It was around this time last year that it occurred to me; I can colour my hair any colour I want! I’m a grown woman, happily working in quite a creative industry, so why not experiment? Pastel hair, rainbow hair, silver hair have all been massive trends recently (check out our post on rainbow hair here) so I thought it was about time that I dipped my follicles into that magical unicorn water.
It turns out that having “fashion” coloured hair comes with a whole host of other side-effects that you might not have encountered if you’ve just swayed between blonde and brunette. Here I’m rounding up the top 7 things I’ve learned since having coloured hair.
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Colour fades. Fast
You need a decent shampoo / conditioner! Bright rainbow hair colours seem to disappear faster than a slice of pizza in the HQhair office!. There are tonnes of options available for coloured hair but I recently discovered Pureology and this range is great because all the products come with colour-preserving ingredientsas standard, and you still get to choose whether you want extra volume or hydration etc. Over-washing is also notoriously bad for fading your hair colour so I’ve recently been finding all sorts of excuses to avoid washing my hair and stocking up on dry shampoo!
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Compliments Galore
If you dye your hair an ‘unusual’ colour, people will comment. Most of the time they love it, occasionally someone will say ‘ooh it looks great – I could never pull that off though!’ and this probably means they don’t like it but IDC cos I love not being boring!
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You have to rethink your wardrobe
Regular thoughts in the morning: “I can’t wear this purple top now, it clashes with my pink hair”, “I feel like this check shirt is distracting from my blue dip dye”, “Is grey hair and a grey jumper too much?” I’ve actually ended up buying a tonne of white tshirts since getting my hair coloured. Everything looks good against white!
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No more swimming
Last year I stayed up very late topping up my lilac hair colour the night before my flight out to Mexico. On the first day of my holiday I was strutting around with my mystical hair feeling fabulous, but later on I jumped in the pool to cool off and when I climbed out 5 mins later all the purple had completely disappeared. Chlorine is not your friend guys. I ended up with a nice sunkissed blonde but it was an unfortunate waste of purple dye.
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It’s expensive
Maintaining a bold hair colour is expensive; not only am I visiting the hairdresser more frequently than my previous quarterly blonde highlight top-up, but I’m spending more on products to look after the colour and condition of my hair. It’s all worth it though!
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Spending a lot of time on Pinterest
It doesn’t matter how much you love your current hair colour, you just can’t help having a peek for some more #hairspo. Pinterest is always full of gorgeous hair pictures (even if some of them seem a little too good to be true!) and it’s the perfect tool for building up ideas for your next dye job. Check out our hair inspo board!
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Nothing fazes you
Once you’ve dyed your hair every colour under the sun (and managed to rock all the varying tones inbetween that weren’t entirely intentional) you start to worry a bit less about it looking ‘perfect’. Coloured hair looks great messy, it looks great with roots, it looks great in a messy bun and it looks great straightened and super sleek. It looks great when it’s bright and freshly coloured and it looks great when it’s faded into a pretty pastel. In short, coloured hair is pretty damn great.
Do you dare to take a dip with a crazy coloured dye?