Hair coloring obsessions and other thoughts on my birthday…

~ Emmie Reve ~ Leave a comment

So recently I’ve been coloring my hair like crazy…check out my post about soap capping. It’s been a goal of mine now to have ashy, cool toned hair colour, because well, as a dark haired asian girl, that is near impossible. Black is my natural color, and that’s as cool toned as my hair wants to be. But as I age and become more pale, black hair is actually too harsh for my skin tone (plus the occassional white that hair creeps in). But when I try to lighten even just a few shades, my hair screams a bright red/orange tone, even harsher than black hair for my complexion. I actually had to go through a lot of chemical processes to get it to be the cool toned light brown I have now and I’m ashamed to say it, since I kind of fried my hair with a chemical soup to get it…But now I think I got it, and really don’t care if it’s not exactly the colour I want…me needs to let go.

So this is just part of the chemical soup I subjected my hair to trying to make it ashy: developer, bleach lightener, permanent colors…additives…etc.

Today is my birthday, I’m another year older, and I’m really thinking today about how unimportant hair color is…all the cosmetic procedures, chemicals and efforts us girls put into altering our natural appearance doesn’t add up to much. When the truth is, nobody cares about the color of my hair…I recently reviewed some lipstick on here and to think I about it, I doubt anyone really cares about my lip color either. It’s fun, but that’s it…The truth is, cosmetics and fashion is a past time I enjoy…but not ultimately what people care about in me. My dad’s obsession for example, is seeing me eat more, eat healthily and sleep.  Ha ha. Really that’s all he cares about. Most people just want others to be healthy and happy. So I know that taking care of oneself’s mind and body is ultimately the most important thing to do…

Time to say sorry to my body and hair for everything I put it through for the sake of my vanities.Whether it is soap capping twice in one night to lighten it, or putting in harsh dyes and toners to perfect my hair color, or not eating bagels since they make me bloat…I have start seeing as to how I am pretty mean to my body…and it’s time to say sorry. How do I say sorry to my body? Some ideas I have are:

  • Don’t wear make-up on my off days, I just moisturize your skin and drink lots of tea
  • Do have that pastry/cookie/candy I’ve been thinking of
  • sleep in that extra two hours…I will never run out of chores/work that I gotta do, but I know I can always do it later
  • give my hair a hot oil conditioning treatment and not worry about what it will do its color
  • Feed your mind: Do something that has NOTHING to do with being gorgeous. (no fashion/make up stuff) Write an article or read a book about something cerebral. Create something that will bring value to your health, or learn something about the world your never knew.
  • Don’t look at trends and covet them on social media. Look at yourself and what you want to accomplish and achieve…

Remember the important things in life…and be happy. That’s what I’ve been thinking about on my birthday today. Nothing is worth doing if it doesn’t make us healthy and happy. It’s really easy to get caught up in getting the latest fashions and make-up trends, and cosmetic procedures…but knowing when to stop is key.

 

 

I don’t usually write make-up reviews for cosmetic giants, but…

~ Emmie Reve ~ Leave a comment

Maybelline doesn’t need my help to sell it’s make-ups. It’s as ubiquitous as all the other make-up giants; that kill the environment, use chemicals and test on animals…Maybelline is no exception. But since this is a make-up journal, I feel inclined to report about how I recently discovered the crazy over performing lipstick that is the Maybelline Super Stay Matte Ink Lipstick line. It’s a semi-new release (within the last year) that has gotten me in a state of fandom over long wear make-ups for my lips…(since that’s really the only place on the face that needs it…since we eat and drink, every hour of the day)

The two best colors from the line, as mentioned by a lot a reviews: Lover (mauve), and Pioneer (classic red)

I come from a philosophy of simple is better, less is more and basically I feel natural always trumps chemicals. That’s why I have a line of gentle handmade cosmetics and perfumes called Dream E available for all. But because I work in the fashion industry as well, I know how important a well painted lip can be and how much it can pull together a fashion look from head to toe. So here I am being hypocritical about my own philosophies by liking super-stay lipsticks; since they probably have more in common with car paint enamel than the traditional wax based lipstick…what to do…

The reason I feel I have this contradiction is because ignorance is bliss. If I think about the chemical gloop that are in super-stay lip color, I would probably cringe…but I am slightly comforted by the fact that once they set, they don’t go anywhere. They become more like clothes that one wears and then takes off at night. The problem I’ve always had with traditional lipsticks were that they were movable, oily and gross, getting on food, coffee cups and clothes. I could feel them on my lips, they felt greasy, slimy. Not to mention they are made with chemical/metal colorants that could make their way into my body eventually. Too gross. But the great thing about a color stay lipstick is that it doesn’t budge, and because of that, I am assuming the chance of it getting into my belly is unlikely? (cross my fingers)

Ok now that I’ve explained my contradiction, what were the general downsides of wearing color stay lipsticks? Flat, unfashionable choice of colors, uneven wear throughout the day, 2 step application of some formulas, drying feel on the lips…the thing with the Super Stay Matte Inks is though that they don’t feel dry on, the wear is even throughout the day with NO retouching at all necessary…and they come in highly pigmented, velvety colors that you virtually paint on once carefully, and forget about it. It is that comfortable and light, that I forget I’m wearing it until I walk past a mirror and see my high fashion lips!  Just like a great eye make-up that you put on once and don’t have to worry about reapplying throughout the day, you can live the busy life you have, while having a high maintenance lip look that nobody knows you didn’t work at!

Here is the mauve color (“Lover”) on my lips. In this photo, it looks a bit muted, but in real life it’s actually deeply pigmented… almost plumy…
And here is the classic red color (“Pioneer”) on my lips. I really like the intense color and matte velvet finish…

The two colors I own from this line is a gorgeous mauve pink called “Lover”, (that started me on this epiphany of how to wear lip color from now on!) and a rich, classic red called “Pioneer” that screams fashion! I was doing a make-up look that was sans lipstick for a few years now, since I couldn’t deal with the gross feel and maintenance required of tradition lipsticks, but with this new long wear formula from Maybelline, I am a fan of colored lips once again! From reading other reviews online, the two colors I have demo-ed in this post are the two best and most popular colors from the Matte Inks line. Which one is your fave?

My Hair Coloring Journey: Soap Capping and Toning

~ Emmie Reve ~ 4 Comments

No More Orange Please!

Orange…That is what I am dealing with when it comes to dying my asian hair; it’s full of red/orange brassiness underneath all that mysterious black. Any kind of chemical processing, on my hair will eventually expose brassy tones as a color job fades. So to cope, last spring, I decided to dye my hair to ash brown, but unfortunately it came out way too dark, almost black, but at least no orange! But as summer rolled around, I noticed it was a very flat and boring color. Ash colors are great, but on darker brunettes, the cool tones are just lost, and unnecessary. I decided then to warm up to a strawberry blondish.  But without bleaching first and using just a 30 volume peroxide for lift, I achieved reddish brown hair…not too bad, but slowly, as winter set upon me, and several shampoos after, I noticed rusty orange had showed up harshly and suddenly to ruin the party.

It’s hard to see in this photo, but the brassiness that is peeking out from under neath is kind of visible. My ends are darker because I did a reverse hombre a while ago…
My arsenal for color correction: Bleach powder, 20 vol peroxide, shampoo and conditioner. The Wella color 7A (ash) is for toning that orange after lightening…

I realized my hair turned rusty because without bleaching and lightening my hair first before coloring, the brassy tendency of my hair type would always be exposed in the end. My hair color had to start out light enough to support whatever color I was putting in. So I decided I would do a soap cap to correct it. “Soap capping” aka “bleach bathing” is a formula of bleach and developer then diluted by shampoo meant to be a gentler method of lightening hair. It’s great for removing previous color or lightening a couple of levels. There are articles online on how to do soap capping to lighten hair but the ratio I used was 1:1.5 lightener to shampoo, lathered it into my hair and put a developing cap on it. And it worked. I went from brassy dark brown hair to orange hair! I know, it’s contradictory to have orange hair, exactly what I didn’t want, but once it got to a true orange color (and not the same brassy orange tint I disliked), it was ready to have an ashy color put on top to cover it.

Yikes! this is how it looked after treating with a soap cap! It got rid of the previous color, and lifted my hair to a level 6.5, I am now ready for toning/color…

So to neutralize the orange, I picked up a color with a lot of blue tones…basically an ASHy dark blonde in a level 7 (even though I was a level 6.5, I didn’t want to go darker with a level 6) And voila…the results were pretty nice. I am now rocking a light brown, with no signs of orange, even though I am still on the warmer color side; it’s impossible to totally irradiate the orange, because black hair just has so much of it. But I still think it turned out as close as I could get it with the most gentle and simple techniques.

Yay…no more orange…just a neutral light brown all the way. It’s a pretty colour, but I am not done yet…more to come…

So to recap, soap capping is an effective way to achieve gentle hair lightening. When a developer/bleach mixture is diluted with shampoo, it spreads more evenly, strips pigment slower, more predictably, and is safe enough to do at home on your whole head. If it isn’t light enough, you can wait a day or two and then re-soap cap so that your hair is less stressed out with the process.

My Tips for Safe Lightening at home:

  1. Watch the lightening like a hawk under that cap: Things can change every 5 or so minutes, so to get the amount of lightening you want with little error, keep checking the color as it works. And to prevent frying your hair, don’t leave a soap cap/lightener on longer than 50 min.
  2. Choose the weakest method of lightening and repeat if necessary: That is, don’t be in a hurry to get to what you want…Bleach, even when diluted with shampoo is still a very powerful chemical capable of damage. My first soap cap lifted my hair 2.5 shades! And it was only in my hair for 35 min.! Had I used full on bleach, I am pretty sure my hair would have been fried or too light in some areas! So be careful and go slow.
  3. Do redo darker hair spots: Sometimes, depending on where the hair is on the head, or previous chemical processes in the hair, the lifting results vary. For example my ends didn’t lift enough…I had to go back and redo  the ends the next night. But because I used a gentler method, redoing lightening in just some areas will be less damaging.

So am I done? As if!! I am actually aiming for a pinkish brown color. Keep on reading for my part 2 where I will be tinting my light brown hair with a pastel pink semi permanent…