Monday, September 30, 2013

Going Blonde v2

The last time I dyed my hair was in April and May, where I bleached it three times (two were full coverage, and one time was just the top of my head because it was really uneven) and you can read about it [here].

Here are the end results:
So the night of coming back from Brazil I bleached my hair. Normally you should wait 1-2 days after you washed your hair to do it, but I washed my hair twice the day before. >< It's not a good thing, but I didn't have time to wait.

I mixed Ion Color Brilliance Powder Lightener with an Ion 30 vol developer in a 1:2 ratio. I started timing AFTER everything is applied.

I applied it to the hair that was already blonde for 25 minutes before proceeding to the some of the black regrowth and lastly my roots. I left it in for a total of 55 minutes. The packaging says up to 50, but I had to leave it in a bit longer because it hasn't processed my roots much yet so I had to wait for it.
The hair that was black is noticable a lot more orange. I think I should've applied it to the black hair (minus maybe an inch of roots) at the same time as the ends of my hair, but I was hoping it would still be considered my roots and lighten quickly. I can't tell if the rest of my hair has much of a difference aside from sections which reached a pale blonde (almost white.)

My hair was retaining a bit of water at this point because it didn't dry until 12 hours later. This includes minimal blow drying because it was still soaking wet when I went to bed.

The next night I bleached my hair again. This time I applied it everywhere minus about an inch of my roots. I left it in for about 40 minutes.

The color is still uneven because of how it was previously, but not too noticeable. My regrowth is also more yellow than the rest of my hair, but unless you're really close or staring at it, it's not noticeable.

After the second bleaching session, my hair became super porous and would absorb the shampoo, making it hard to wash out. The first time as it was drying, my hair started to harden wtf. So I washed it again and the same thing happened and I used more shampoo thinking maybe it was just the bleach not washing out. I think it's shampoo because the water I squeezed out is still slightly bubbly :( So I washed it again the third time in the morning without soap, but I conditioned it and it took forever to dry because my roots would retain water.

I ended up toning my hair about a week or two later. At first I was HORRIFIED because parts of my hair came out silvery because I have a bit of hair that's a lot lighter than the rest. But after a few days it faded to a more platinum sort of color. It's still noticeably lighter than the rest of my hair though.

My hair is definitely two-toned, but I like it from the front. Can't say the same about the back though.
 Outdoors.
 Natural lighting (by the windows)
Here's the back..where you can see the middle section is noticeably lighter :( I kind of just dealt with it.

To summarize, I basically bleached my hair twice and toned it. My hair came out a lot more uneven (to me) after toning though. My hair still feels healthy, maybe the flyaway hair is more noticeable, so it does look a bit damaged, but it soft to me, so idk. My hair was only porous in the beginning and went back to normal after a few washes. Overall, I like this color a lot better than the previous :D

Monday, September 23, 2013

Disappointed, but Whatever

Friday I had an speed interview with an organization I wanted to join. There were definitely places I could've improved on but I hoped for the best and tried not to think about it until the result came out. I actually ended up playing games the entire day because of a bet so I didn't even think about it. 

But unfortunately I didn't make it :(( It's disappointing because I started thinking more positively about the results, just to have it be a letdown. I'm not as upset as I thought I'd be though. While I am disappointed, overall I have a whatever attitude. 

I'll definitely try again next semester. I was hesitant because next semester I have my core classes, so it'll be really busy with my team project and I don't want to be that member who can never attend meetings. But I'm hoping it'll work out because.. otherwise I won't get to do it since I want to study abroad next fall. And if I'm really committed in joining..then I should definitely try harder to balance the team project with it. 

School has quite busy lately, but I'm alive. I usually start my day off at 8:00AM (class) and get back around 10:00PM or so..and by then I'm super exhausted and can't focus on my work so I am a bit behind on all my readings.

But yeah, nothing else exciting. So until next time!

Friday, September 20, 2013

Brazil: The Way Back

We ended up leaving the house a bit later than expected, at 2:45AM, but that's okay. I forgot if I mentioned this before, but we had to drive to the GRU Airport because we couldn't book a local flight there. We ended up arriving around 6:30AM, so it was a lot shorter ride than expected. I slept the whole way lol. 
Airplane food..not the best, but it will suffice.

The first flight was the most annoying one ever. I'm not sure if this is how it is with all international flights, but there's three rows of seating as opposed to two normally (one on each side of the plane) and we ended up being seated at the very front row of the middle section. I sat on the left edge of the section, and the whole ~10 hour ride I had people brushing against me every time they walked by. It became like such a pet peeve whenever anyone walked by because I had to put up with it for hours. As if that wasn't enough, since we were in the first row, it was also the intermediary between the left and right section of the plane so people just kept walking through and stepping/kicking me in the process T_T And this entire plane ride I never got a single apology for any of this ughhh. I slept most of the ride, but I think every time I woke up it was because of either of it. 

When we got off we had to go through customs and we ended up getting taxed for the cigarettes we bought fml. The person at the shop told us we could each buy one (which was a pack of three cartons), but the truth is you can only have one carton per person without being taxed. >:(((( So the mother wasn't very happy about it T_T;

Anyways, we waited about 2 hours for the next flight and the ride wasn't that bad either because I was asleep a majority of the time. Our flight landed and we got our stuff and went home. So that was it :))

Overall, I think it was a worthwhile trip. I'm happy with the things I bought :))) And it was nice to reconnect with some family members. It's also good to learn about new cultures..sadly that might come with feeling excluded if you don't understand the language. 

Monday, September 16, 2013

Brazil: The Last Day; Haircut

Day 15: August 28
Today's my last day in Brazil :( I got woken up at 10:00AM to go out for lunch at Tokyo Restaurante. It's a Japanese and Chinese buffet, and you pay by weight. I think R$46/kg. 
The food looked really delicious, but upon eating it it was pretty bland. It wasn't bad but I didn't have much of an appetite to finish everything. 

I went to Ramavi Cosméticos to pick up some last minute cosmetic needs and ended up with a few more nail polishes (not that many, I swear, like around 5), a nail buffer, and some Vult cosmetics.

Not long after I went home, my cousin told me to get ready to go and I asked her where and she never told me lol. We ended up going to Desejo & Sabor with my other cousin's girlfriend for coffee and gelato.
Tiramisu Gelato

When we left, we went across the street to a beauty parlor called DN&K. O_O There they inquired about coloring my hair and a haircut even though I insisted I'll get it done at home >_< We opted for just a haircut in the end because the coloring would cost R$700-800... I ended up chopping it off to past my chest , so around 10 inches in total :X I wanted longer..but they kept pressuring me to do more T_T; And I was also hesitant because I was planning on killing my ends more first before it goes chop chop.

Anyways, here's some before and afters:
For dinner we went to Coxilha dos Pampas again. I was hoping to be able to eat more but got full really quickly again :(
Came home and packed up the rest of the things because we were planning on leaving at 2:00AM, so I took a short nap before that.

I have one more Brazil post after this, so until next time!