Beauty Lately...

Post contains affiliate links (which when clicked, can earn the blog a small commission on purchases made).  No PR gifts included in this post, promotional (gift with purchase) items are noted.

Beauty Lately is a selection of mini reviews of makeup and skin, body and haircare products I've been using lately and good, bad or in-between, I discuss them. It's been a while since my last post (beginning of September), but you can find it here if you missed it. Today I have 6 items for you.

Bought & Thought

Hmmm, a bit of a mixed review for this one. I've been a fan of Soap & Glory skin and body products for years, but this was my first time trying the Glad Hair Day Shampoo £5.50.

Review: Schwarzkopf Live Color XXL Ultra Brights*

You may have noticed I'm sporting another new hair colour this week (one that I'm pretty excited about). You know me and my ever evolving (or should that be revolving?) hair colour! Well, I'm always on the look-out to try something different or new and am very pleased to see Schwarzkopf introduce their Ultra Brights collection to the Live Color XXL range. This means 'alternative' hair colours available on the high-street, something I've personally waited a long time for! I have to buy my colours online and when you factor in that the majority of them are shipped in from the US (bumps up the price) then you've got a delivery charge each time, it can be quite costly. The Ultra Brights range are £5.49 each and available from the usual stockists: chemists, supermarkets, Boots and Superdrug etc.
Schwarzkopf sent me two gorgeous shades (Purple Punk 94 and Shocking Pink 93) and it's the latter I'm reviewing today. Some of you know my history with pink hair colour (it led to the naming of this blog 'Pink Haired Princess') and after years of it, my family banned me from ever using it again.  Seriously!  It stained everything. Necklines of clothes, bedding, necklaces, hairbands/clips, the silicone stuff around the bath, my nails (any nail polish took on a pink tint or ombre effect when washing my hair), the couch, everything! At least three years on and with constant bleaching and changing of hair colours, I still find traces of pink, it's that potent! However as much as it caused me bother, it was one of my favourite colours and just felt so 'natural' on me (despite it's eye-watering brightness). My eye is still drawn to gorgeous pink locks and when I saw this photo of Perrie from Little Mix with her beautiful dip dyed pink head, I wanted it! Little Mix were actually the face (or is that the 'hair'?) of the Ultra Brights range and the colour on Perrie in that photo is this 'Shocking Pink' shade.
I found the instructions inside really helpful, because they came with ideas on doing your whole head, touching up roots, dip dye, streaks or going pastel. I like that there's scope to try something other than the standard full head application and that it has tips on how to achieve that (and the instructions aren't long-winded either). Inside the box is a couple of sachets of conditioner along with plastic gloves and the actual hair colour is contained in a squeezy tube. I'm loving that there's no mixing, so you can use exactly the amount of dye you need without any wastage. For years I've been frustrated at throwing away excess mixture or wishing I had some left for touch-ups later in the month. The colour is a matte sort of paste (thick) and one tube would be enough for shorter hair (I'd estimate to almost shoulder length), but I'd recommend two for any longer. As it was late at night I had to use the camera flash and the paste looks shimmering in this photo, it did have a pearly quality to it, but looked matte and non-shiny.
Now as with all alternative colours, it's best applied on bleached or already blonde hair for super bright or intense results. If you have darker hair and apply without pre-lightening, then you'll just get a tint. Which is fine if that's what you're going for, but just be aware of this beforehand. I was in a million minds with what I wanted to do and I think you should really go into these things quite open minded without too many expectations or else you'll end up being disappointed. I decided to just go for a full head with the pink (after contemplating mixing both colours and everything else!).  Stupidly, I only had a little bleach left, just enough to cover my dark roots and not enough for the green ends. You can see in that first picture above that the rest of my hair was a faded green. Beforehand I'm sitting going "what does green and pink make? Hmmmmm", not like I studied art at length or anything (!)
This is where my 'expectations' theory comes in. I had no idea how it was going to turn out, having never used this particular colour before. I didn't know how strong it would be, if it mattered that my roots were yellow and the lengths were pale green, if it was going to wash straight out or stain everything in sight. It's also important to point out here I have no hair fear, so I don't care too much and just go for it! The best way we (Mum and I) found to apply this was by squeezing out a little dye into one hand and using the other hand to pick up the colour and get it into the hair. I wasn't sure just rubbing it into the hands and applying quickly through the hair would coat all around every strand of hair nor was I sure that a dye bowl and brush would've worked (seemed like too much work and I think the colour would either have come straight off the brush or else stuck to it). My Mum is very methodical anyway and felt comfortable and confident that she'd coated all the hair. She found the dye easy to work with, even although it was a different application method to what we usually do.  As you can see from the image above the green parts instantly took on a more purple colour, while the bleached roots were definitely pink.  Below is once the colour has been washed out.   
I should've said, you apply this colour to towel dried hair. So I'd literally just bleached it, washed that out, then applied the pink when I got out of the shower. I think it's recommended to leave the colour on for 30 minutes, but I left mine in longer because it overlapped a meal time and I didn't want to shower straight after eating. So you don't all sue me for ending up bald, you should really strand test and follow the instructions/guide times provided.  The colour smells delicious by the way and unlike any hair dye I've ever tried. It didn't tingle like bleach does and felt very gentle. So after an hour I think it was, I washed it out. You sooo don't want to know the measures I go to washing my hair and trying to avoid staining the bath. I now kneel in the bath facing the taps, rinse the colour under the tap, shampoo and condition then once I've finished, stand up and have a shower with my hair in a towel! I usually come out with aching legs (for 2 days) and dimpled knees, but it's what I have to do for pretty hair! I learnt pretty early on though that this colour wasn't going to stain the bath badly. Any drips or coloured water sitting in the bath, just washed away (the old stuff would've stained instantly) even off the rubbery bath mat. After I'd washed the majority of colour out, I even took off the gloves and it didn't stain my hands in the slightest. I couldn't have done that with the other dye for fear of being arrested for murdering someone (it looked very much like a blood bath and stained blood on hands)!
I was a little worried the colour would look a bit naff; that I'd have pink roots and then purple hair. My Mum said "isn't dip dye fashionable?", eh yeah but not when you've only got an inch of one colour! Even although this is the case with my hair, there's so many pretty colours in there and once it's curled to my style, it's not so severe looking. It doesn't even look 'pink roots/purple hair' (even when straight) though, it seems to have streaked well. The photos above are from the first day and the last one above is taken without the flash.  The middle one looks very pink, it can do in the sunlight.  I'm still struggling to name the colour, but the most porous parts of my roots are very bright pink, like the colour on the box (to be honest I never imagined it would come out as bright as the box picture), with other parts a more dull pink. There's very blue toned purple streaks, probably the greenest parts (which you can best see in the leopard print cardigan photos at the end of this post) and the rest is this striking, bright rose-violet.
Once again I've ended up with a unique, multi tonal colour without really trying! This is why you can't have expectations. I might not even be be able to replicate it again. So I'd say if you're looking for the bright pink on the box, ensure your hair is an even colour all over and is either already blonde or you pre-lighten it. If you're looking for a tint, apply it over your natural (darker) hair colour. If you want something more 'lucky dip' like me, then apply over different shades for varying colour results. You might wish to take some of the guess work out by figuring out which colours combine to make what.  Like everybody knows green and pink makes purple, you know!  If you'd like it like Perrie, then they applied the colour straight from the tube on the ends (bright pink) and mixed a pea size amount of colour with regular conditioner to dilute it for the pale pink. They recommend just using that small amount with conditioner and leaving for a minute for a pastel shade. I was a bit sceptical that so little colour in so little time could make a difference, but may try that next time. This would have to be done on pre-lightened or already light hair.  
I haven't washed it yet to see how much colour comes out (I'm generally down to washing my hair once a week to maintain the colour anyway), but it's certainly not faded (if anything I think it looks darker now than when I first coloured it). I still have a little colour left which I wanted to keep for touch-ups or further down the track when/if it starts fading. I also still have the Purple Punk to play with-I may dilute that one. I've also got my eye on the stunning Electric Blue 95 for autumn, it looks sooo cool.  Overall I'm very impressed with this.  The colour is great and I love the ease of application and the fact I can buy it in most shops.  I also love that although the colour is bright, it isn't staining anything and washes off the bath etc easily.  I'm big on experimenting with hair colour, so I'm happy to combine and dilute shades for a unique colour.  It is supposed to be semi-permanent and last 6-8 washes, but I could get 6 weeks out of that hopefully.  I'll update with how it looks once I've washed it and as always you can see my daily outfits on The Shoe Girl Diaries and keep track of my hair there!  There's also some really great videos on YouTube including the Little Mix ladies using the Ultra Brights colours.  Have you or would you like to give these a go?  

My New Ghoulia Blue Hair

If you follow my Facebook and/or The Shoe Girl Diaries, then you'll already know that I now have blue hair! A slight change to my regular turquoise. When I was lilac and looking for a new colour, I decided to go purple. I did the research, bought the dye (Manic Panic Amplified 'Ultra-Violet'), then my Mum freaked out at the colour in the bottle, telling me it would stain her new bathroom and I was banned from using it. A strop a 3 year-old would be embarrassed by and a whole lot of sulking later we compromised by using an unused tub of Manic Panic Amplified 'Atomic Turquoise' I had left over from before the lilac phase. It was that or the unattractive yellow/bleach period I was in, so there wasn't much choice really. I wasn't best pleased that I hadn't got my own way and although I like the turquoise, I'd already had months of it and wanted something different. So when it came to what to do next, I had an idea that I hoped my Mum would go for.

I re-ordered a couple more Atomic Turquoise, just in case my experiment didn't work (yes, they now come in bottles rather the little tubs) and I also added a couple of Crazy Color 'Bubblegum Blue' to my order.

It's one of three new pastel shades from the brand and I'd heard very mixed reviews about those colours to be honest. Some people said they didn't last long, applied patchy or even washed out immediately but there were a couple of great success photos I saw too. It was a bit of a risk as it always is when trying a new dye, but worth a try and at least I had the AT for back-up. I wanted it to be quite blue and some of the images I'd seen of it, it looked very similar to AT (which I didn't want). So I had the idea of adding a little purple into the mix, hoping it would make it more blue (as someone who's been an artist all her life, I seem to have forgotten everything about colour-mixing and couldn't decide if this would turn out more blue or go brown)! Plus it gave me the chance to use up some of the purple dye.  So I emptied an entire bottle of BB and a small blob of UV (honestly just one 'splat'). When the colour was on my head it looked very blue, so I was hoping it would work. The roots of my hair were bleached (light but bright yellow) with the ends a light green from faded AT. We actually ended up using another maybe half bottle of Bubblegum as we ran out towards the end.

The finished result was one I was happy with. I'd previously used Crazy Color when I was lilac and while I don't believe it is as long-lasting or strong as say Atomic Turquoise and it applies a little strangely (it feels like the colour just slips off the hair when applying with a brush), it's still not a wash/fade-out-in-one-wash dye for me. I had my apprehensions purely because I'm not actually a fan of the colour blue! I love turquoise but have never really liked blues (it's only after 14 years away from school that I can now wear navy without freaking out), so it was perhaps more than an odd choice to pick blue! Thankfully it didn't look too solid (here's me acting like that was intentional), as some of the turquoise (which looks green here) from before can be seen in places. It's given it a nice mermaid, sea effect. Anyway I was happy that I was one step closer to looking like one of my favourite Monster High girls Ghoulia Yelps (although I have better posture and can speak cohesively)! So this little photo-session ensued. The zombie pale skin, blue hair, big fringe and geek glasses, seperated at birth right?

As a comparison to how different it is from the turquoise, you can see for yourself here. I find AT usually comes out a blue-turquoise at the start but fades with time and washing to a green, however it looks completely green in comparison. I've had the blue for about three weeks now and it's turning greenish now.  I find very little dye escapes when washing (which pleases my Mum).  Next time I'm going more blue, now that I know I suit it.  I think I'll use Atomic Turquoise and put lots more purple in! I want bolder and darker! What do you think?

I buy my dye from BeeUnique, lipstick is Dior Rouge 974 Bold Claret, grey leopard print dress Primark, Monster High Ghoulia doll 'Dawn Of The Dance'.

Next Hair Colour?

It's that time again, where I'm pondering a new hair colour! I wanted to keep the lilac a little longer, because I simply love the colour, however I hate that it doesn't cover the newly bleached hair. After a week or so, it's lilac with a considerable amount of dirty greenish yellow and even immediately after application you can notice some yellowish bits! It would mean double-bleaching the regrowth each time and I don't want to go down that road. I think as much as I love pastel hair colours, they are not for me because you need to be prepared for recolouring every couple of weeks and/or putting up with sections that don't take or using the colours as an extremely temporary measure. I'm too fussy for that!

I was going to do a poll, but have decided to leave it open to your suggestions. I don't necessarily want to go straight back to turquoise (although I loved it)-I'd like to try something new. I won't go bright pink again because my parents will shoot me (stained bath and all that). Here's a selection of what I've had over the past couple of years (above) and some pics that have been inspiring me below. I'm thinking perhaps a deeper purple? Or I still have lots of lilac left, so could mix a dark purple with that to hopefully get more coverage but not go too dark over the summer months? In the nicest possible way, I don't want it to look too 'standard purple' if you know what I mean? LOTS of people have dyed purple hair and I don't want it to look too 'dirty-grunge' because that's not me. I'm liking the newest colour on Katy Perry though, she's managed to keep it girly looking, but would I suit it? I also found an amazing super-bright purple on someone in a lookbook on a boutique/website and can't for the life of me find the image again, it was an intense but bright shade, it looked fab. I had a quick look for dyes online yesterday but got frustrated as everything I looked at was out of stock! Manic Panic have withdrawn some colours from sale for now, so you can't get them anywhere which is rather annoying. I loved the look of the new shades of Crazy Color (Bubblegum, Candy Floss and Marshmallow), but I've heard coverage isn't good nor long-lasting, which is a pity as they are super-pretty. So any ideas?

Tutorial: The One Minute Haircut You Can Do

I hate going to the hairdressers. I pretty much always have and can't understand how anyone would see a visit to a salon as a 'treat'. No offence to any stylists out there, but I seem to bring out the bitch in them, the second I walk through the door. I don't know why that is, it's completely unprovoked and unfounded, but it's been that way since I was a teen-so I avoid it by cutting and colouring my own hair. Lately my Mum has very kindly offered her 'services' keeping my hair trim, but this week I was home alone with a pair of scissors and in a flash of boredom/frustration I reverted back to my fail-proof 1 minute cut. Honestly anyone can do this, it's the simplest thing and works wonders. When I had much longer, bright pink hair, I'd always cut it myself like this.  So I've decided to put together a quick step-by-step guide for anyone that might be interested and here's the finished look below! Excuse the camera-phone images and the fact I'm makeup-less (in the other pics), but I was straight out of the shower and you'll still get the idea...

So as I said, my hair was still damp having just been washed. I'd been growing out my fringe (don't know why I insist on trying this because I always go back to it short) which was nose length and the rest of my hair was just below my shoulders. It's been feeling a little frazzled and wispy since my bleaching/change of colour, so was in desperate need of a cut.

Take a brush or comb and brush all of your hair forward into a ponytail on your forehead (right in the centre).

Take some scissors (I used my super sharp dressmaking scissors) and cut the whole ponytail straight off. Where you cut, is up to you, bearing in mind that the length of the 'stub' that's left is going to be your shortest length (which is basically your fringe if you're cutting it mega short). Personally I wanted quite a short fringe, so took it almost as short as I could-which left a stub of maybe 1 1/2".

The small 'lilac rat' may look small but actually that's probably about half my hair!

The cut works by your longest lengths being the hair on top of your head in the ponytail (which will be the underneath of your hair when taken out)-obviously because it's been brushed from the nape of your neck all the way forward to your forehead, whereas the front/fringe of your hair is already there. So take the ponytail out and it unravels by swirling around your head and you get this feathered cut with shorter lengths on top, graduating to longer lengths underneath. Amazing! Think of it as a more modern and less severe mullet if you will! Maybe not the best pic of it below when it's still wet and unstyled, but you can see the choppiness.

And that's you finished! As a side-note, you can cut it dry if you wish-I have done it that way before.  You can tidy up any parts of your fringe, for example you may wish for a less blunt fringe, so you could slice into it or perhaps you want to take it even shorter etc

As I said, it works on any length of hair. If you had really long hair and didn't want a fringe cut in, then keep the ponytail stub quite long and just work out what you'd like your absolute shortest length to be, say it's 7", then that's what your 'stub' length should be. I don't want to tempt fate, but I really feel you can't go wrong with this and that anyone could do it, it's really just that simple. You perhaps don't get the best idea of the cut as I tend to wear my hair curly all the time-but I managed to find this picture from years ago (below) which helps illustrate how it looks straighter and on longer hair. It's definitely rejuvenated my locks this time and the style is sitting much better now. Let me see before/after pics if you decide to give it a go yourself!

Hair Colour-How To

Some of you may know I've been contemplating a new hair colour for some time now and I finally took the plunge last week. I say 'plunge' but actually when it comes to colouring or cutting my hair, I am surprisingly nonchalant about the whole thing. I'm not someone who will cry for days over a botched fringe or bad dye job. Yes I would like 'perfect' hair every day and yes I often have 'bad hair days', but it's not the end of the world, it will grow back and if it's bothering you too much, there's hats and scarves and all sorts of pretty disguises! I know you were interested in a step-by-step guide for how to go about a big change like this and what to use, so here it is. My main tips are:

*if you're looking for a vivid 'unnatural' colour, it's likely you'll have to use bleach first to get the desired look unless your hair is already light blonde (colour on dark brown or black hair will just add a sheen/tint). When your roots grow in, just bleach this regrowth avoiding the previously bleach hair.
*when bleaching; you want your hair to be the palest lemon bordering on white or as light as you can go before adding the colour.
*if it's too yellow or orange, try a toner to take out the brassiness or else consider that your dye colour is technically mixing with orange and the end result will often be different to what you were hoping for.
*when bleaching, work fast (to cover the hair before the bleach stops developing), don't bother protecting your skin as bleach doesn't leave a tint behind (but don't get it on clothing etc), do pay attention and only leave on for the stated time.
*when using the colour, you can work slowly as the dye doesn't 'develop' like bleach, avoid getting on the skin as it will stain (use vaseline around the hairline, the ears etc), leave on for hours for optimum colour results.
*some colours can stain badly (like Special Effects 'Atomic Pink'), wash off the bath,walls, shower etc immediately or they will be stained forever (I used to coat the bath in shower gel before rinsing my hair and ran my hair under the taps first to get the majority of colour out before showering). I've never found another dye quite so potent since, thankfully.
*use hot water on your hair to fade colour
*use cold water on your hair to protect the colour
*add a little dye to your bottle of shampoo to 'top up' colour every wash
*do not use conditioner before applying the coloured dye (the dye does not 'stick' to conditioner), so shampoo only.
*consider mixing colours on your head, rather than in the bowl (for months, over faded Atomic Pink-I've been applying Atomic Turquoise and it turns those sections purple, AP is so strong that it would've stayed pink had I mixed the two shades together before applying to the hair)
*if you need to wear glasses when colouring your hair then cut a couple of 'fingers' off plastic disposable gloves to cover and protect the legs.

So, a little hairstory-I haven't touched my hair since the middle of December last year, so a full 3 months. At that time I'd been using Manic Panic 'Atomic Turquoise' Amplified formula all over, with a dash of Special Effect 'Atomic Pink' on the ends and a streak in the front (which turns purple with the turquoise). Last week, the purple had faded until it was practically gone, it was a very pale silvery lilac. The turquoise is always very blue at the start then fades to green-it was also very light and I was satisfied that there was as little colour left in my hair as possible. I used Garnier Nutrisse Truly Blonde Creme Pre-Lightener+ to bleach my entire head. Obviously starting with my roots which were very dark (as they would take the most lightening). As a sidenote, I've been growing out my super short fringe for the past few months-but am torn with whether to keep going or cut it short again, hmmm!

I was actually surprised with how well the bleaching went, my hair was a pale yellow, white in places. The roots were completely unnoticeable and matched the rest of my hair. There was in places, some very light stubborn traces of pink and a little green. Overall it worked brilliantly though. I did want to take the yellow tone out of it if possible, because my hair has a very golden tone to it and for what I was planning it needed to be cool, silvery toned. I had some Manic Panic 'Virgin Snow' Toner left over (around 3/4 of a jar), so applied this to my whole head. To do this, I washed out the bleach, shampooing only, towel dried my hair and I literally took handfuls of the toner and massaged it into my hair-all over. I wasn't trying to be neat with this-I just made sure it went everywhere and they say to comb these colours through until they foam-I didn't have a comb, so I just used my hands to massage it until it was a little frothy. I can't remember how long I left this on, possibly more than an hour, then I washed it out-again only using shampoo (yeah my poor bleached hair felt gross, but that's the way to do it).

I'm not sure if the toner made all that much of a difference, although the next day my hair was definitely a pale lemon, white colour which was the desired shade.

Next was the colour and I was in two minds about whether I wanted to go lilac or grey. I'd been hankering after greyish locks for a while but I haven't found a suitable colour to do it with yet. I decided on using Directions Silver and Lilac mixed. They come in little pots and I emptied them into a mixing bowl, 1 full pot of Silver to half a pot of Lilac. I've never used this brand before or either of the colours, so it was very much guess-work and I had no idea if it would even work.

My Mummy painstakingly applied this mixture to my hair using a dye brush. Both pots look very similar in the jar, Silver is a dark, dusky blue (above) Lilac is slightly more purpley. In the bowl, when they were mixed, it was a bright blue-purple. On my head it was very blue and in places it looked a little green tinged (eep!), as you can see in the pic below. I left this on for several hours.

This time when washing it out, you can use conditioner (yay). I got a bit of a shock when I came out of the shower and noticed blonde hair under the towel at the roots. Unfortunately my roots don't seem to have taken (the bits that were greenish tinged when the dye was on). I love the rest of the head, it's an iced lilac, slightly grey colour and I really, really love it.

My roots are bugging me though. I'm not sure why it's not taken. Mum wonders if it's when our mixture ran out and we used a dollop of lilac to two dollops of Silver to do the last wee bit of hair and she thinks this has maybe worked better than the other mixture.

I've lived with it for a few days but was desperate to do something about the roots today, which I have. At first I chucked on some Lilac dye in the hope it would take (but because I had conditioner in my hair it didn't). So, I washed my hair (shampooing only), towel dried and then properly applied just the Lilac (straight out the pot) to the really bad bits (couldn't be bothered figuring out how much I would need by using the Silver with it). I left it on for a couple of hours then shampooed and conditioned it. This time on my head when the dye was on, it looked a deeper lilac than the end result above, but I have to admit it's still not totally covered the blonde bits. The colour is brighter lilac now than the greyish tone it was last week (no pics yet sorry), but still the stubborn yellowy bits have only taken a little colour (they're kind of ashy taupe). It's wrapped in a scarf and pin curls just now and is still drying, but I'm a little bit at a loss as to where I've gone wrong. I'm wondering if these bits will take in a months time when fresh roots have come through, as obviously this yellow bit will work it's way down my hair as my hair grows and I don't want a yellow stripe halfway down my head! It's maybe not even root related, but it does seem to just be those bits that have very little colour. It's just odd because they bleached so well and were the exact same shade as the rest of my head before colouring. My Mum says I'm too fussy and that it's fine, but you know when it's your own hair, it bugs you?

I have bought a few products to prolong my 'lilac life', which I would definitely recommend you do if you're thinking of taking the plunge. I got Pro:Voke 'Touch Of Silver' Twice A Week Brightening Shampoo and Intensive Conditioner which are designed for silver, grey or platinum hair to tone down the brassiness. They contain violet colour pigments (there's also a daily shampoo and conditioner available too), so if you leave them on for at least 5 minutes (or longer if you have time), they can deposit a little tint of violet to your hair (like an old-lady purple rinse).

I also picked up a leave in treatment (Bristows from Bodycare) which contains violet pigment and was only 99p and I was going to get the Touch Of Silver Dry Shampoo, but put it back (I may go back for this actually) as it could work just sprayed into the roots and not brushed out to deposit some 'silver' colour.  So there you go, hopefully that's helped a little.  As I said, you just have to trial things and can never be entirely sure how it's going to work especially if you haven't used the brand/colours before.  I'll definitely be keeping this for a little while (even with the dodgy roots), because I really like the colour.  I'm sure the lilac will fade from bright to greyish toned after a few washes, which suits me fine as that's what I initially wanted.