L'oreal Casting Creme Gloss in Blackcurrant and a bit of hair history!

So I was supposed to write this post yesterday, but the internet was so painfully slow I gave up.. And to think we've just installed BT Infinity - 8 times faster than Northern Ireland's average net speed - ha! I have to say though, it's fine most of the time and at least like this I get unlimited downloads. The pirate in me is jumping up in down in glee! (shhh, not supposed to say that!).

So on to more hairy subjects (ha!), I'd been toying for a while with the idea of jazzing up my hair colour, ever since I spotted a photo of Cheryl Cole with a deep mahogany hair colour a while back.

I've always been a bit of a chicken when it comes to hair changes. I've always played it very safe, ever since my stepmother, who's a professional hairdresser in Portugal, decided to give me a radical makeover in my teens and I ended up with a half blonde, half bright orange head. Not pretty. 

I'm going to quickly show you a bit of my hair history, and the way I decided to do that is going down memory lane with the help of a very amateurist photo montage.

The first picture shows you my "virgin" hair when I was about 7 years old, it's basically a mousey brown with blondish highlights. The thing is it started to go a bit darker so in my teens I decided to start highlighting my hair to make it blonder (3rd picture).

The 2nd picture shows you the remains of the "incident", so you can still see a bit of the orange tint but it had faded considerably. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately!) I couldn't find any photos of the actual disaster hair colour!

As from the "incident" my stepmother and I decided to keep to the blonde highlights and - to my utter happiness - later on adding my beloved hair extensions. For a few years I was rocking the Barbie doll look and I loved it.

So from pictures 4 to to 8 you have a series of photos of my Barbiesque years, with the blonde highlights and hair extensions.

For years I insisted on being a blonde, and although I do think it suited me, especially with all the length from the extensions, this look eventually took its toll on my fine fragile tresses. 

The extensions were bonded to my hair and although they weren't too damaging in themselves, I would have to style my hair everyday to make them look as natural as possible, so that was a hell of a lot of constant heat damage. About a year ago I took the plunge and decided that I - and my fried locks - needed a change. When you have thin, fine hair like mine that doesn't seem to grow at all, you need all the help you can get! So it took a few tears and a lot of willpower but I finally abandoned the extensions. 

This is depicted in photo 9, no extensions but not quite ready to join the brunette wagon yet either! My hair was super damaged here and I'd had quite a bit cut off but was still in pretty rough shape.

A little while later I decided to go to the dark side (Picture 10), but the colour quickly faded, as I was still a blonde on the "inside" (picture 11). So I would colour it again, and again, would have the fried ends trimmed  regularly and sloooooowly it was getting back on track. 

My most recent photo before my current colour is shown on the last picture of the montage and you can see the length isn't too bad, the colour is quite nice, resembling my natural mousey brown with some natural ombre going on because of the remaining bits of blonde from the past... So I wasn't too unhappy with my hair now, it was finally getting healthier and even though I quite miss being a blonde sometimes, I decided brunettes can have just as much fun.

But alas, came Miss Cole's photo into my life. I would go by the hair colourant aisles in Boots and look at all the boxes for hours, plucking up the courage to buy one. I would ask Mr.Fish again and again, "should I do it?". I would have little internal arguments with myself, in one hand saying I wanted a change, to be more adventurous and on the other saying that I'd gone through too much already to get my hair in the best shape possible and what if I ruined everything after all that hard work?

Finally, after a lot of research and reading millions of reviews on the net, I decided I was going to do it! I  would purchase a semi-permanent hair colourant by L'oreal Paris, the Casting Creme Gloss, since it's ammonia-free, hence less damaging.

Now the dilemma was: what shade? The shade used by Cheryl was actually "Mahogany", but I was worried it would turn out too light on my hair, especially on my blonder bits. I definitely didn't want it to come out red or orangey! I ended up getting the "Blackcurrant", a darker shade. 

I did the 48h test and with each hour that passed, my courage would fade away just a bit more! When the time came to actually do it, I was freaking out, shouting out I couldn't do it, it was going to turn out horrible and bright red or something, what was I thinking, I'm no freaking Rihanna, I'm not adventurous, get this box away from me!

At this point Mr.Fish was having none of this nonsense, he was actually the one who ended up mixing the stuff up, forcefully undressing me and putting a towel round me. I can safely say if it weren't for him I would have chickened out! During the whole process I was half crying half laughing, already thinking of what dark shade to purchase next to cover up the blotched up red. 

20 minutes went by, I jumped in the shower, dryed my hair and.... voilá!

Exactly the shade I was looking for!

Thank you L'oreal! I didn't itch, the process was fairly easy although I did had help from Mr.Fish.

I'm sure you could do it yourself but another person helping you is advisable though because if you're anything like me you'll end up having stuff flying everywhere and it stains! Also another tip - I smeared vaseline around my hairline so any hair dye that got on my skin would easily come off afterwards.

The colour is beautiful and it's so shiny! I couldn't believe it! I think it's something to do with the conditioner you get in the pack to put on after you rinse the dye out. It's fabulous. 

I haven't washed my hair yet, so I can't say anything about the staying power of this hair colourant. It claims to last 28 washes. I'm just worried it might fade into a dull red colour, but lets see how it goes.

I wasn't expecting to like it as much and like I said in my previous post, this shade actually makes me feel more adventurous, which is exactly what I needed in this new phase of my life!

I always like before and afters so here's a couple to finish off:

I've still got quite a long way to go till I get my hair in tip top condition and the length I want it to be... But I know I'm getting there. Good luck to all you ladies who are trying to do the same!