A Haircut a Year in the Making!

About a year ago, I decided to stop getting my hair dyed at the salon. I started dyeing it myself and as a result stopped going to the salon all together. This is my hair, exactly one year from the last time it was cut. It was driving me CRAZY! It took forever to dry, was starting to look damaged at the ends, was difficult to manage, and I just felt like it was dragging me down! Part of my hesitation to get it cut recently, was the idea of going to the salon and having to describe what I want in my second language. I just couldn't wait until going home for Christmas, so decided to take the leap and get it chopped off!

After my trip to the salon (which was awkward as expected), I needed to take care of my roots. These are the products I have used the last 3-4 times I've dyed my hair. I start with the Ion Permanent Crème Hair Color in High Lift Ash Blonde mixed with a  30 developer. I have used a few of the High Lift Blonde shades and this one is my favourite. I don't dye all the hair, just pick and choose the sections I want to lighten. By no means is this the same as getting it done professionally,  but when I consider how much money I save, I am quite happy with the end result. After I wash the dye out, I mix up the Wella Permanent Liquid Hair Toner in Lightest Ash Blonde with a 10 developer. I apply this to my whole head and leave it for 20ish minutes or so. The after colour treatment is the last step after washing out the toner. I usually leave this on for a couple minutes before rinsing out.

This is the before and after snapshot of my roots. I was pretty happy with how it turned out. It is always scary to see a headful of purple hair while you have the toner on. My hair usually does have a slight purple tinge to it for a couple days but it fades quickly. It was also so much easier to dye my hair this time around because it was so much shorter. It was so much easier to manage and pick out which sections I wanted to dye.

As you can see I did get quite a bit cut off! I'm not the happiest with the cut, but it feels so much lighter and healthier that I'm ok with it for now. It's always such a treat getting your hair done, and I feel so much better now. I usually make the colour last 8-10 weeks. I've been thinking about trying out a slightly darker shade for the next time around (Ion Permanent Crème Hair Colour in Light Ash Blonde). If anyone has any experience with this shade, please let me know!