Change up for the barnet: Ombré Part 1

Hey guys!

So I am officially back on here after being away for I don't even want to know how long - I feel very out of it so please bear with me. I'm going to kick off my return with some special news.
I have ombréd my hair. 
I jumped on the bandwagon on Friday with the help of my amazing friend Shannon, who happens to work in a hair
dressers (how coincidentally useful right?). 

A few disclaimers:
I had never dyed my hair before so if you have already dyed hair, ask someone who is more expertly
informed on that!
This review will be 100% honest and truthful to my real opinion, so please bare that in mind
when you read this.
This is about DIYing ombre hair, so not about getting it done professionally.

Anyway, this post is just to tell you guys how I did it if any of you are interested, perhaps to show you a few 
pictures of the process and to review the product I used.
Enjoy!

What you will need:

- Some form of bleaching kit. You CANNOT use blond hair dye, because unfortuately, you need to really lift the 
colour of your hair and only bleach will do the trick. I used the L'Oréal Paris Preference Wild Ombrés box.
- An old towel that you don't mind getting dirty. A lighter one is best as you won't notice the bleaching as much.
- An old T-shirt that you again don't mind getting dirty.
- A window that you can open because the smell will probably be filthy. 
- An available shower or bath where you can wash the dye out.

The kit that I used:

RRP: £6.99 from Tesco - what a bargain! 

I chose to use Ombre No.1 even though I have medium brown hair so technically I should have gone with Ombre No. 2. I chose this primarily because it had better reviews and I didn't want it toooo blond. Also, it was the only one available in the shop. :)

What do you get in the box?

- The brush that you use to apply the product

- One sachet of lightening powder (1)

- One bottle of developer creme (2)

- One tube of lightening creme (3)

- One mini bottle of conditioning shampoo (4)

- A set of instructions

- A little capsule containing a pair of plastic gloves

First of all, you pour all of the powder into the bottle of developer creme. Then, you open the tube of lightening creme and squeeze all that you can into the same bottle and first roll it between your hands, then shake it well. At this point, make sure you crack open a window, because it really does smell awful.

Then you put on the gloves, unscrew the tip of the bottle and apply a lot of the dye to the brush and brush it through the tips of your hair. I chose to do this first and leave it on for about 5 minutes because I wanted the ends of my hair to be the blondest. I kept moving up my hair, each time leaving it for 3-5 minutes, eventually stopping around where my chin was. This was to create a natural, gradient effect. As well as applying it with the brush, we also scrunched the product with our hands to make it look more messy which adds to the intended effect of ombre. In total, I left it for about half an hour before washing it out with the shampoo they gave me, and it gave me a beautiful caramel blonde colour which wasn't unnatural or harsh at all.

It did make the ends of my hair slightly dry, but as I was due for a haircut anyway, I decided to wait until the day after I dyed my hair to go to the hairdressers and get it styled, conditioned and fixed if anything did go wrong (which it didn't!)

So here are some pictures of the process and the results!

As well as combing it through, Shannon also applied it directly to my hair

The final stages of the process, where she was just making sure she didn't miss any bits

Washing it out!

The end result straight after washing and blow drying. You can see
the damage, but it wasn't anything that couldn't be repaired or treated.

The colour of my ends up close

The natural colour of my hair before (please excuse
my appearance, this was taken over a year ago.)

Finally! This is with no effect or enhancement to the picture. As you can see, it's hardly even noticeable,
but still a really pretty gradient that is natural.

So I think that is all! I hope you have found this at least a little bit useful if you want to do this yourself, or even if you're interested in my new hair. It was quite a big step for me as it was the first time dying my hair, but I think this was the perfect thing to do; it was cheap, it was easy and I LOVE it! Do consider giving it a go if you're looking for something fun and easy to do and if you're super nervous about messing it up, get it done professionally!
In a few weeks, I will do Part 2 of this topic where I will talk about the way I care for my ombre hair and what products have worked the best for me, so keep your eyes out for that. 
For now, thanks for reading. Bye!

xxxx

EDIT:: Since then I have had my hair cut (just trimmed) to take off most of the damage which I thought would be good to do to make sure it was as healthy as it could be.

However, I should probably also mention that I actually re-did my hair about a week after I wrote that post. Now, the reason for this is because I just didn't feel like the blonde was noticeable enough. The colour was so gradiented (if that's even a word) that you hardly noticed it in certain lights and I just wanted it blonder. I knew that it would damage my hair but since I'd just had it cut, I decided to do it again. I used the same L'Oreal kit but this time I actually did it myself and used No.3 for blonde hair. I left it in for about 45 minutes and I love the way it turned out. It's a lot blonder but still looks natural and not too much at all.