Barber Black Sheep

I don’t usually ever feel the need to post photos of myself on here, but I yesterday I made a fairly major change to my hair, and I thought I would share the journey, simply because if anyone is debating on changing their hair colour in a major way, there are a few things you should be aware of and how much time it takes to do it properly.

Firstly, find a good hair dressers that you trust. My choice was easy….barber black sheep, based in Lincoln (you can find them on Facebook here). Nathan, previously cut me in an awesome undercut, and where usually I hate the hairdressers, because you have to make inane conversation, this alternative salon is full of people that make you feel completely at ease, with interesting music and banter in abundance.

The salon is a treasure trove of things to look at, the most fascinating, is the apothecary cabinet filled with amazing hair colours.

As I’m not from the area, I was concerned it would be a real trial booking and appointment and conveying what I wanted, but no, a quick message on Facebook, then a short discussion and it was done.

My appointment was at 10 am yesterday, I’m using this as a starting point so when you hear the end time you can make a reference as to how long this took.

I am a natural ginger, who has been greying for a while so for the last 8 years or so I have worked through an array of shades of red. Here is how I started out…

Nathan and I discussed what I wanted, he’s so easy to talk to and very knowledgable about the colours soma quick flash of what I was thinking and he was already formulating a plan.

This plan did however involve bleaching my hair out first, and I was warned….prepare of orange.

It’s no mean feat doing anything with my hair as there is a metric tonne of it, so here is me after about an hour of applying varying grades of bleach. I think I look like a rather stunning robotic Dutch girl.

Now, bleach is harsh, don’t go into doing this if you have damaged hair as the process is extreme, any good hairdresser should be giving you recommendations around this.

40 minutes later, I was ready to be washed off…

Here is the before and after of the wash, Dutch girl to something out of Harry Potter in one short move. You can see the orange left overs from the dyed hair, and then awful yellow blonde that a natural red head will produce with bleach.

Nathan then toned the roots down to a brown so that I wouldn’t have uber bright roots. It sounds crazy, but when you see finished hair hopefully you’ll understand.

Let the blow drying commence… I’ve never had two people blow dry my hair until yesterday, I have to say, it’s the most bizarre and pampering experience. Excuse the very unflattering picture of me….

As temping as it was to text the next photo to my friends and loved ones that this was the finished product, I just couldn’t bring myself to…

This is the point where you can sing…”bring your canvas bags with you” as it was pointed out that I looked “A bit Tim Minchin”.

Don’t know what I’m waffling on about….find it here.

At this point the whole process starts again, but with the colour. Five colours were selected for my hair out of the directions hair dye…

The chart is a little hard to see, but I have a combination of dark tulip, tulip, cerise, violet and flamingo.

I found a higher level of respect for hairdressers s this point as I simply would not have the patience to do what Nathan did next. A painstaking task of alternating each due through my hair the different colours.

Here’s the dye doing its thing…

I opted to have an opalex treatment to try and maintain the condition of my hair, I would definitely recommend this as my hair does feel amazing.

After my third wash off of the day and second blow dry, plus a quick cut and straighten, the process was complete. I walked out of the salon at 4:15.

I am super happy with the results.

There are a few things you need to know if you do plan to take this journey with your hair. These hair colours are semi permanent so maintenance is HIGH. If you’re going to spend 6 hours getting this done, make sure you invest in some no sulphate shampoo. There are some recommended ones here.

Also you can buy the pots of colour, now I could never hope to create the masterpiece that Nathan did, so I opted with buying the dark tulip so that I can top up and not look washed out. Barber black sheep stock these on site, but you can also find them on line really easily.

I hope this has helped anyone contemplating going vibrant. Massive thanks to Nathan and Barber Black sheep.