Week 3/52 : Snip!

After growing my hair for several years I decided it was time for me to go short again. I’ve been considering cutting my hair since last November, but I’ve been too scared. Finally I decided to just go ahead and have it chopped off. I love how it looks and how light it feels 😀

The last time my hair short was back in 2012 (which, coincidentally, was also my 3rd self portrait for that year). I had to cut it even shorter than this because of chemical damage from coloring and straightening. I loved my short hair at first but after a few months I started to regret cutting it and wished for my long hair back. I really hope that doesn’t happen this time.

Of course I took loads of photos with my new hair:

Week 11/52 : Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth

I gave my bangs a little trim last Friday. They’re long enough that I can still sweep them off to one side, but I also have the option of wearing them down if I want to. It’s been a while since I cut my bangs this short so I sort of feel like a new person again. I haven’t been growing them out intentionally, I just always forget to trim them every two week like Ezra told me to.

I really like the quote I used in this week’s title.  I’ve been trying to find who said it, no luck so far.  I like it because I’m your classic people pleaser.  Because of this, I get a little down every time I feel unappreciated or neglected. Over these past few months I’ve been training myself to not base my happiness on other people’s opinion of me. It’s a little challenging, having lived all these years always worrying about how others perceive me, but I believe it will definitely help my self esteem in the long run.

Kolours Dual Conditioning Hair Color (Blue Black)

This entry’s pretty late, but I thought I’d share my thoughts anyway, since this was the first time I used Kolours hair dye.

Some of you may have noticed that I dyed my hair black last year.  I’ve had brown hair for the longest time, even before this blog was created. I debated long and hard whether or not I should go back to black before I actually pushed through with it.  I had my hair professionally colored back in 2009, and since then I’ve gone through several boxes of DIY hair dye kits to maintain it.  But earlier last year, while I was browsing through some of my old photos, I realized that I missed having black hair. Also, I noticed that having to touch up my roots every 4 months had really started to take a toll on my strands. In fact, I had to give up rebonding since my hair couldn’t handle all the chemicals that I was putting on it. It was a choice between having colored hair or straight hair, and I chose color. But last July I decided that it was time for me to go back to my natural hair color so I can start cutting back on the chemicals I put in my hair.

Just for fun, I decided to go with this Blue Black hair dye by Kolours. I normally use Revlon Colorsilk but I wanted to try something new.  Kolours was also cheaper and more accessible since most groceries I know carry it. And supposedly, Kolours was created with Asian hair in mind, so I thought that was interesting.

This is what it says on the box:

“COLOR & CARE FOR ASIAN HAIR PERFECTED BY KOLOURS

Kolours understands that compared to European hair and American air, Asian hair is darker and thicker, making it more resistant to coloring. These unique attributes of Asian hair needs particular care to prevent damage and dryness.”

The kit contained the usual developer, colorant, gloves and two packets of the after treatment conditioner:

I thought it was cool that the instruction leaflet came in both English and Filipino.

Below are some before photos of me with my brown hair. These were all taken last May 2013. I used Revlon Colorsilk’s Light Auburn to get my hair this color.

 

Etude House Bubble Hair Color (Wine Red)

I was organizing my files yesterday when I found these photos.  I realized I never blogged about my first Etude House bubble hair dye experience.  These were taken sometime around the end of June.  The last time I dyed my hair before this was around late January or early February, so my roots were pretty horrendous:

The hair dye I used:

The kit contained a pump with some sort of liquid inside (I think it was the developer, but I could be wrong), a sachet with the color, gloves, a plastic cape and the conditioner.

 

It also came with instructions, but it was in Korean so it didn’t help me much:

First things first : put the cape and gloves on to avoid staining yourself

Don’t I look dashing?

Then empty the sachet with the color into the bottle with the developer(?):

Week 41/52 : Not everyone will love you back. that’s why its most important to love yourself

This was shot around the 2nd week of October, after I got my hair cut.  But don’t be fooled by this picture. I mostly just asked the stylist to trim the ends and give me additional layers. I told him I wanted to keep the length since I’m trying to grow my hair out.  My hair is still pretty fried from all the chemicals I dumped on it so I need regular trims.  I also decided to get a cellophane treatment to add some shine to my hair because it’s been looking a bit too dull and lifeless for my taste.

I really love how it turned out.  My hair’s still super frizzy, but I don’t think anything but a rebond treatment can fix that, and I promised myself I will never get my hair rebonded again.  But I love how it’s got a lot more layers now, so it’s not as boring as before.  For this shot I simply pinned the longer layers back to make it look like I have a bob 🙂

Week 27/52 : It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.

I dyed my hair a few weeks ago. It’s been over a year since I last had red hair. I stuck with medium to dark browns for most of 2011 because I felt like they made my hair look healthier. Also, Ckloy has decided to start coloring his hair last year because little gray strands have started to pop up. His hair’s too short to finish an entire box of dye by himself so we usually end up just sharing one when I touch up my roots. He didn’t want anything too dramatic or attention grabbing so we’ve mostly been using shades of brown. But lately I realized that I miss having lighter hair, so I decided to go red again.

I love how it turned out,  but unfortunately red hair never lasts on anyone.  This shot was taken about two weeks ago (I couldn’t find time to edit it until a few days ago) and by now my hair has faded into a medium brown again 😦  It was really bright during the first week (to the point that Ezra called it “Ga In red” – as in Son Ga In from the Brown Eyed Girls because she used to have bright red hair).  I’ve had red hair before so I know it fades, but never this quickly in the past.  I think it’s the dye I used (Etude House). I tried it just for fun, but I’ll probably be going back to Revlon after this.  (I’ll post a review on the Etude House dye soon.  EDIT: posted HERE)

Quote in the title by Andre Gide.

Outtakes:

I actually like this shot better but I chose the other one for my main upload because I felt it showed off my hair a little more

(Vector brushes by redheadstock.deviantart.com)

(EZRA) 22/52 : Passion

Red and black ❤

I love her red hair extensions. She bought them last weekend when we attended Toycon 2012.

She’s always wanted red streaks in her hair.  She actually went to a salon years ago to get it professionally done but it didn’t turn out too nicely.  The red showed up at the top of her head, but it faded to a dull brown as it went down.  And the red didn’t remain vibrant for long.  After a few weeks it turned into some sort of brassy, orangey color.  It took her years to grow out the colored hair because she didn’t want to dye it black.  (She had a severe allergic reaction to a henna tattoo back in college and the doctor told her that she should stay away from any sort of black dye from then on.)  She got most of the dyed hair chopped off this summer, but you can still see a hint of the orange in this shot.

Anyway, she’s really happy to have found these extensions.  They’re the perfect length for her and the SA told us that they were made of high temperature synthetics, which means that she can can flat iron or curl them and they would be fine.  If only she knew about them years ago, she could have avoided the whole hair dye fiasco.  And they were really cheap too!   (I should have gotten a few for myself as well.)

My flat iron died today. May it rest in peace…

I’m not really sure what happened.  It was working fine when I used it last night, but when I turned it on to style my hair this morning, it refused to cooperate.  I plugged it in and gave it time to warm up as I applied my makeup, but when I grabbed it to straighten my bangs, the plates were not hot at all.  In fact, they were barely warm.  I’m not even sure if the little heat on them was due to the iron trying to warm itself up, or because it absorbed some of hot air from this heat wave we’ve been having lately.  Anyway, it definitely wasn’t enough to straighten anyone’s hair.  (Not that I didn’t try.  But I might as well have taken two books and used that to style my bangs for all it did, tch.)  Anyway, I did a quick search online and the most reasonable explanation I found was that the heating filament inside has finally burned out.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.  After all I’ve been using this flat iron almost everyday for the past 6 years.  (It was one of my first purchases after I got a job.)   I suppose  it’s about time I get a new one.

I texted my sister to tell her about the untimely demise of my poor flat iron and she replied “Haha, say hello to poofy bangs!”  How terribly sensitive of her.  Hmph.  Sorry to disappoint you Ezra, but there’s no way I’m letting that happen.  Thank goodness I have this little guy:

My mini Conair flat iron.  I bought it back in 2009 when we went to California because I thought it would be a useful thing to have when I travel.  It’s tiny, comes with a heat protectant pouch, and it’s dual-voltage too!  (Whenever we visit the states, Ezra and I always end up having to borrow Kurt’s flat iron because ours operate on 220V and American outlets run on 110V…)

 

I let my sister cut my hair!

Ezra has been itching to give me full bangs for years now, but I never let her because I didn’t think it would look good on me.  Yes, we are often mistaken for twins so you would think that what suits her would suit me as well, but if you look closely, the bone structures of our face are actually very different.  She has a longer and slimmer face while mine is more square and angular.  So while full bangs look good on her, I think it would look horrible on me.   I normally refuse when she offers to cut my hair, but at the same time I’ve always been curious to see if I could pull it off.  Last week she managed to convince me that this was the perfect time for me to try out bangs because I hardly leave the house these days.  So if it ends up looking horrendous, not that many people would see it anyway and I could just let it grow back out.  Her argument made sense, and so I finally agreed.

We had to wait till the weekend before I let her cut my hair because I needed to get Ckloy’s permission first.  He’s never really been a fan of full bangs so I had to convince him that I wouldn’t look that different with it.  He was definitely against it at first, but with a bit of whining and lots of lambing, he agreed.  In fact, he even helped me document the process by taking these pictures.

(Ezra is no professional, but she has been cutting her own bangs for almost 5 years now, so I knew I was in capable hands.)

Ezra measuring how much hair needed to be cut

Snip snip snip

 

Week 3/52 : New year, new hair

I got a haircut about two weeks ago. I know I’ve always said that I missed my super long hair from 2009/2010 and that I’m trying to grow it out, but the dead and frizzy ends were such a pain to deal with. I spent about 2 weeks debating whether or not to cut it and in the end I decided that shorter and healthier hair sounds better than longer and dead ends.

I’m quite happy with how my hair turned out. I actually wanted it a bit shorter, but this is fine for now. Besides, I can always go back to the parlor and get another haircut if I’m still up for it in the future.

Some pictures of my damaged hair before I got it cut:

(Please pardon the huge eye bags and swollen face – I was still jet lagged when I took these.  I made the decision to cut my hair while we were on vacation and as soon as we got back to the Philippines, I booked an appointment at the salon XD)

You can clearly see how fried the ends are in this picture, tsk tsk