Hairdressing.
…well I mean hairdressing if you require a cut, colour, blowdry and style. It is hard enough finding a hairdresser that you like, that can cut, that can colour and that can leave your face without dye all over it. Throw in having to consider budgetary restraints, and it is even harder!
Basically, it is darn expensive here. Between having a colourist, cutter, washer – tipping them all and paying for their services. This service can run into the multiples of hundreds of dollars.
I am one of those loyal every-six-weeks without fail hair girls. I get my same colour and cut and blowdry. I’d sit down in the salon chair at 9am on a Saturday and I would be home by 11.30. All of this with my lovely hairdresser Des would set me back $110. Same price all the time.
At my last haircut before departure, I was telling Des about this ‘issue’. I let her know that I was planning on getting just drugstore hair colours and doing it myself (memories of the Cherry Red Napro Live Colour Tints that I loved in year 12… and getting the stuff all over the bathroom!)
She gave me the details of the professional colour she used on my hair and then peroxide mix that I would need to use with the colour. I knew I could do the actual colouring process myself as I had watched her do mine for so long. Mum found me a colouring brush and cape at work so I was set. The plan was, when I got over here, I would try and find the same professional colour and this peroxide mix and I would try to do a professional colour myself.
The secret to home colouring when ‘touching up’ the previous colour is to NOT chuck the whole thing over your hair – roots first for 30 minutes and then apply the remaining colour through your hair for the last 10 minutes.
So, when Kat was here we descended on Ricky’s. WOW. This place is nuts – it is like beauty stuff/hair stuff heaven. It is like Hairhouse Warehouse and Petra Haircare put together with makeup stuff and bits and pieces. They happened to have… professional colours. Unfortunately, I ran into a bit of a problem as the colour that was used on my hair at home was an Australian brand. I was able to find the peroxide and now, it was a matter of playing russian roulette and ‘picking’ what I thought would be the closest hair colour to match my own. I ended up getting a medium brown L’Oreal professional colour. I also got a shaking cup to mix the colour in and a pack of conditioning treatments to use afterwards. For the $3.99 cost of the peroxide and the $5.99 cost of the colour, if I messed up it wouldn’t matter and I would run to the nearest salon for a big fix-it.
So last week while I had to stay up until 1.30am to wait for the Collingwood Vs Adelaide final I decided it would be the perfect time to mess with this colour. I set myself up measuring and mixing the colour and before long I was waiting around, looking like this –
I was in a panic very quickly. The colour looked WAY too dark. I decided to let it go just to see what happened. Then, I applied the rest of it and actually managed to clean up the very few drips over the sink. I just had to wait and hold my breath and just hope that I didn’t end up looking like a tragic-wannabe-goth or skunk with multi-coloured hair.
In a nutshell, my fears were put to rest when I washed the colour out and slowly opened my eyes. It was PERFECT! A tiny bit darker than what I usually had but it was a uniform, rich brown… hurrah!
So this was the end result –
Now all I have to find is a hairdresser to cut my hair which I could easily leave as an every 2-3 month job. I just have to get to Ricky’s again and stock up on that colour and I will be set… all of this done without being up early on a Saturday to sit in a salon chair and the colour hasn’t faded at all this week. Perfect!