woot woot! Except then I had to cut those 5 inches of hair off a month later booo

Amazing strawberry blonde professional color.

FULL BANGS OH YEAH!

...aaaaaand after dyeing it again last night (and realizing I do this face A LOT)...

It's current shade of a slightly lighter strawberry blonde. Really digging the red-ness!

TTHHEEEEEEE END!

DIY: A Bit of Teal Rebellion

After an impromptu almost-cross-country roadtrip, I'm finally home. First thing I do? Dye my hair tips teal.

And buy not-so-ironic hipster glasses (I'm looking at you, RHu)

This was a somewhat small act of "rebellion" against complacently sitting at home waiting for my future to fall in my lap. Staring at this giant cliff of graduation and the rest of my life, I decided that since I don't have a job yet and so am not tied down with work commitments etc yet, I might as well have some fun with it while I'm searching. Here's how I did it:

What you need:

Hair dye color of your choice
Old shirt you don't mind getting dyed/bleached

Hair bleach (optional, though recommended if you have dark hair)

Plastic gloves

Plastic wrap

Hair dryer

What you do:

1) Put on old shirt. Bleach the section of your hair that you want colored. Since I have pretty light hair anyways and didn't want the color super bright (and didn't want bleached hair tips once it faded) I skipped the bleach.

Look how excited I am about my light-ish hair!

2) PUT ON GLOVES. I didn't, with this as the result. Eek.

3) Separate hair into sections and apply dye to hair according to the directions for the dye. Make sure to work the dye into the hair really well so it doesn't end up patchy.

4) Wrap in plastic wrap and blast with your hair dryer on high heat for however long your dye instructions say. For me, it was about 40 minutes (or, roughly the length of a Psych episode).

Works best with dramatic lighting.

5) Rinse really really well and let air dry.

I aaaaaalsooooo have some really really exciting news that I can hopefully share with you guys tomorrow, so stay tuned!!! In the meantime, do you guys have any recent "rebellious" acts? Let me know what little things you've done to spice up your life!

DIY: Ombre Dress

Alright, so you've seen it a million times at this point: ombre is fashion's lady of the week. Dresses, shirts, skirts, pants, you name it, it's been ombre'd, and that includes hair (I'm really trying to convince myself that I shouldn't follow this trend...).

via Etsy

via Tuula

This last image inspired me to try my hand at ombre'ing (or dip dying) a dress I originally got for an Alice in Wonderland costume. Great for the costume, not so great for anything else.

Super pale, super snoozeville.

Boil some water, add some Navy Blue dye, and dip it in! I wanted most of the dress to be a darker color, so dipped almost all of the dress in. The dye stains linen and cotton really quickly though, so your lightest "layer" should only be in the dye for a second or two.

I left the second level in the dye for about 3 minutes. 

The last "level" of dye took about 10 minutes to deepen to the color I wanted.

Make sure to dry your newly dyed article of clothing on a towel that you don't care too much about. It will get dyed too! I have a specific "dye-drying" towel that I use. Here's the final product! Of course I took these pictures plenty past midnight, so the photoshoot devolved pretty quickly...

Pretty normal so far

I really like how the back turned out - the line of color is much straighter.

This is where I start getting a bit delusional... "OMG LOOK I finished something!!"

 "I wonder what shoes I should wear with this dress? I guess these are okay!"

You get the idea. Super easy DIY that I definitely need to try on a pair of jeans or two. Or three.

DIY: Catching Up

I began DIYing seriously last summer (2011) while I was in Boston for a summer internship. It was really a self-preservation thing as I didn't have a whole lot else to do... I started this blog towards the end of the summer, but didn't really "commit" to it until December. In the meantime, however, there were several DIY projects I finished. So just to catch you up, here's some that I think are worth showing (besides the usual "hem a thrifted skirt" thing):

A plain (thrifted) Anne Taylor dress. Formerly very conservative, now with deep U back. It's a super daring cut so I've actually only ever worn this dress out once and kept a shawl on the whole time. But I took in the dress so it fits me perfectly (rare for a non-stretch dress since I'm so curvy) and I LOVE it. So I really do need to find an excuse to wear it somewhere. And more often.

This was a dress I bought in high school at a boutique back home, for way more than I probably should have been spending at that point in my life. I adore the neck and cut of the dress, but it was originally a really weird beige color. So I dipped it in some black dye! Turns out I didn't leave it in long enough so came out a kind of dark/musty purple, but it was really pretty so I just left it.

A ridic easy dress (yes, dress - I know it looks like a long shirt... it's stretchy!) I whipped up one night before going out. I have a blue bodycon tank dress that fits me super well, so I traced it onto this stretchy black lace I had laying around, stitched it up, and viola! Easy peasy.

A necklace that I made one night while procrastinating work. Copied a design I saw online (can't remember where though). I've been in love with the black and gold combo recently. Maybe because of this song?

More gold, this time in the form of obnoxiously sparkly shoes. Super cheap (thrifted) flats, originally this hideous blue jeans color (you can still see it on the inside of the shoe), now an amazing gold. I love the rounded point toe, just the perfect shape. It's an awesome way to spice up the otherwise relatively simple/boring going out go-to outfit (say that five times fast) of skinny jeans and black tank top.