How to: Become a Silver Mermaid/Unicorn

Hello! And apologies for yet another lengthy absence. I have a lot of photo-heavy posts to bring you, mostly from my trips to Paris!

Today's post is all about getting Silver hair! I frequently get asked on my Instagram @hibkoko how I get my hair the colour that it is. After finding the time, I managed to take some photos on Friday to show the process and even better, to show the process from blonde hair that isn't white.

My hair at the moment is pretty much white without any toner on top, so every few washes I like to add in some silver shampoo and hit my roots with some Directions silver toner (as they are usually brassier than the rest of my hair). Silver can be a hard colour to get and to maintain as it flits it and out quite easily, so you really do have to do a lot of maintenance on it if you want to keep it perfectly so.

One important thing I'd like to add in is that your hair is more likely to take any colour (not just silver) if it is light and more porous (the ends of your hair will always be more porous than the top). Trying to dye black hair silver by just putting a toner on will obviously not do anything. And you can't expect perfect results straight away! Over using toners and shampoos can damage your hair, so don't use them everyday, as you'll find that they won't work with everyday use and will dry your hair out. Always have a hair mask or serum around that you can use on your hair when it's especially dry! I have an oil serum that I put into my hair each time I wash it, and an intensive mask I use maybe once or twice a week to keep my hair feeling soft :)

These are the two products that I used:

I've been using this silver shampoo ever since I became blonde! I will always recommend it...it's a miracle product :)

Another product worth checking out is the Schwarzkopf Provoke Touch of Silver range. It's a very strong silver product, you don't need to leave this on for long at all!

Onto the photos!

Here are my extensions brand new and without anything added. These are colour #613, or "bleach blonde". They were quite golden which was strange as #613 is usually a lot less so, but either way, I was still able to work with these fine. My hair now is a lot lighter than these so it was interesting to see how I'd be able to match everything up!

Just to show comparison, my hair wet next to the dry extensions. This is my hair a few washes after using silver shampoo.

I toned my hair extensions entirely with silver shampoo and I also left a Wella toner on the hair for about 10 minutes too just to see if it would do anything. I used two ways to do it, the first step being:

Fill up your sink with water - it can be cold or warm, maybe not really hot.

Squeeze in some silver shampoo into the sink and mix it around

You can add in as much or a little to your preference - the shampoo can be quite strong and for my own hair, I tend not to leave it on for too long as it works really quickly!

Put your extensions into the water and submerge them, leaving them there for as long as you feel necessary. The longer you leave them, the more they will absorb. This is the correct way to wash hair extensions by the way, so when you need to just refresh them a bit after a few wears, just fill up your sink with water, squeeze in your shampoo and mix, and leave the extensions there to soak .They'll absorb the water and will get clean! When I had micro ring extensions I used to separate the loose hair on my head and really lather that, and then put shampoo through the rest of the hair and leave it for it to clean.

I left the extensions in the water for about 15 minutes and they went a lot whiter and the gold colour went away. I took them out, squeezed the excess water out and then put some Wella Colour Fresh toner on for 10 minutes just to see what would happen. The hair went whiter again and was pretty much a perfect base to put some more silver shampoo on. I lathered some silver shampoo into them, and left this mix on the hair for another 10/15 minutes (see below - this photo is from Saturday morning when I added some more toner)

Again, the more shampoo you use, the more effect you will have,which is why these look quite dark.

I washed off the shampoo and rinsed the extensions and then hung them out to dry outside :) If you can see, the extensions are not as gold as they once were! It's important to let your hair dry naturally, either on a towel somewhere warm, or outside in the sun, as strong artificial heat can damage them, and when you pay however much for your extensions, why ruin them by burning them?

The next day, I wet the extensions so they were damp and I put the silver shampoo lather mix on them twice, for a total of 10 minutes each time (which you can see below). The bigger wefts will generally need more shampoo and maybe a little more time.

These are the extensions after I rinsed them and look how silver they are! So happy :) I put them back onto the washing line to dry in the sun.

Completely dry on the line and while you can still see some blonde in there, the majority of the hair has gone a nice silvery colour which will blend nicely with my own!

And the end result! Look at that difference! Quite a genius I should think ;) The extensions are actually slightly darker than my own hair but the blend is really natural and nice! Once your extensions are done you can leave them and continue to top up the colour on your own hair rather than tampering with the extensions.

Here is me last night in natural light, and I love my hair! Enjoy my face ;D

How to become a Mermaid!

Hello!

Eek! I feel a bit bad not blogging for a few weeks! But nothing much of significance has been happening in my life really! I've mainly just been working and chilling out really! Life is now so much better. I can't believe that only a month ago (maybe just a little more over) that this whole crazy thing happened. When I think and try to look back on it, all I feel is how good this has been for me, and that he actually did me a favour!

I sorted out my hair extensions - finally - so now I am a glorified MERMAID! I posted this picture to my Instagram in preparation for the epic dying fest:

So as you can see, I've ended up using a mixture of Crazy Color and Directions for my current hair! I'm giving Crazy Color another go, even though it's still not my favourite dye! The one thing I've had problems with so far is the purple, because as soon as I put heat on it, it goes white! But that's to be expected, as purple and blue tones are usually found in the undertones of silver hair colouring/toners. It's actually a good (and sometimes cheaper way) way to tone hair if you haven't got any silver dye/toner to hand. Just mix a dark purple with some conditioner, leave it on the hair you want to tone and it will work! It will either bring it to a nice pastel lilac shade or the silver you want. Conditioner is such a boss, as you can do so much with it.

So as a refresher, when my hair was done by the salon, it looked like this:

And the pastel shades faded quite quickly, as you would expect them to! So when it came time to redo my hair, this is what I came up with:

I completely got rid of the pastel pink because I wanted something a bit more vivid, and I also brightened up the pastel shades! This picture is taken without a filter as it really shows off the true shades! After I washed my hair once and used straighteners, this is how my hair came out:

So it was time to re-dye! (hence the lovely dying cape!) And I took some photos to show you how I do it (as I get asked soooo much haha)

Here are the things you'll need!
1) Mixing bowls/tubs - yes, I use Ice Cream tubs! They hold a lot of volume and are just perfect as they're washable etc, AND they're great value, as the ice cream itself is maybe like, £3-4? And good mixing bowls at a salon supply store can sometimes cost more than that - for something even smaller!
2) Hair dye...obviously :D
3) Conditioner - if you're planning to do pastel shades or just want to tone down a more vivid colour, which is what I did with the blue in my hair
4) A mirror - really handy to see the back of your hair in another mirror
5) Gloves - my lovely marigolds that I bought in a conbini in Japan in 2010!
6) Tint brushes - a few different sizes can be great
7) Hair clips/grips to clip away parts of your hair you aren't ready to do just yet
8) A dying cape or a towel you don't mind getting dye on. I got the cape in a hair shop for about £2, and it's super handy

If you're combining conditioner and a dye together, then pick the colour(s) you want  - I would recommend using a few different tubs/bowls so you can alternate between each colour (if you're doing more than one in your hair) rather than mixing up a batch and then washing it all out and mixing another.

It really is this simple! I think people seem to think that dying hair at home is a big inconvenience and really difficult to do, but it's so easy, and it's really fun! Keep mixing in more conditioner until you have your desired shade!

This is how the "work station" looked whilst I was dying my extensions, and as you can see, I had 3 different tubs for each colour, and I used 3 different brushes too. It's easier to do your dying in a bathroom/kitchen where there is a sink at hand! When my hair was just pastel pink, it was easy to do it in my bedroom with no sink needed, but now it's a little bit more tricky, so it's really helpful to have this at your disposal. 

My extensions came out these colours when I dyed them and were slightly darker than my hair so this time I wanted to match them more, and made the blue darker, and didn't mix any conditioner with the purple.

Ignore my man hands and my incapability to paint nails properly, and you will see that this is how the dye looks like on. I didn't really need to do the pink again, so I only did the blue and purple.

AND. THE FINISHED RESULT....

Of course with matching eyebrows! Well, I hope this was an interesting blog for you to see! If you want me to post more hair/beauty related stuff, let me know! After all, it's my passion :D

hair adventure; part 2

Hello everyone, i'm really sorry for posting a whole week later to what I originally promised, but i've had a bit of a funny week! I got a comment on my last blog from an anon reader, which really hit home and made me feel really bad for not updating so much :(

"Anonymous said...

I was a big fan of ur blog, but you've become so bad at updating them I don't feel the need to check what your up to anymore.
:( i feel like you've let me down greatly, my friends also feel this :("

To Anon, and to all of my followers, i'm really sorry I don't update as much as I should! Sometimes my weeks don't turn out as planned and I find it difficult to fit in the time to write a really good blog for you guys. But anyway, without sounding really lame, i'm going to work harder to bring you more frequent and interesting posts! I'm also planning a giveaway for hitting the 250 folower mark, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

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Carrying on from my last entry; about my hair adventure; I have some bad news :( Unfortunately i've had to go back to blonde for the time being, but, there is change in the works! I'll carry on from where I left off :) Step 3 was dying my hair purple and sorting out my extensions...but I also had a really busy week with work and a photoshoot with Marc.B again! Here's me in between the nice, yet tricky process of going purple:

Before a photoshoot I had with Marc.B!

And now for the fun time,the purple!

purple!

However... The dye kind of, refused to take to all of my hair, so what you see here is actually a good picture that doesn't really show how weird my hair looked in real life! For some reason, my roots were still white, as was a large section at the back of my hair, just underneath my top layers! To be honest, my hair was much darker than the results i've seen from others who have tried Mystic Heather, but the next problem I had was going to work with this colour. My work has copious amounts of UV lighting inside, and my although it "evened" out my hair colour under said lights, it also changed the colour quite a bit, and made it look grey, which, considering as i'm at work pretty much all the time, wasn't the thing I was going for.

Due to this, I decided to wash the purple out as much as I could over a few days and I managed to get it down to a very light rosey pink colour, but I just hated the way it looked :( I gave in and rebleached my hair the other evening and now i'm blonde (very very white actually lol...) again for the time being! I'm really disappointed because now I don't know what to do with my hair! In a way i'm very glad I didn't dye my hair extensions as then I would have been really upset, but i'm also glad that I kind of, "messed up" my hair with this shade of dye, because if I hadn't at least tried it, I would never have known what the end result would have been! Now, the question comes into mind..what can I do with my hair?

I am virtually the master/creator behind Rosie's new hair, which is pink going into turquoise and all pretty and yummy! I just feel really weird not having a bright colour in my hair after having the pink for so long, and I feel like I should do something! I'd really love it if you guys could send your thoughts as to what I should think about doing! I'm going to try and think of something....I mean, dip dye is now fast becoming a trend, and I even saw a girl that has come into work before sporting my same hair colour; pink into blonde; on Camden High Street! Should I go back to it, but with different colours? Help me decide!

 

hair adventure, part 1

Hello there! How are you doing?

Before I get onto my main topic, I want to write a quick note about the current devastation of the Tsunami in Japan. Myself, like many others, know friends and/or family living there and knowing that they are okay is the main thing. I am wishing and praying for the safety of not only my friends, but everyone in Japan, more so, the Northeastern part, which has currently been the place most affected. I haven't heard from all of my friends yet so I am just hoping that they are okay. To everyone in Japan now, foreign or Japanese, please keep safe, whichever part you may be in!

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My last post filled you in a little about my weekend away to Center Parcs and also talked about my hair...well! I'm obviously back from Center Parcs now, and one of the reasons I didn't write a blog during the weekend was because the signal was so awful! Jess was constantly asking "Have you guys got signal?!" (lol) and the wireless was terrible...come on Center Parcs... I haven't even had a chance to upload my photos from my camera just yet, and i've only just seen the girls' photos which are really nice! I shall steal them when it comes to writing about the weekend!

I'm here to bring you a post about my hair adventure! Well, it won't just be my hair adventure, it will be mine and Rosie's! (The girl with blue hair I posted!) As I wrote about in my last blog, we shall be having a "Fabulous night"! Although we did start the celebrations off a little early by bleaching out Rosie's hair the other night, and I bleached my own this evening - that's right! Pink hair is officially gone! - but there still leaves lots to be done! Anyway. When I returned from CP, my hair had gone a light pink colour so I decided that instead of dying it again, I would just wash it out until my new extentions had arrived. However, the mailman being the mailman decided to take my hair extensions with him instead of putting them through the mail slot, so I had to redye my hair pink on Thursday evening >.< slightly annoying but it meant I could wear my pink/blonde ext. one last time!

Part one of my hair adventure was getting my hair cut! FINALLY, after 6 months! I went to Pepi's in Camden (like a minute's walk from Cyberdog) and got my hair trimmed, as well as a new fringe cut in! Pepi's sepcialises in crazy hair and extensions (take a look at their galleries) but they have normal customers too!

yes, im very aware this top is very see through!

stupid rain made my hair go funny :( Me and Laura, aka Miss Virtual Store!

Step 2 of my hair adventure (well actually, more like a mini detour) was dying my hair pink again...for the last time!

Friday morning before work~

And then today, I made the necessary trip to buy bleach! And also to post something to Rui and pick up my new extensions :D

no make-up...and bye bye pink!

It's funny walking around my town with pink hair...obviously because i'm the only one who has this hair colour, and people act as if it's the first time they've ever seen something like that! An old lady actually said to me today "How long did it take you to get hair like that? It's just a spray isn't it?" And when I said it was my real hair....lol! It's actually weird being IN my home town actually because i've been staying with Adam, my man, for the past week! I came home early from CP on Monday and was supposed to be meeting him outside work on Tuesday evening after I finished my shift, but I decided to go and surprise him by meeting him at his flat instead, and he was really happy^^!

Step 2 was removing the pink, and I finished bleaching/washing/toning my hair about an hour ago and this is currently the result:

verrrrry white blonde! actually, white! lol

And tomorrow I will commence with step 3! Dying my hair purple...and my extensions..and also something else, but I shall keep that a secret until it's finished! That's it for now, and i'll post again on Monday to show you the end result!

HURR

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AFTER

Sorry for the rubbish quality, its from my mobile....what do y'all think?

inspiration

Hello!

Ive just realised im really hungry...oo...one second!

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Right, im back with some food.
TO THE BLOGGING!

Last Sunday I met up with Caryn, Nij and Floz to practise for our Para Para performance at the upcoming Japanese Art Festival next month! We'll be performing on both days as well as teaching two different routines (one for each day) so it should be really awesome! With regards to the routine, ive done it before at Roppongi Street last summer with Lucie (who I hope is okay after what happened on holiday!!) but it was kind of disaster as I didn't have time to learn the whole dance properly so I forgot parts while we performed lol...but thats done now! Hopefully I can get someone to record the thing and then put it up here for you all to see! On Sunday, me Caryn and Nij practised for about 3.5 solid hours and then Floz turned up and we practised for another 2, and the next day my arms and legs KILLED! But we have it down! So its all good :)

Unfortunately I had to cancel the photoshoot I was due to have on Monday because of an unexpected illness and I was bed ridden! I couldn't even walk to my bedroom door or roll to my side in bed! It sucked so bad. And of course there was no way id be able to make an hour journey to the studio and an hour journey back PLUS pose etc for a good 4-5 hours! It was so short notice too; I think the photographer was really mad but what can I do? Usually I would have just pushed myself and gone and done what needed to be done, but I couldn't WALK so it was the only choice I had! The next day I was a bit better, I was mobile, but I didn't leave the house just in case I got stuck somewhere haha. I don't think he'll be messaging me back anytime soon....ah well

BEFORE I bore you all to death, I have a TREAT for you all!
Shaka posted about egg's Beauty Summer 2010 which came free in egg August 2010. He asked me if I would scan it and this afternoon/early evening (I know, im terribly precise) ive done just that! Ill be posting it on http://community.livejournal.com/gal_style/ and probably jmagazinescans@lj, but ill post it here FIRST as im nice like that : D!

egg's Beauty Summer 2010

Download here at MEGAUPLOAD

When I spoke to Nij on the phone the other day, we were talking about Japan and what we were going to bring etc and what we were going to do with our hair (its a very important decision you know!) and he broke the news to me that we only have 9 weeks left until we go. 9 WEEKS?!!!!! IM NOT READY YET THOUGH!! I need to save more money, and think about what I need to bring and ah ah ah! Jeez! With regards to my hair, I want to go pink, like ive mentioned in a couple of blog posts away, remember when I was getting my hair done and at the last minute I wanted my hair pink but went against it? Well, I think ill just go for it this time. I was wanting to go pink straightaway and my hairdresser seemed damn excited but ive realised the better decision for both my purse and my hair itself would be to get my hair done as usual (root touch up and toner done so its white/silverish) and the day before I go away, im going to get the pink done! Ill get it done in the early morning and then I have the rest of the day to pack and get stuff sorted : D

Now, for the pink itself, here are a couple of options I have:

faded light pink

magenta/fuchsia pink

cherry pink

So far, the colour/style I like the most is:

I wouldn't have to dye all of my hair, so it would be cool, but it would fade out pretty quickly, but it would be fun to try! Ill have my *new* extensions before I go so ill just take them to the salon to get a few dyed also just so I can mix it well~

I need something that will match well with banba and manba (I haven't done it in ages but I want to be classy extreme when im there which will be fun) so : D fingers crossed!

One last thing before I go, Kyon, old AngeleeK member, is 9 months pregnant next week!

Ciao!