DIY Ombre...

You might have guessed from previous posts, but I am a bit fickle when it comes to my hair. I love to change the colour all the time and ombre aka Dip dying has been my favourite. I have done this once before and thought I would revisit it for Autumn. I am also a bit of a DIYer with my hair... at the end of the day, it's only hair. If it goes wrong, it can be fixed. So I thought I would share with you how to do ombre yourself, as many hairdressers literally have no clue what this is or how to do it or charge you a small fortune.

The last time I ombred my hair, I used a colour remover, as the colour underneath my brown hair was blonde. But this time, I thought I'd try the ombre boxed dye by L'Oreal.

So enough rambling on... here we go....  

1. Get out all the "ingredients" in your little dye box and read the instructions very carefully. You might want to put an old towel down to protect your dressing table and wear an old tee that you don't care about.

2. Put all the ingredients into the little applicator bottle and shake shake shake it baby!!!

3. This is where I don't follow the guide. I separate my hair down my parting and into 3 sections each side... bottom, middle and top layer. Pin the top two layers up and use both bottom layers first.

4. Apply the dye to your hair, about half the way up and basically cover it. Rub it in with your fingers and make sure it really is coated. The box tells you to use the brush, but for the bottom later don't bother. Add extra to the tips of your hair and cover the ends in tin foil.

By the way... on the pics, I don't have any gloves on, as I couldn't use my iphone with them on. But when doing yours.... DO NOT take them off, especially if you have sensitive skin.

5. Now undo the second layer of hair.


6. With the second layer, you don't want the dye to go on thick and heavy, but more wispy. The way I achieve this is by back combing, which pulls half of the hair out of the section. Then cover the remaining of the section in the dye. 


7. The rest of the back combing hair, comb backdown into the rest of the coated hair and then, just lightly brush a small amount of dye over this section. This will take to your hair a lot less, giving you the gradual colour change. 


8. Again cover the very ends in tin foil. As you can see from the picture, it will start to look like you have metal dread locks.

9. Now the final layer of your hair (the top layer) will probably be very small and possibly shorter. Again, I slightly back comb the top layer and then apply the dye to the very ends. Literally only cover about 1-2 cm in it. Then get the little brush that comes in the kit and brush the back combed hair down. Again brush a small amount of dye into parts of the top section. Apply tin foil to the 1-2cm ends of hair covered in dye. 

10. Then you should look like this. An absolute loony with bits of tin foil hanging off your head.

11. If you really want the ends of the hair to be light, you need to apply some heat to the dye. In a salon, they use the hot lights, but I'm not exactly a pro stylist... so the hair dryer does the trick. I only use it for a minute or two, just to warm the hair and the tin foil does the rest. 

12. Leave it for thirty minutes and check to see if it's developed. I then added another coat of dye top the very ends and cover again with tin foil. Leave for a further 15 mins before washing it off. I used a deep conditioning serum, so that my hair keeps moisturised. Dry and style and voilà.... sunkissed ombre hair. 

Before ... Dark hair
After... Naturally ombreed sunkissed hair.

 Signing out