To say that I have heard a lot of buzz about Bleach London is a bit of an understatement. There seemed to be a time, a couple of months ago, when my Facebook feed was crammed full with pictures and statuses about guys and gals dying their hair all sorts of wacky colours. Even more cryptic was that these photos were coupled with captions such as ‘dying my hair Washed Up Mermaid today’… erm, excuse me?! A little further investigation showed that they had not completely lost their minds, and were referring to a pretty eccentric and totally hipster-cool London based brand, Bleach London (clue’s in the name, really).
At the beginning of June, as a birthday treat, I had my hair cut and coloured at arguably the best salon in Bristol, Betties and Baldwins, and decided that after months of mousey hair I wanted beautiful peachy locks. I cannot rate B&B more highly – I went to see Kadi, and after hours in the chair and a couple of rounds of bleach later, I stepped out the door completely besotted with my new ‘do. Some of you who follow me on Instagram may have seen glimpses of my noggin pre bleach, during the process, immediately post, and after a couple of washes. Thing is, the trouble with such a bright colour such as peach is that it washes out pretty darn quickly (even worse when your hair is in a bad condition, like mine). So I decided to spruce it up between salon visits with Bleach London’s Awkward Peach.
It comes in large-ish bottles, which cost a fiver and are available from most Boots stores, although my local didn’t have it, so I ordered it off the interweb. You slop it all on your head, wait 15 minutes, and rinse out with lukewarm water. I decided to comb it through my hair for a more even coverage, and also took the executive decision of covering my hair with clingfilm, partly to save my bathroom from drips, and partly because when I used to henna my hair this helped it permeate a little better. I left it on for a bit longer than 15 minutes (probably about 20), but to be perfectly honest I don’t think it will help if you leave it on longer – this is more like a tinted conditioning treatment, rather than a dye, designed to last between 2-10 washes.
Here is a glimpse of my miserable tired face and my faded hair before dying…
As you can see it’s not completely gone, but most of the colour from my salon visit has washed out, and it’s not as vibrant as it used to be. It’s a little pinker at the top where the bleach took to my roots better than my ends, and soaked up more of the dye. All it needed was a bit of an even colour coverage. After 15 minutes of Awkward Peach it looked like this…
Look at my happy little morning face!
As you can see, the colour is a lot more even between the roots and the ends. Because the ends of my hair have taken such a battering from bleaching over the years, they lose the colour a lot more quickly. What was nice about this treatment is that it provided my hair with some much needed moisture, whilst saturating it with glorious peachy goodness! I was a little concerned when I started applying it to my hair, as it seemed really pink, and I was looking for more of a faded orange colour. It certainly is a lot pinker than the initial peach colour that I had, but I quite like it, and it’s blended my roots into the rest of my hair nicely.
Comparing the two side by side and you can really see how much more vibrant my hair is after the Awkward Peach treatment. At £5, you can’t really go wrong if you want to top up your coloured hair between salon visits. Obviously, I used the Bleach London product on top of already dyed hair – if you want more of a paler/washed out colour, I’m sure it would look lighter on completely pre-bleached hair (although please don’t take hair advice from me, go see your hairdresser!).
I will confess, this was a few weeks ago – most of this colour has washed out and I’m not sure which colour to go next, although now I’m considering dying it back to peach again. Bleach London don’t just do peach, however – Washed Up Mermaid looks pretty cool, as does Sea Punk, although I’m not entirely sure I’m quite cool enough for green hair!