Dying my hair Blonde: Bleach

Hello all!

  I've been really excited all week. A few things: I normally work overnight, but my job was coming to a close as the semester at Northern Illinois University where I work was. Fortunately, I was able to find a job that is Monday through Friday, during the day. Hooray! My last day at NIU is tomorrow the 4th of May, and my first day at my new job is the 7th. I'm going to visit my parents 3 hours away this weekend, and we are going out to eat and I'm going to a tea party with my mom. A job I hate is ending, I'm starting a new job with good hours, and I get to see my parents.

  I also really want to make my hair platinum blonde and did so yesterday, so I scoured the internet to try to find out what other people are doing to achieve platinum blonde hair using Manic Panic Virgin Snow. I only found a few sources, so I decided to do my take and chronicle my experience dying my hair. This is the dye I bought. Not that it is the Amplified version.

   

    Unfortunately, you need your hair to be really really light blonde to work. I did a strand test on my hair and nothing happened. So this means I had to bleach it. I went to my local Walgreens to look for a good bleach, and I happened upon Splat Bleach Complete Kit.

  Thankfully my hair is naturally pretty light (I'm a ginger ^_-) and I had my hair dyed blonde at a salon a few months ago, so I only had to bleach once to get all my hair light. Here are pictures of my hair right before bleaching:

   Now to the bleaching! First of all, I made sure it was greasy. I washed it two days before, and the day before I only conditioned with a deep conditioner and scrubbed a little shampoo on my bangs. My hair naturally gets greasy fast so if your hair stays pretty dry I would wait 2 or 3 days before bleaching. I mostly followed the directions in the box. I had my boyfriend help me since I can't see the back really well due to having to bleach in the kitchen. The bathroom is tiny and has no ventilation, otherwise I would have done it there.
   Anyway, we dyed my whole head starting with the under strawberry blonde (my natural color,) then my roots, then the already dyed part. Afterword, I washed any bleach from my ears, neck, and face with a mild toner, then covered my hair with a plastic bag and blow-dried it on high for about 5 minutes. It had already turned really blonde at this point (advantage to light hair.) We covered the spots we had missed and I put the bag back on and turned the blow dryer back on another 5 minutes. I waited a total of 40 minutes and then proceeded to rinse.
   The package comes with a shampoo and conditioner, which I thought was very helpful. I mixed some of my Shimmer Lights shampoo with some of the shampoo from the Splat Bleach package. Lat me just say, this was the weirdest shampoo I have ever seen. It was all gooey and gel-esque... and my hair felt so weird with it in. However, it rinsed nicely and I'm sure it helped my hair. Then I put the conditioner in. Now the package says to leave it in at least 20 minutes, but it also says to keep it in over night for best results. I left it on underneath a towel for 3 hours, because quite frankly I didn't have the patience to wait any longer. Anyway, I rinsed, dried, slept, washed with my Shimmer Lights shampoo, and now my hair looks like this:

  As you can see, the already-dyed part lightened up significantly. The roots turned out pretty good, but the ends of my non-previously-dyed hair only lightened up a little bit. I plan to dye that black so it's not a big deal.

   Anyway, I'm going to give my hair a break for a week and try the Manic Panic on the 11th. I will be going to Chicago on the 12th so I will get plenty of pictures of my hair out in the daylight! I'll update as soon as I can. Hopefully it doesn't turn my hair WHITE white, or I will have to dye it again with a blonde hair dye. I'm going to New Jersey and NYC on the 20th, and I want my hair to look good before I go.

See you all next time!

Update and beauty care products ordered.

Hello, all!

I haven't posted anything for a little while, so I figured I would post an update on what I've been doing in order to keep myself active on my blog. I have a big motivation problem I'm trying to overcome, so I'm making myself write an entry. I think I will make it about my quest to invest in some serious good beauty products. This is partly to do with being sick of my adult acne and OCD tendency to turn it into a scab, and mostly to do with reading Ageha magazine.

Now let me be clear, I do not look at women in any magazine and think "I must look like her, she is so pretty!" As a feminist who thinks every look should be accepted, I refuse to let myself think this way, plus the women of Ageha are the fakest pictures of women I've ever seen in my life. I do like the layout of and some fashion in Ageha, but get sick of the fakeness. If Kera were available where I get my mags (not online) I'd drop Ageha in a heart beat (I prefer alternative styles, anyway.) But I really do enjoy the sections they have where the models give their beauty/bath/skin care/ etc. routine. They have motivated me to adopt a routine, not just for vanity but to feel good about myself and set standards and goals for myself just for the sake of having them. I'll outline my planned routine later.

I recently ordered a few products from lush.com. There are a couple near where I live, but they are both about an hour and an hour and a half away. I love actually going to stores, but seeing as NOTHING is in or really close to Dekalb (except Batavia, but it's been too cold for outdoor malls) I had to resort to going online.

The first thing I had to get done was order a good face wash. This is Coal Face. It has little coal shards. It's supposed to be good for getting gunk out of your pores, which I need desperately. My current routine is to use toner and moisturize, and every few days I exfoliate with Ocean Salt (another great Lush product.) I figure getting a good cleanser in there will really help reduce the blackheads and acne, and will help keep my forehead oil free and my face feeling gunk free. 

Next up is the Bubblegum Lip Scrub. Let me just say that I love girly-pink-bubblegum-vanilla-candy-sugary-sweetness. I feel everyone needs a little femininity in their lives, and as someone who has a new found appreciation for the feminine after years of trying to be "one of the guys" that only dressed up to impress guys, I go all out when I can (i prefer more punky looks with touches of girly). And with such a small and temporary item, I was so glad to be given the chance to go all out. I need a lip scrub because of that bad habit to pick everything that I feel doesn't belong off. Seriously, I'll make my lips bleed. This little product has promised to not only make me feel girly, but also to take all the excess lip flakes off. Can't pick anything off that isn't there, and the sweet scent and hot pink color are an added bonus. .^o^.

 Last up, I Love Juicy. I found this product look for a simple clarifying shampoo to get all the extra buildup out of my hair once a week. The reviews raved about how it reduced oil in hair ten-fold. As someone who needs to wash her hair daily due to excess oil, i was intrigued. Most reviews would mention something about oil, and some claimed they could go a day without washing. I ordered a small bottle because I am cheap and only intended to use it for clarifying once a week anyway, but who knows? Maybe I will be investing on a bigger bottle in the future.

Now on to what I plan to do! The March Issue of Ageha had a section on bath time, and I feel that would be an amazing thing to add to my life. A chance to de-stress, surround myself in a scent I love, and make my skin super-soft? Sign me up! I would like to do this nightly, at least when I get a schedule that allows it. I want to do it before bed, but I get off work at 6 a.m., and typically like to go right to sleep so I don't sleep the whole day away. My facial care routine seems more manageable:

Remove makeup after I'm done showing it off (to others and myself.) In every shower, wash with coal face; exfoliate Monday and Friday. Wash face with toner after using coal face and before bed. Moisturize (in the process of finding a good one) with SPF after shower, with a night-time one before bed. Use lip scrub as necessary. Stretch before bed

I currently use Say Yes to Carrots to moisturize at night and during the day, but I think I want a different daytime moisturizer. Once I start with the baths I plan to do my night routine right after the bath, but until I have time to get ready for bed I will have to use toner and moisturize. I also plan to get a really nice hair dryer that looks good sitting out. Apartment hopping means no bathroom storage ;_;

And there you have it! ^_^ I'll review the products a few weeks after I get them to really get a good feel for how they work with my body and its personal chemistry. I'll also try to update my blog more often! I'll leave with a picture of Rarity from MLP: FIM looking super chic. Yes, I am a brony! I just like so many things..

Animal Testing

It's not in my "about me" section, but I am heavily in favor of animal rights. I'd say I'm about 7 or 8 on a scale of 10 with 1 being "all animals exist for people to do whatever they want with" and 10 being "nobody is to eat animals or test anything on animals or even have animals as service animals or pets." I am in the process of switching all my animal products that i eat or drink be organic or at least humanely treated. And since a good chunk of my blog is supposed to be about fashion, I'd like to talk about makeup companies testing on animals.

In mixing my need to de-clutter and my want to live a more animal-friendly lifestyle, I've decided to go through my makeup supply and throw away all cosmetics where the company tests on animals. Thankfully, my favorite brands don't test on animals (yay!). These include Makeup Forever, Benefit, Too Faced, Hard Candy, and Bare Escentuals. Here is a list of companies that DO NOT test on animals. Yes, it is from PeTA, and while I am sick of the way PeTA goes about trying to promote animal welfare (a post for another day) this list is very useful in deciding what brands to buy. I hope you find it useful in your journey to limit and reduce animal suffering as well ^_^

Wig and Productivity!?

I just got my wig from Gothiclolitawigs.com! It is this one here. I would really love to color my real hair, however I am currently trying to get a new job. As of right now I work overnight doing pretty much nothing, but it's a security job so I need to keep my eyes peeled in case something does happen. It's hard to stay awake, but I do it ^_^ As soon as I get myself dolled up and get the wig to look right on me I will post pictures, but for now I will stay in my pajamas.

Also, I plan on getting into a productive mode as far as my business is concerned this weekend. I really want to make a pillow, as well as another tie-necklace. Here is the one I have made already.

Pretty good considering I used scraps laying around my apartment, I'd say! I will be putting this up on my etsy as soon as I get 2 more made. I want to try to make a truly punk one as well as a lacy lolita one.

That's all for today, see you next time!

Expecting a package and Cute things from Claire's

I really like to get cute things, but getting things from the only the internet is kind of tiring. I'd like to  touch items before I buy them. So I went to Claire's (the only thing here in Dekalb) and picked up these things! I absolutely love this necklace, and my new lanyard is super cute. The only thing is my unicorn keychain is getting so dirty so fast! She picks up all the black lint off my coat T_T I am expecting a package from Kawaiigoods.com today, though, so be expecting pictures!

Pictures Coming

So my blog is pretty bare being new and all, but I do plan to post pictures pretty soon ^_^ Also, I will be posting about my shop on etsy, Acidic Candy! It's kind of empty right now, but it's all about cute and alternative accessories and possibly clothing. If I ever get a job with a normal schedule, I will be able to focus more on my shop... which I am hopefully going to be able to get one pretty soon *ohpleaseohplease*

Brand New Blog

So I have decided to share my thoughts with the world! I plan on doing a blog that involves beauty and fashion, but without all the "you should look this way or feel bad about yourself!" that so many beauty magazines put out. I also want to share feminist thought and dialogue. I mostly am into Japanese fashions, but anything is up for grabs!