Bleach Review: Kaleidocolors by Clairol Professional

So I wasn't satisfied with the blonde result 100% so I went back to Sally Beauty Supply and bought myself a packet of bleach thinking I would put in some lighter streaks to get a different effect.  Well, I then changed my mind and decided to go lighter all over.  One packet of bleach wasn't going to do much to my hair for sure so I went back and bought myself a tub...lol.  I plan on being blonde for a longer period of time so I'll need more for touchups and stuff.  Also I might do my sister's hair as she's wanted a streak bleached to put purples or blues in for some time now...and she hasn't been able to get it done herself so this might work.

picture found on google imgaes search

 

I bought the Kaleidocolors powder in Blue Azul from Clairol Professional
Cost: with my beauty club card it was $20.95 from SBS, well worth it as each packet of 2oz is about $5 and I used approximately 8oz total so far to do my whole head so that would've been $20 from packets and none left over!
Claims: "Lightens up to 5 levels and adds cool tones, for black to medium blonde hair;" "Lightens and tones in one easy step;" and "10 minutes to perfectly toned highlights."
What I liked: It definitely works in 10 minutes.  Although I went from a medium blonde to a light blonde so that's probably why.  The instructions, however, have you sitting under a heated dryer with a cap on your head for the 10 minutes so the extra heat and the cap would probably lift at least from a medium brown depending on how you hair handles.  It smells great.  It only faintly smells like chemicals and actually smells more like some blue-raspberry sweet bubblegum kind of scent.  I had vague images of people trying to eat it because it smelled like candy.  Heh.  It's also not *too* damaging.  My hair was pretty porous and dry to begin with from the stripping of the darker colour last attempt, but this didn't make it any/much worse.  However, I also drenched my hair in conditioner and olive oil after.
What I disliked: It didn't really add much cool tones.  My hair looked green while developing, but once rinsed it was still yellow/golden coloured which is pretty standard for bleaching hair.  I think it would've been nice if it gave you an estimate of how much to use for a whole head of hair as it just gives you the ratio to mix at and I had to keep going and mixing more and more to get my head covered.  But I guess professionals would be able to tell just by prior experience how much to use.
Would I buy this again? Yes, but I don't think I'll actually run out of the powder as I have probably enough to bleach my whole head at least 4 more times.  I would also perhaps try the violet shade as well if needed, but my hair goes more golden/orange easier than it does just yellow...so blue is the opposite of that rather than just purple.

Result pics to come...

Blonde Becka (aka, don't do what I did..)

So finally I am some sorta normalish semblance of a blonde shade.  Lol.  I'll give you the story in pictures as I took pics pretty much every step of the way.  Keep in mind I did all this today between the hours of say...10:30am and 4:00pm.  I don't suggest you do this all in one day, but I am a stubborn girl and I have kicked the crap outta my hair before and so I know sorta how it handles...but even I shouldn't have done all this (I could've gone without one of the steps I did...)

Remember the brown hair before?

well, it is no more...it has been replaced with this crazy lady.

That is so strange.  I don't notice too much of a difference when I just look at it with no comparisons, so I am glad there is actually a dramatic change between the brown and blonde.

My trip to Sally's!

So the other day I searched on google for Beauty Supply stores in my hometown and I got a few weirdo places and one that seemed okay so I checked that out on monday and it seemed smallish with not that many types of hairdye.  So I was a bit bummed but whatever.  So I check online on Sally's and maybe I can order stuff? Nope, it's US shipping only for the time being.  Ugh...so I store locate for nearest one thinking I might cross the border sometime in the near future and...lo and behold, there's one near my neighbourhood! Yay.

So I bus there (worst bus ever....the driver kept braking at random times and drove probably like 60kmh in the 90kmh bus only zone...).  It's amazing! I've never been to a beauty supply store before but I am totally going to go there often I think.  Esp if I am going to be dying my hair again regularly.  I got their club card because it was only $5 for the whole year...

A (condensed) History of Hair

I am about to embark once again in drastic hair changes (going blonde hopefully this weekend), so I decided to do a post dedicated to where I have come from in terms of hair-dye adventures.  I have been dying my hair since I was in grade 6.  Back then it was semi-permanent red shades only.  And they probably looked awful.  I remember them turning out bright red on the top and being just subtle red on the ends...I have since learned this is due to both the heat of the scalp speeding up processing as well as just the "freshness" of the hair (stuff at the ends is obviously less new...lol).  I don't remember the first time I did a permanent dye, but it was probably also a red shade.  I played around with red and auburn and darker browns until about grade 10 when my boyfriend at the time liked blonde hair, so I attempted a blonde dye.  Blonde dye over red dye = orangey hair.  Haha.  I tried to pass it off as strawberry blonde though and it didn't look awful, just...not awesome.  So back to browns and auburns again.

Here's on of the earliest pics I have of reddish hair colour

Nothing special really...

Then in grade 12 I bleached for the first time.  It was totally covert and hilarious now looking back as I did it completely wrong basically.  Okay, not wrong...just really awful for my scalp.  I slathered the bleach mix on, wrapped my head in saran wrap and then stuck a hat on my head and ate lunch with my mom and she didn't know what was going on.  Haha.  Then I checked on it after an hour perhaps and it was yellow so I rinsed it out and had strawfeeling yellowy hair with orangey ends.  I tried to tone this down a bunch with semi and perm colours in blonde, but it still was pretty yellow looking.  Haha.  I eventually dyed the underside hot pink and put some streaks of pink in and got that for my grade 12 class pic.  But for grad I needed to go back to brown, so I did. 

More story after the jump...LOADS of pics, sorry anyone with dialup still...

I am a horrible blogger :(

I promise I'll blog more, I've just been busy with work and then there was a heat wave so I didn't feel like sitting in my un-airconditioned room for anything other than sleeping (which was horribly uncomfortable anyway).  Nothing like it feeling like 44'C with the humidex! Also I feel my room is hotter than any others because it gets the most sun directly from sunrise til just before noon and it has no cover from trees, so the rest of the house is blocked by trees but my room doesn't have that so it's hot hot hot.

Makeup relatedness:
I have been wearing my rimmel primer and a TEENY bit of mineral powder only lately.  It's been too hot to put anything else on as I just sweat it off as soon as I walk out the door, and even in the heat wave the rimmel primer made me look less shiney so that's a bonus.  It has minor coverage because of it's tint, so that's good.  Other than that just mascara and maybe a teeny bit of eyeshadow or eyeliner.

Hair relatedness:
I've gotten over the fact that I dyed my natural hair to a gross colour and then redyed it to practically my natural colour again (I was in tears over the fact that I just processed my hair for basically nothing...haha).  SOOO...now I wanna go blonde.  Actual blonde.  I"ve done it before and it's always been really golden blonde shades because I've never used the purple shampoo/mousse/whatever that tones it out.  However, I don't know what I am doing 100% so any advice would be welcome.  I think I'll either strip the colour I have now and do a salon-style thing with the separate developer and colour, or else just bleach and then tone.

Pictureness:
Some recent ones after the jump.

Update and a Question

So I'm back from my mini-vacay to Sarnia to visit my boyfriend.  It was fun.  Canada day was a bit of a bomb at first because I didn't know anyone at the BBQ my boy took me to and he knew most of the ppl there so I felt all alone and blah.  But watching him play with his band was fun and then we had a good time afterwards watching fireworks and stuff.  The Sarnia ones were on par with the ones here in Ottawa generally.  The ones in Ottawa this time might have been wicked awesome though because they doubled the budget due to the dear-old Queen visiting. 

So yeah.  I was sorely tempted to purchase makeup items while I was there because their Wal-mart is better stocked than the one's here.  I almost bought Soft Nude by Revlon for 7.97, and I almost bought either a nude or the Rose Sorbet lipstick from Rimmel, but I chickened out last minute.  I think once I pay my tuition I will get the Rose Sorbet one for sure and most likely Soft Nude as well if I can find it here (otherwise I'll send my boy to get it...heheh).

What I did buy was Maybelline The Colossal mascara in waterproof from the Superstore (Loblaws by another name...hehe) because it was on sale for $5.99 which is decent and it's my fave mascara for big lashes. 

So that's that.  My question I have is if anyone has tried the Rimmel lipstick in either the nude or the rose sorbet and what their verdict is.  I like the lasting finish lipsticks well enough but have never tried the moisture renewal ones...