“Dyeing” to be blonde, or blue, or brown, or black and then blue again?
Frequent follicle fine-tuners, you may want to hold your horses and colour with caution. Nailing the hue of hair heroines like the incandescent Irene Kim demands plenty of patience and perseverance.
When shown a snapshot of the street style superstar, my go-to stylist says odds are she had to pre-lighten her hair with a relatively aggressive bleach – and that’s just the tip of our tinted iceberg.
Subsequent sessions would likely involve gentler bleaching agents to get rid of any residual yellowish undertones while shielding the strands from dullness and damage.
Top takeaway? Lightening your locks should be a progressive process, preferably in cycles over the course of a few months. Sure, you could slap on an industrial-strength DIY bleach in concentrations best reserved for sanitising sinks and sewers, but you’ll end up singeing your scalp or worse – so not worth it, woman.
Image: Showbit.com.
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So you’ve practiced due diligence and have the platinum payoff to show for it. What now? To delay the devolving of your newly bleached hair into an “ah beng” carrot-top colour, you may want to steer clear of swimming in chlorinated pools. Sorry, aspiring Josephine Schoolings!
Extra “kiasu”? Another way of preventing premature fading of your hair’s hue is to pop on a chlorine-screening filter on your showerhead; this ingenious invention sieves out the desaturating chemicals that may be lurking in your tap water.
Image: 123rf.com.
Want more? Invest in my personal pick of luxuriously lightweight floral fragrances, all of which will pass the smell test in Singapore’s clammy climate, and check out this sexy sapphire spin on your conventional liner look that’s pretty perfect for the office. Get your daily dose of beauty atwww.herworldplus.com/beauty.
Now, speaking of showerheads (see previous slide for context), your post-shower hair is at its most vulnerable – which means you should never ride roughshod by rubbing it dry. The solution to your towel trouble? Pat gently with a clean cotton tee instead, then follow up with a follicle-fortifying mask developed specifically for dyed hair.
Hack alert! I’ve found that a leave-in mask is also perfect for use as a heat-protective shield for a trendy “wet” look. Simply grab a handful of paper towels to sponge off any mask residue, then blow-dry with a diffuser until your head is almost but not quite bone-dry.
Run a comb through your tresses to spread out the stuff, separating the strands into inch-length sections. When you’re done, ditch the comb and use your fingers to muss up the ends, twisting and twirling at random. Voila! Wet-look hair achievement level unlocked with the aid of just one product.
Try: Intelligent Nutrients Pureserve Color Shield, $55 from Sephora Singapore.
Want more? Invest in my personal pick of luxuriously lightweight floral fragrances, all of which will pass the smell test in Singapore’s clammy climate, and check out this sexy sapphire spin on your conventional liner look that’s pretty perfect for the office. Get your daily dose of beauty atwww.herworldplus.com/beauty.
For maximum shine and minimum spend, yours truly also recommends investing in a silver shampoo as a cost-effective weekly option for maintaining your mane.
For a really deep cleanse, massage your dry hair with an oil to remove the first layer of gunk and grease, then top up with your silver shampoo and splash off for surpassingly silky strands. Post-rinse, your locks may be so lush as to be able to skip conditioner. Incredibly intuitive, right?
Some final bits and bobs: Supplement this with a professional top-up every month or so and you’ll be well on your way to influencer-worthy hair that’s super sleek and gorgeously glossy – no matter what hue it happens to be. Good luck with your locks!
Try: Philip Kingsley Pure Silver Shampoo, US$20 (approx. $28) from Net-A-Porter.
Want more? Invest in my personal pick of luxuriously lightweight floral fragrances, all of which will pass the smell test in Singapore’s clammy climate, and check out this sexy sapphire spin on your conventional liner look that’s pretty perfect for the office. Get your daily dose of beauty atwww.herworldplus.com/beauty.