Hair Update: Mermaid Green!

Gah! So about a month ago I got what I like to call my tiger hair because when it's wet, it's orange stripes on black stripes. It wasn't what I wanted so I was freaking out (and contemplating crying and hiding until it grew out) but eventually it really grew on me. Especially after a friend's first reaction was "DAMN IT, every colour looks good on you, you could dye your hair orange!" 

So I decided to test this little theory and dye my hair the one colour that I thought I wouldn't: GREEN!

Good choice, Angeli. 

I actually tried to for "watermelon coloured" by making a pink and teal ombre, but my hair was too brassy (I was too lazy to buy toning shampoo............). I was also too lazy to use two seperate dye brushes  this time, so the pink ended up mixing with the teal creating a kind of grey-purple. 

So now my hair is this black-grey-blonde-green gradient thing that I'm really digging. 

In fact, this guy on the subway with Anderson Cooper hair and giant earrings and on point eyeliner told me that my hair was stunning so that was pretty much the proudest moment of my life. 

I'm super happy with it this way!! Hopefully this is my last time dying my hair for a little while but I'm pretty addicted at this point, I think. 

What I'm Wearing: Panda School Girl

Shirt [Bluenotes]

Cardigan [Urban Outfitters]

Necklace [Little Burgundy]

Skirt [Forever 21]

Socks [A little sock boutique in South Carolina]

Hairclip [Thailand import store in Kingston]

<<<and an assortment on pastel-coloured bracelets>>>>

Some days, there's a serious, serious need to be cute.

I'm a serious sock fiend, so when I finally found a pair of thigh-high knitted socks, I knew I would never take these babies for granted. They were only $10 too, I wish I bought 10 more. ;_;

I got the lil' school girl look on lock... it probably doesn't hurt that I still look like I'm in high school. I tried curling my hair, though, and in some ways, it's a lot harder with short hair. Good thing I got all my practice in when I had long hair!

Hair Change: Highlights?!

So this past year has been a cycle of some pretty crazy colours, but before that, I had dyed my hair a regular boring old brown! I decided to try something else a little bit more toned down, so I went from my natural black to some blonde highlights.

I actually didn't want that-- I wanted full blonde hair, so I might go back in soon and get the rest of it bleached. But the blonde is growing on me! 

When I asked to "go blonde", the lady didn't want to damage my hair so she gave me highlights. At first I was PANICKING. Especially because they're brassy highlights on black hair and when it was still wet, I looked like a tiger ._.

I was told I probably wouldn't like it because it was a little too "glam" to go with my usual style, but pairing it with a red velvet lipstick makes me feel so fierce. :) 

Maybe I'll put some turqouise in it, though? rainbow? I'm so indecisive...

PS. Ignore the obnoxious snapchat caption on the left.

I'm back... and so is Dragon Age!

Long time no see, friends!

I'm still trying to get some videos underway but in the meantime, I'm back to blogging! In that time, really only four things happened because I let things totally consume me.

1- Dragon Age: Inquisition

I thought that this would be a good time because Dragon Age: Inquisition came out a few days ago and it's been pretty radtastic so far.

I was going to get back to blogging on the 18th, along with the Dragon Age release, but it's been so addictive I haven't really been able to get off of it. 

I'll keep updating you on it but my work is definitely getting neglected for my inquisitor. I don't even know how much my friends have seen me outside of class time.

I haven't even left the first map yet (the Hinterlands) because even the side quests are so immersive.

It's, so far, seeming like a greatly executed game. Oh, and I started playing the....

2- Warlords of Draenor expansion for World of Warcraft

I started playing this with some friends; now, of course, World of Warcraft is a great game for lore. For a long time, this was the only thing I really knew about the game. That, and the fact that one of my friends literally spent $2,000 on the game.

I consider myself an MMO connoisseur of sorts (isn't the grinding kind of relaxing?) but I've never actually had a chance to get into WoW, one of the greats.

On the first night, I played until 7am after 9 hours of gaming and it's consuming my life so much that I always seem to be seeing some sort of Blizzard HUD in the corners of my eyes. 

I've tried to get into World of Warcraft a few times, but no expansion has ever been able to really pull me in the war Warlords of Draenor does. Actually, it kind of drags me in and forces me to love it.

Usually I play as a Mage but I tried a Monk this time. I'm still playing as DPS so it's not wildly different but updates on that will follow too!

3- I was in a play (Yay!)

It was a thriller where my mother was a murderer and I played a 12 year old girl. My 20 year old friend played my 9 year old brother and, I can't believe this, but by the coincidence that we were also both Asian, someone actually asked whose children we were that they got to be in the play. 

Someone actually thought we were actual children. 

4- I cut off all a lot of my hair

And dyed it black for the play. I've heard I look both younger and older-- thoughts? It's definitely way less maintenance (what's a hairbrush?) but I also miss having colourful hair. :(

Maybe I'll buy some colour remover for the black dye to speed up the process. 

Aaaaand that's been my life so far! I've missed you, internet. 

Follow Up: Sailor Senshi Shiny Hair

Alright so we're about to get a little insight on pretty much my entire hair arsenal. If you've got hair that could use a little bit of loving (especially colour, chlorine, or sun damaged hair), but you don't want to drop that $400 on a Keratin treatment (hint: never ever do), there are a lot of alternatives.

Remember when my hair was a real, actual shade of blue?

Then it became this weird combination of dirty-hippie meets beachy-mermaid, because blue washes out faster than any other shade:

 Before I re-dyed it again (see my post on dying my hair pink-purple).

Pretty miraculously, it's managed to stay nice after all that fading and salt water. I'm surprised it's this soft for sure, and surprised that the colour is clinging in such a nice, pastel way, but that doesn't mean I haven't been treating my hair with the delicacy of a newborn baby... because I have.

Here's what I did: 

1. First, some washing tips: avoid overwashing your hair, especially if you're already putting other conditioning products into it. Also, detangle your hair when it's damp or almost dry; towel it down first. 
2. So happy with the Kevin Murphy hair mask. This deep conditioning hair mask tamed my split ends and made my hair a lot shinier. Instead of regularly condition for 5-10m like the bottle says, once a week I've been soaking it into my hair and then applying heat to it for 20m before washing it out.
   Price: $30
3. Boar bristle brush to reduce frizz and fly aways. I only use it on rare occasions when my hair is a bed-headed mess, but it really does make a difference. The only two very important things to remember: don't use a boar bristle brush on wet hair or on hair that has not already been detangled.
   Price: Varies. As cheap as $13. 
4. Buy a pair of scissors that specifically cut hair. When you see a split-end starting, cut it off. It's tempting to use regular scissors, but those are rough enough that they will often make your ends worse in the long run.
   Price: Usually around $10
5. Pantene Perfect 10 BB Creme. This is it. This is my newest secret. This is my how-is-this-from-Shoppers-and-only-seven-dollars-because-it-does-everything Saving Grace. I apply it once or twice a day and all I have to do is brush it in. If you can only do one thing on this list, get this one.
   Price: $7
6. Before my hair was coloured, I used to use hot coconut oil at-home treatments, which is literally just warm coconut oil (like, that people cook with) that you massage into your hair for half an hour to an hour before washing out. 

And that's it! If you've got any other tips or tricks on hair that I'm missing, especially for delicate hair, let me know in the comments! 

Hair change: Purple-Pink Ombre

So my hair finally got blonde enough that I had to draw a line and here we are!

I'm trying this new method where I just ask people what colour to make my hair and then I do it-- it makes it more exciting for me because it's less of a planned, thought out decision. A few friends said purple, but a toddler said pink, so I had to compromise, you know? The toddler knows best. 

I actually really like how it turned out, and a lot of people tell me that the colour suits me/that my ombre looks a lot better than it would if it were a solid colour. 

 

If we're wondering how I got the purple-pink ombre (a lot of people ask me because I know that a proper ombre is tough to do on yourself), it was actually pretty easy once you know what you're doing!

First of all: I FINALLY invested in a tint  brush. 

And if you ever dye your hair, let me just save you years of pain and hardship and tell you to get one the first time you dye your hair (or bleach it, if you're confident)

I got my tint brush for less than $5 at Shoppers. I haven't had my plain natural hair colour for maybe 5 years now and now that I've caved to buying one, things got so much easier (and more even), I would never have tried an ombre without one or the colour line would have probably not blended at all.

Second of all: I brushed the darker colour up towards the ombre and then I brushed the lighter colour down towards the ombre after, so that the dyes blended and mixed evenly.  

If you've ever painted, that's an easy way to remember it. With acrylic and oil paints (which have that thick pigment that dyes do), you paint darks to lights. 

Because I just used Manic Panic (Cotton Candy and Ultra Violet), I used a couple test strands, and then dyed my hair, and then re-dyed my hair two days later with the same pots, going over duller spots, to make it pop even more. Here's what it looked like after I put in the test strands:

And then I went over it the second time:

Anyway, because all of my choices link back to nerd-things and all of my fashion choices link back to characters I love, I feel like this one should be dedicated to Aoi Yamada, my favourite character on Working!!, which just recently got its 3rd season confirmed. 

If you haven't yet and you like lighthearted, mindless, cute slice of life animes, it's perfect. It reminded me a bit of Lucky Star, which was obviously brilliantly written if it took 2/3rd of the series for me to realize that the show had literally no plot, and only entertaining dialogue. 

Now if only I could be as cute as Yamada. ☆

Channeling My Inner Sailor Mercury.

She was always my favourite, anyway. I've actually always wanted to do this but Sailor Moon is getting a reboot, so I'm doing it in the name of Love and Justice. 

If you're... well... quite frankly, not white, living in Canada or America, and have ever tried to dye your hair, you probably understand the pain of having naturally black, ethnic hair. My hair has already seen a half-rainbow of colours (brown, gold-copper ombre, various reds, and purple) but most salons I go to won't even attempt to do anything to my Asian hair other than those 4 options because it's too hard. 

Until, after extensive Yelp research, I found Parlour in downtown Toronto. I got my hair dyed from black to blue, which I've wanted since I was about 11 (I'm not kidding, ask my mom). My hair came out minimally damaged and on the way home, strangers were stopping me to tell me that I looked like a mermaid. 

It was a super long process (10 am to 3 pm) but it was so worth it! And take it from someone who's infamously awkward and horrified at small-talk, my stylist was an awesome guy, who totally made those 5 hours pass by in a flash. 

First came the bleach, which took around 2 hours. My hair ended up coming out a nice Lannister-Gold. Actually, I might consider doing this again with just the bleach. Ignore the awkward sink selfie I took. 

Then we stripped tons of the colour out of my hair with a toner (actually, he used the toner twice because my hair was so golden-- so much red in it) until it looked like this! That took us to about 1 pm.

And then he dumped a whole bunch of blue into my hair. Although you can't see above, you can see in the end results: he took two shades and blended them in different ways so that now my hair looks like (as my dad puts it, with his dad-jokes) "50 shades of blue".

Oh, and shoutout to one of my best friends, Megan, for sitting with me for 5 hours and bringing me Smoke's poutine and macaroons. That's the mark of true love. 

End result! Turned out excellently, I'm actually more than happy with it, which is a relief after all of the horror stories I heard about hair being singed off with bleach. Hooray! Here's to looking like a cross-statement of Utterly Employable and Sailor Mercury.