my hair journey: black/dark to red hair (without pre bleaching)

DISCLAIMER: 
i'm not a professional!!! however, if you should be unsure about dying your hair (damaging, chemicals, color result etc) please do NOT do it! consider your professional beauty salon for adivce! all i do is to share my experience i made on my own.

f a c t s

ok, first of all - and i'm sure you guys heard or read it a thousand times before (if you did research): red hair color fades out damn fast! i mean super fast, like a bleeding b!tch on her damn period without a tampon!!!
why? because the molecules in our super gorgeous red hair color are too big for our hair's cuticles, so the color mostly just "sits" on the surface - which explains why it "bleeds" out hella crazy each time you wash your hair. this information is essencial when deciding wether you dye your hair red or not because it surely means that you will dye/refresh your hair a lot more than with other colors! however i decided to go reeeeed <3 again...

and guys... please - do research!!!! google can be your bff, if he b!tches around at the first page then just check out the 2nd or 3rd page!!

ask yourself at least these questions before turning into a red head:

• is my hair healthy/strong enough to handle dyes/refreshers every 4-5 weeks (depends)
• can i effort to buy the hairproducts (dye, special hair shampoo/conditioner, hair masks) every now and then
• do i really want to invest a lot of time for hair care routines
• can i handle to get red stains on towels, pillow sheets or even clothing (especially when it rains!) etc
• red colored hair might bleed out a bit while swimming in pools O.O might embarass the sh!t out of you cuz peepz be like "damn dat gurl on her period?!?!?!" 
• if your hair has been dyed recently (like mine was dyed to a mahagoni brown/red about 3 weeks ago) don't expect wonders!!! won't really work as well as with colored hair that hasn't been dyed for longer than 4-5 months + think about the damage that might be caused after over dying. in general you should strip out the color first, the best results will be achieved with virgin hair. my hair wasn't damaged thaaat bad after using this dye!!!

h o w   t o

since you can't get anything good here in germany or switzerland that truly lifts dark hair to fire red without bleaching, i bought "L'Oreal Excellence HiColor For Dark Hair Only" in h8 red & h9 red hot from the states via amazon! these products have amazing reviews -again, it's for dark hair only and you won't have to prebleach you hair! i wanted to go fire red, like vavavavoooooooom the roof is on fire red!!! but - for my first attempt with this hair color i started out with h9 red hot, which won't give you a fire red but still a very nice and vibrant red. i'll try to go lighter in the next months but i'll write about that in a future post!

what you'll need:

• "L'Oreal Excellence HiColor For Dark Hair Only" in h8 red or h9 red hot (I went with h9 red hot) 
• gloves 
• l'oreal 30 vol. creme developer (peroxide activates the bleach which the dye contains! it also comes in 40 vol, but trust me you don't wanna fry your hair with 40 vol) 
• small bowl to mix everything together
• tin foil, i use to wrap my hair in tinfoil while waiting for the dye to do it's magic. the warmth will fasten/intensify the process and will give you somehow better results
• application brush 
• vaseline, no we are not having dirty mind games right now! you better put your hands on some of this and apply it along your hairline, on your ears, neck etc because otherwise you'll have such a hard time washing away the red stain - for days!!!!
• hair clipper to section your hair, this will make it a lot easier for you to apply the color evenly
• old shirt, no you don't want to ruin any of your precious shirts/tops that you wear on a daily basis

1. step

time to put on our sexy gloves ;) grab vaseline and apply it along your entire hairline, ears and neck.
pour the whole "h9 red hot" tube in your mixing bowl and add 2.5 oz or 73 ml of the creme developer - stir up everything like your doin some delicious cake icing! yeeeeeeah!!! stir stir stir until there aren't any clumps left!!

2. step
section your hair and clip up the rest, this way it will be a lot easier for you to apply the color evenly through the entire hair. start applying the color strand by strand. important: when your hair has been dyed already (like mine) and you have regrowth at your roots, then definetly start at the bottom and work your way up, leaving the roots for last! when you start at your roots they will turn the brightest!

3. step
when you're done with applying, gently massage the dye into your hair a bit and clip it up. grab some tin foil and wrap it around your hair, this way the warmth that builds up underneath the foil will intensify the result! my neighbor rang at my door and I opened looking all like a psycho weirdo ready for abduction by aliens woohooo still looking fly huh?

4. step
the box said to leave it in for 30 minutes after you are done with applying - I let it in for 45 minutes. washed it all out, hanging headover the tub rinsing it out with ice cold water - that is very important for a long lasting color, do not use hot/warm water!

optional step
i did this process twice  yes... twice - you should leave your hair at least one day to "rest" though. the reason i did it twice is to even out the tone since my hair was colored in a rather uneven way before + the result will be brighter! after that it´s all about deep deep deep deep care! but we´ll take a look at this in the next post.

 bright lightning - comparable to how intense it looks when i´m outside during a sunny day
I will try to go lighter in the next months, but for now I'm super happy with the intensity!

that´s how it looks with usual indoor lightning - still I think iphone pics aren't really true with the coloring -.- meeh - makes it look less red!

shadowy lightning

before - lol lightning kinda hit me bad here, 
hahaha nope not having white hair yet

before, after the first attempt to go red
from black

not like I'm not proud to be a black haired gal ;)
but I still love red... as you can see