To say that I change my hair quite frequently is just a bit of an understatement. I first dyed my hair jet black at the age of 13, and since then I’ve been highlighted blonde, white blonde, ginger, red-brown, and back to my normal mousey. After most of this year attempting to get my hair blonde again (it was one of my yearly goals!) I’ve decided that I love having blonde hair, but blonde hair doesn’t like me. It felt most of the time like it weren’t my own hair – I’d look down at my shoulders and be genuinely surprised to see it there. I could never seem to get it as blonde as I really wanted it, either. Plus, I looked like Garth from Waynes World when I had my glasses on. Ha.

I’d previously tried Bleach London’s ‘Awkward Peach’ and found it to be a really simple and cheap way to experiment with a new colour. Having found that Awkward Peach was a bit too pinky for me, and wanting to go back to the good old days when I had ginger hair, I thought I would test the water with their ‘Washed Out Orange’ shade. As before, the formula is that of a coloured conditioner – you apply to shampooed, towel-dried hair, leave on for 15 minutes, and rinse with lukewarm water.

Here is what my unwashed, blonde-ish locks looked like pre-Bleach:

… and here is the result!

The keen-eyed among you may have noticed another difference – my tiny fringe has returned! I missed my ‘Bettie Bangs’ so much me and Emily went up to Mack Daddy’s on Park Row and got matching fringes, and she vlogged all about it !

I’m pleasantly surprised at how much colour managed to find its way into my frazzled locks, and I personally much prefer this shade to the pinkier Peach shade, but that’s just me. Bleach London recommend that for the best colour effect you take your hair to the lightest it can go with their bleach kit, which includes a restoration mask so you don’t wreck your hair. After that you apply a toner to take the brassiness out, and then the colour you want. I didn’t bother with any of that, as my hair was light enough anyway, and seeing as I put this on a warm blonde it has brought the orange out really well.

To test the staying power, I washed my hair the day after. Here it is after one wash:

(If you’re wondering why I look so awkward in the first pic it’s because it was super-duper bright in my garden yesterday morning, and I was trying reaaaally hard not to squint)

The bleached portion of my hair has grown out quite a bit since my last colouring. As you can see, it didn’t take to the natural mousey brown colour of my hair at all, which proves that for the best colour effect you really need to bleach your hair first. As for the staying power I’m overall quite impressed, but I did wash my hair with a really mild shampoo, and used the coldest water I could. A few of my top tips to keep your colour lasting longer are:

1. Don’t overwash your hair.
Try to get into the habit of washing your hair 2-3 times a week. This might seem a bit gross to begin with, but after a couple of weeks your hair will get into the natural ‘rhythym’ of being washed only a couple of times, and it will give it time to replenish the natural oils, plus help keep your new colour which can be stripped with too much washing.

2. Use cold water 
Try to use the coldest water that you can endure when washing your hair. Bleach London recommend rinsing with lukewarm water, as the hotter the water, the more it rinses the colour out, in my experience. Top tip – when I had red hair I would flip my head upside down and wash it over the bath with cold water, so I didn’t have to stand in a freezing cold shower!

3. Use a mild shampoo
Find a shampoo which won’t take too much of the colour out. I’m still experimenting, but some of my favourite shampoos are Lush’s solid shampoo bars, of which the mildest is Squeaky Green. I also use baby shampoo as it’s the mildest I can pick up from the supermarket.

4. Dry shampoo is your best friend
Because of 1., you will grow to love and cherish whoever it is who created dry shampoo. Batiste are obviously the market leaders when it comes to this sort of thing, and they even do coloured versions for most hair types. I seem to get through it too quickly though, and at the moment I’m testing out Herbal Essences’ new dry shampoo for coloured hair. It seems to go on almost invisibly, but does leave a bit of a weird residue. Next up on my list is No Drought from Lush, I’ll let you know how I get on!

5. Top up your colour
I used to re-dye my hair every 4-6 weeks, to keep the colour looking vibrant. Obviously with the Bleach London products they last 2-10 washes, so I would just top up the colour whenever it begins to fade too much. At £5 a pop they are pretty good value, plus because of the conditioning nature you’ll be doing your hair some good too!

I’ve most definitely caught the ‘ginger bug’ again, and have been frantically pinning pictures of gorgeous red hair over on my . I think I might have a few more experiments though, as I know how often I can change my mind!