Well, after going light 5 weeks ago, my hair was ready for a platinum blonde root touch up. My roots were about 15mm (an inch) and look super dark against the light bleached hair, with the old frazzled grey hair. I only have about 1% grey, but the hairs are so distinctive. My whole life, my hair has been dead straight, and now I have these random greys that stick out from the rest. I dread to think of how it will look at 100%,. Quite mad I should imagine, which, judging by the way the women in may family are, will be fitting.
Epic Hair Fail
L’oreal Paris Preference Very Platinum 6 Levels of Lift
I had 2 boxes of L’oreal Paris Preference Very Platinum 6 Levels of Lift ready, if the first root touch up went yellow or didn’t lift enough, which I was hoping would only need one pack, since it is marketed for platinum hair.
In 1 cm sections I applied the colour using the touch up brush to both sides of the part, then I use the tail comb to create another part, 1 cm across and apply to both sides of the root parting. I did as much of that left and right, as I could see, then called my long-suffering husband to do the back. Lord help me, I don’t want to look at the back.
He did the same thing in horizontal sections at the back, making sure all the back roots were coated and the longer patches of hair were not affected.
It’s important to move quickly when applying bleach, because otherwise your hair will be white at the front and the back still orange. (when you bleach hair it goes brown to orange to yellow and then platinum. If you got too far with blonde, the hair will turn transparent and turn to jelly and disintegrate. It’s important to take the colour off before that happens, and not over process the hair. Bleaching hair is about as much as you can do to damage your hair, so caution and a bit of experience is required to get it right.
I tidied up, and set the alarm for 30 minutes.
I ended up waiting 45 minutes and my hair was still light brown at the roots. I could see where the colour is on my skin that there was an actual neutral purple colour, but the colour didn’t lighten much at all. It was light brown with a red tinge. I had hoped it would lighten more as this was not a nice colour.
As my hair always takes twice as long as anyone else, so I left it on for a full hour before giving up. I have another pack of this, so might use that before turning to a different brand or product.
I applied the second packet of L’oreal Paris Preference Very Platinum 6 Levels of Lift and left it on for 45 minutes, and it left the roots a tan/orange colour and the hair from the previous colouring is white/purple. It looked dreadful. Didn’t lift the colour from light brown to blonde. Lifted the colour to orange and had a built-in toner that made the overlapped bleach a light purple. Sorry L’Oreal, but this product may have lovely packing shots, but a decent bleach is what’s needed in this product. And as far as the price of $19 it was such an expensive learning experience.
It’s like there was no real bleach in the L’Oreal colour. I genuinely wasted 2 x $19 with the L’oreal Paris Preference Very Platinum 6 Levels of Lift and saving money was the reason for doing my own hair in the first place. It defeated the purpose of the exercise.
Blonde Root Touch Up Success
Schwarzkopf Nordic Blonde Ultimate Lightener L++
As it was a ‘hair emergency’. I honestly could not go out with my hair like that so put it up and I quickly popped out to the supermarket. My goal was to find the same bleach colour I used when I went blonde 5 weeks ago, specifically the which lightens hair up to 9 levels. I used this tonight for my blonde, and with Mike’s hair I did the back. This is the product to go blonde with, not the new formulation of the L’Oreal Platimun Blonde. I will make sure next time I use this one. It’s doing the obligatory scalp sting and my hair is lightening quickly now.
The Schwarzkopf Nordic Blonde Ultimate Lightener L++does the job, with strong bleach, lightening the hair to a pale yellow, which I will tone with a purple product.
Strong, easy to use, clear instructions and a great price at $10.79 at Priceline and Woolies.
Please note that I am not a hairdresser, so any info I provide you is only from personal experience, on my own hair as a non-professional. If you follow these steps and it doesn’t work for you I won’t be help responsible. That said, if you go blonde and use the products above, let me know your view!
Toner Tales
I have tried a number of purple toners and they are all too purple. The only colour that works for a iced blonde effect is the Scott Cornwall Colour Restore Iced Platinum 100 mL.
So to recap, Schwarzfopf Nordic Blonde to take hair 9 shades lighter, hubby does the back, with Scott Cornwall Colour Restore in Ice Platinum as the toner (leave on for 30 mins for the colour to last a week before the brassiness returns).
Next time I am dolled up this week I’ll do a selfie to show you.
