channeling florence OR red hair, kittycate style...

So the lovely FauxFuchsia asked me a while ago to action a post on how I maintain my red tresses - its been a long time coming, sorry, but I'm actioning away, stat!

First, get thee to a good hairdresser asap and ask for a nice, deep red - I tend to aim for a Florence Welch-esque red, suits my skintone the best

'Scuse my crazy eyes!

Several hours, and lots of hair-dye later, walk out of the salon with deep, rich, shinyshinyshiny red hair. (Tip - ask your hairdresser for a gloss as well as the colour, helps keep the it nice and bright and rich).

Now, on to maintenance. Red hair is very tricky to maintain, and tends to fade very quickly, so its worth investing in some good-quality products to keep it looking fresh, and extend the life of your colour. I swear by Sebastien haircare products - I have been using them for years now and my hair has never been healthier.

This is Sebastien laminates shampoo for red hair - sadly discontinued in 2009 *boo, hiss* When I heard the sad news, I was savvy enough to zip around to every salon I could find that stocked this baby, and buying them up. I currently have 3 bottles left, so hopefully enough to last me several more months!

This is Sebastien Hydre conditioner - I find red hair gets very dry, very quickly, and needs a nice, rich conditioner. I like to comb this through in the shower and leave for a while. (Note - for those of you lacking the foresight to stock up on the Laminates shampoo, the Hydre shampoo is a good second option!)

Now, if you heat-style your hair (I do!), you need something to protect it, especially if you have coloured hair, and especiallyespecially if your hair is coloured red! Sebastien Trilliant spray is light and non-sticky-or-greasy, and gives a nice hold, whilst still protecting from the harsh treatment of my ghd. Its also shimmery! Bonus!

PS: I am not in any way officially (or unofficially) affiliated with Sebastien haircare. My hairdresser uses and recommends it, hence my love-affair with the stuff. Genuinely, highly recommend!

xoxo

i ♥ lush...

Yesterday, I went shopping at Lush!

I picked up some more of my ultimate, all-time favourite moisturiser - Skin's Shangri-La. Full of cold-pressed organic oils, its the best moisturiser I have ever used, and is so beautiful and rich and soothing on my dry, sensitive skin.

I took advantage of the Big Hair promotion, and picked up a box of sample-sized haircare products for $14.95...

I chose: Godiva and Trichomania solid shampoos, Curly Wurly liquid shampoo, American Cream liquid conditioner, Jungle solid conditioner, H'Suan Wen Hua conditioning treatment and The Big Tease styling gel

It all came packaged up in the cutest little box - how adorable does that look! I love little mini-sized cosmetics...

This morning, I tried out two of my new products:

Curly Wurly shampoo

This smells AMAZING! Deliciously coconutty! It has a strange texture that gets a bit of getting used to, as it is full of chunks of coconut, but it does lather up nicely in the hair, and left my hair feeling nice and clean and soft, but not stripped dry.

Verdict - Whilst it is quite off-putting finding bits of coconut in your hair after you've rinsed the shampoo out, this is a really lovely, gentle and nice-smelling shampoo. I would definitely buy this and use it again.

American Cream conditioner

Another delicious-smelling product, like strawberries and cream! Sadly, my love affair with this conditioner ended there. I had to use nearly the entire pot to get my hair feeling even a little conditioned, and it was like my hair literally just absorbed it all up. After combing through, my hair felt dry and straw-like, almost more dry than it had been prior to applying this conditioner. I actually had to 'top up' and add some of my usual Sebastien Cellophanes conditioner, just to be able to comb all the knots from my hair and get it feeling soft and shiny, like it usually does.

Verdict - Definitely not very Creamy! If this is their 'double strength' conditioner, I would hate to try the normal strength one! Whilst it smells amazing, it is not a strong or rich enough conditioner for me, definitely not as it is marketed. I would not purchase this product.

I look forward to trying out the rest of the samples over the coming week

xoxo