If there’s one thing I get asked about more than anything else, it’s my hair! Whenever I post a selfie I have at least a couple of questions about how I keep it healthy, what to do when its damaged from bleach and how I make my colours last. While I’ve written a few posts on this individual topics before, I thought it was time for an update (things are changing all the time) and I figured one ULTIMATE post, covering everything might be helpful. I hope you agree!

Keeping Hair Healthy

Bleaching

First of all, unless your hair is naturally super light blonde, you WILL need to bleach it if you want to dye your hair a bright, fantasy colour. The colour simply won’t show up, or will look muddy, on hair any darker than light blonde. This is the one stage I would never recommend that you do yourself! It’s very, very easy to fry your hair if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing so the best thing you can do for your hair is go to a colour specialist for this part.

The brighter and more saturated you want your colour you look, the lighter you hair will need to be (however if you want a pastel look you’ll also need a super light base to work with too). It can be difficult to get very dark hair, light enough in one sitting to get the exact colour results you need. Everybody’s hair is different though so speak to your colourist and take their advice! The texture of your hair may mean you need a few gentler bleaching sessions over a series of months to get to your desired base colour.

I also never, ever bleach my hair more than once. I’ve heard about people doing two or even three passes of bleach over their hair in one sitting and the idea makes me wince! Even using protection such as Olaplex (see below) this just seems like a really terrible idea. When I get my hair bleached, we only ever do the roots. If I need to fade my colour to change it up, I just quit topping up the colour for a few weeks before I go to the salon to get it as light as possible.

Olaplex (or similar)

Olaplex revolutionised the hair care market when their three step system launched a few years ago. So much so that there are now 32 competitor brands producing a product that (claims to) do the same thing! I’m yet to use any of them other than Olaplex, but I’m going to a salon soon that uses Innoluxe so I’ll report back. Using these products not only limits the damage the bleach does to your hair, but it can also help rebuild damaged hair too! As soon as I started using Olaplex, my hair transformed. I can not recommend it enough.

These products are salon-only meaning you have to go to a hairdressers to use them. While you can buy them from places like eBay and Amazon, I’ve heard that due to the popularity a lot of them are fake, so I wouldn’t recommend risking it! The cost is between £30-£50 on top of the usual cost of having your hair dyed.

If you want to read more about Olaplex and my experience you can do so here!

Rescuing Hair When it’s Bleach Damaged

I have written extensively about this before so if you haven’t already, you should definitely read this article first.

My biggest tip for fixing your hair when it’s either breaking off, or super stretchy and springy is to give it time. It WILL take a long while for it to get healthy again so you need to treat it with kindness and have patience. Depending on the extent of the damage you may also need to cut some of it off and start again. I had to do this and it was painful but so worth it in the end!

Restore the protein

The reason hair gets damaged by things like bleach and heat, is because they attack the natural proteins (also known as keratin) in your hair. In order to get it healthy again you need to restore these proteins with treatments such as the Redken Extreme range.

Slather it in moisture 

As well as being deficient in keratin, your hair will likely be very, very thirsty. Healthy hair has the perfect balance of both protein and moisture in it, so you need to make sure you restore both. A lack of moisture is what makes your hair straw-like or causes it to snap off when it gets to a certain length. I love anything by the Moroccan Oil brand.

Avoid heat (as much as possible)

Even though my hair is pretty healthy these days, I try to leave it to dry naturally as often as I can. Intense heat, like bleach, is one of the biggest things that will damage your hair fast. I then style it with straighteners on the lowest setting. Always use a heat protecting spray too! If your hair is in a really bad state, you should avoid heat at all costs, however if, like mine, its in pretty good condition then using heat on it occasionally is OK.

Give it a break

It should go without saying, but if your hair is damaged you need to treat it with care and that means no more bleaching, no more heat and lots of lovely treatments to help it recover. You should also avoid brushing it too often, rough-drying it with a towel or wearing tight hairstyles.

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One of the things I get asked about more than anything else is my hair and some of the most popular articles I’ve ever written are about it too. Maybe I should just ditch the whole wedding thing and become a hair blogger instead!? HA!

Maybe not, but I got so many questions when I posted about my new pink-blue do, that I figured I’d do a quick Q&A.

How much does it cost to get your hair dyed?

The cost will vary depending on where you are based, the products used, the length of your hair and the expertise of your stylist. I get my roots bleached every 8-10 weeks at Blue Mango Salon in London, by Elbie. Elbie is at the top of her game, specialises in unnaturally coloured hair and is based in London, so the price I pay reflects that. Bleach, Olaplex (more on that below), cut and colour costs me around £150 a time.

I love the idea of having colourful hair but am holding off because I don’t want to destroy my locks with bleach. Any ideas on how to dye my hair a funky colour without bleaching it first?

The short answer is, unless your hair is naturally very light blonde, you can’t. Unnaturally coloured dyes such as blue, purple, green, pink etc only show up on light bases so the blonder you can get your hair before you add colour, the brighter the result will be. If your hair is light brown, some colour MAY take, but you certainly won’t get the vibrant results you want.

My hair is naturally very, very dark brown (see!) and it taken a long time to get it light enough to hold the colour that it does. When it comes to putting bleach on your hair I would always recommend going to a professional. Take that from a girl who used to bleach hers herself and completely destroyed it! You may also need to bleach it slowly over time to get it light enough (in order to keep it healthy) before you can get it to the colour you’re hoping for.

I also can not rave about the magical properties of Olaplex enough! It is a 3-step salon product meaning you need to go to a hairdressers that carries it to have it done. When your stylist uses it with bleach, it not only enables you to get your hair lighter in way less time, but it also protects it from the bleach’s damaging effects and repairs past damage. It is truly AMAZING and since using it, my hair is in almost as good condition as it was before bleach came anywhere near my head.

Olaplex isn’t cheap. The treatment on hair my length is £50 on top of the usual cost of having it dyed, and a 100ml bottle of the Step 3 (which you use regularly at home) is £37. I know this sounds mega expensive but it is soooo worth it. The instant Elbie used Olaplex on my hair it felt softer, smoother and unbelievably silky – and it’s stayed like that ever since. As long as you regularly use No. 3 in between going to your stylist to have your roots done, there’s no reason your hair shouldn’t stay happy and healthy forever!

What products did you use? Your hair always looks absolutely beautiful!

I think a lot of people think you can just bleach the shit out of your hair and then go back to using you supermarket shampoo and all will be fine. This is certainly not the case.

I want my hair to look the best it possibly can so I invest in the products I put on it. For shampoo I use Redken Extreme and for conditioner I rotate between Redken Extreme Strength Builder and Moroccanoil Intense Hydrating Mask. I also use Redken One United and Hask Placenta (which are both leave in conditioners) on my hair when its wet and a heat protector spray before I blow dry. I use Olaplex Step 3 about once a week as well.

Have a chat to your hairdresser though and ask for their recommendations. Everybody’s hair is different and other products may be more suitable for you.

I love the idea of having rainbow hair but I can’t be bothered faffing around with dying it every few weeks. Your hair is always so bright, do you just dye it all the time?

I used to but since discovering oVertone I NEVER HAVE TO DYE MY HAIR between root touch-ups! It’s a colour-depositing conditioner that comes in a range of unnatural colours (red, blue, teal, pink, purple, orange, yellow, green, silver) that are made to fight the fade. I use it every time I wash my hair, after shampooing and before I use a deep conditioner.

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