u/BlastedPengiuns

A couple disclaimers before I start...

• I am not a professional.
• I am not blaming licensed stylists for not wanting liability - I do understand that they would rather not get sued or damage someones hair.
• I am NOT someone who is attached to my hair (I was fully prepared for breakage/having to chop length off).

I had only about 9 months of henna on my hair.

1. To explain the photos:

First photo is after I had gone to a stylist to work our way down to the blonde I wanted. I was not happy with this red. It was more red than my henna was. Then the stylist cancelled our next appointment on me because she said she didn't feel comfortable doing my hair anymore (this was only one day before the appt that she cancelled- the appt had been scheduled for over a month).

1st photo (left) is after I had done 2 brown permanent box dyes over my hair to try to cover the red. Yes, I knew you can't really deposit color on color - I did it anyway.

2nd photo (right) is after one round of Color Oops. It removed A LOT more of the color than I thought it would & it was pretty even, overall. I did TWO rounds of color oops.

1st photo (left) - This was after the first round of bleach using Blondme powder & 20 volume developer. Processed for around 45 min each time.

2nd photo (right) - 2nd round of bleach - still using 20 vol.

Took a week break in between color oops & bleaching to give my hair a rest (I WFH, so I didn't care what my hair looked like in between). I also used K18 every other wash & I also use Dove Intensive repair line for washing in addition to using a silk pillowcase. The silk pillowcase alone makes a huge difference for my fine hair, especially after being bleached.

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At this point, I was pretty light in most spots, but I still had some real orange streaks, so I did a "spot treat" bleach session - only putting it on the pieces that still had too much orange in them - still 20 vol. processed for only about 20 min. Photos did not capture too much difference due to lighting, but it helped a lot for the orange streaks.

Overall, I had some breakage, as expected, but I also gave my hair a good half inch chop after all the bleaching (which I was planning to do anyway).

To tone, I used Igora Vibrance (I got off Sleekshop). I did use 10volume instead of 6 volume for toning. I should have used 6 volume. I only had 10 on hand & didn't want to buy anymore products.

For the root shadow I used 6-16 & 7-0 (1:1)

I did TRY to do some lowlights. I failed a bit here. It's incredibly hard to do lowlights on yourself with no help. I did only 4-5 sections (only on the sides of my head) & luckily they are a bit hidden by the top layer, but there is some unevenness there, because I did not blend the middle and top formulas in time & I wasn't careful enough with blending during application. I should have had all my formulas ready to blend (I did each step separately to avoid getting overwhelmed).

Mids/ends are 9-1 with 9-24 (3:1)

• Overall, I am decently happy with the results for having done it all by myself with no help. It's not perfect by any means, but I am so happy to not be seeing red anymore. I didn't style my hair for the after photos, because I wanted to let my hair chill for a bit before doing anything else to it, so the after photos are a bit "messy".

Does anyone know why the Alaska cruise leaves so late? We are used to Caribbean cruises where they depart around 5. For this one, we are checking in at 12:30 & all aboard is at 3:30. What is happening between then & 8pm departure that’s different than other cruises? Just curious 👀