Review - L'Oreal Superior Preference Mousse Absolue Hair Color

L'Oreal Preference Mousse Absolue - $14.99

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I'm an at-home-hair-color fanatic.  I've dyed my hair at home (off and on) for 20+ years and I love trying new products when they hit the market!  I was super excited to try out L'Oreal's new Mousse Absolue - this is a no-mix product that can have up to two applications (depending on your hair length).  So I booked it over to Target and picked up color #654.  I was a little disappointed in the red range - I always want more options, I'm so picky and super specific with my reds.  I rushed home and applied it.  This is by far the easiest hair color I have ever used.  No fussing with mixing, you just shake and go.  The application is along the lines of any other mousse, not drippy and really easy.  I have just below chin length hair and I got two full applications out of this - score!  The color was easy to rinse out, even and had great shine.  In fact when I went to get my hair cut at the salon a couple of weeks after I colored, my stylist commented about how gorgeous my hair color was.  She asked what I had used (she knows I do it at home), she was super impressed.  It did fade a little quicker than some other colors I've used, but not enough for me to balk at using it again.  I highly recommend this product!

Check out my other hair color reviews here, here, and my most read disaster post here.

Have you tried this product yet?  If so what did you think?

Lush Henna Hair Dye Review and Q&A

Two months ago I decided to try Lush's Henna Hair Dye in Caca Rouge.  Way back when I started dying my hair red, I used the packets of henna you can get at places like Sally's Beauty Supply.  But I decided to try the Lush version because it has extra ingredients to help condition the hair.  As you can see it arrives in a bar that you have to break up.

Once you break it up, you then pour hot water over it and start mixing it.  This takes a while and you have to keep the mixture warm all the while, until it's the consistency of brownie batter.  Since I had super long hair at the time (more on that later), I used all the bricks and it made A LOT of dye (I ended up using about 90% of it)!  Next, I started putting it on my hair - and it was MESSY!  OMG, so messy.  Once you get it on your hair, you have to wrap your head up in plastic and then wait for about 3 hours.

Nice, right?

Then you rinse it out.  And this is even messier than the application, good grief, it took forever to get that stuff out of my hair and my shower looked like I had potted plants in it all day long.  But once I got it all out, my hair felt great and I got a nice red out of it.

Here's the color and my new hair cut.  As you can see I did a big chop.  I got so tired of having all that hair and decided to cut off enough to donate to Locks of Love.  I'm loving the new 'do and haven't missed my long hair for a second!

So what are my conclusions about Lush's henna?  I would say, if you want a natural, not stinky alternative to other at home color, then go for it. Just know it takes a while to develop and can get messy.  I wasn't 100% satisfied with my results (mostly meaning that I need a bit of a brighter red, it looks a little brighter in the photos than it actually was).  And I felt like it faded a little quicker than I remember my henna fading in the past.  Would I buy again, probably not, I don't feel it was $26 worth the effort.

Now on to the Q & A!

I was recently tagged by one of my bloggy besties Sheryl over at How to Make a Life for a little Q & A! Here we go... 1. What is your favorite season and why?  I have a tie and it's Spring and Fall, I love them because of their transitional nature. In Spring the days get brighter and nature starts "waking up".  In Fall I can't help but love that crispness that is in the air.
2. If money were not an object, where would you travel?  I would do a complete around the world trip, there are so many places I want to go and things I want to see.  I would start in Iceland and go from there!
3. What is your favorite Television series?  I recently finished binge watching "Breaking Bad" and it was insanely good, so well acted and crafted, it was sort of TV perfection.  As for my all time favorite show, I have to say "The Andy Griffith Show" it set the bar very high for all the sitcoms that came after - funny with heart.
4. Coffee or Tea?  Tea - iced!
5. What makes you happiest? Being around my friends and family (especially at the beach)!
6. What are three things you can't leave the house without?  Phone, sunglasses and lip balm.
7. What is your favorite topic to blog about?  Fashion shows, the trends, my favorite looks, all that stuff!
8. If you could be any animal, what would that be?  I honestly have no idea.  Maybe Karl Lagerfeld's cat - talk about a pampered pet, she's got a maid!
9. What is your favorite music to listen to?  Pop - Top 40
10. What is your favorite procrastination activity?  TV and Internet.  Pinterest probably is my biggest time suck...

Book Review - "DIY Dye" by Loren Lankford

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of the book for purposes of review. All opinions are my own.


I was kind of surprised when a PR rep for a publishing house reached out to me for a DIY hair dye book review, but then I remembered that this is one of my most read posts and well, I think I know why they contacted me - ha!  

DIY DYE by Loren Lankford $14.95 (also available at Amazon in hardcover and kindle editions)

But seriously, I've been dying my hair at home off and on for over 20 years. And boy, I wish there was a book like this when I first entertained the thought of dying my hair.  The book is written by Loren Lankford who is a freelance writer who has worked on magazines such as CosmoGIRL!, Cosmopolitan,  Entertainment Weekly, and Jane. She has an Etsy shop called Southern Dropout.  And yes, she still colors her own hair!

There's nothing crazy in depth here, I mean you aren't going to graduate cosmetology school by reading this, but you will have a better idea about what your options are for at home color, the steps you should take and what will work for you and your comfort level.  It's a guidebook more than a textbook, written in easy to understand steps and language.  And don't think she just covers "crazy" colors, she covers every color!  

I was so pleased that she covered henna, because I started out my color journey with henna and black coffee and have been toying with the idea of dying it with henna again (taking a break from the box color).  And with the information from this book, I'm going to do it!

She also covered dying with Kool-Aid!  My bestie did this in college and we could have used the wisdom in this book for a better method.  Trust me. our method of getting that color in her hair was ugly.  Let's not even talk about how much I would have used this book in college.

I was surprised how much I loved this book and how much new information I got from it.  I feel like there are more options and methods that I want to experiment with.  Hair chalk being one, I was a little intimidated and now I'm going to try it out.  After I get that henna on my hair - I just ordered this and will report back on my results. 

I highly recommend this book if you or someone you know is interested in learning more about DIY color options.  It's a great resource!

The Scary Hair (color) Incident - Garnier Olia Review

I had a few people ask me to share my home hair color horror story, so here goes.  First of all, I just want to say that I really like Garnier products, never had an issue with any of them and I certainly don't want this to be a hate filled rant - but I do hate the Olia hair color product ;o)  Here's why:

Yeah, that's my hair the day after I colored it.  Like I said before, I've been coloring my hair at home for 20+ years and have never seen anything like this.  The aftermath was a weird patchwork of platinum, orange, fire engine red, burgundy and brown.

I always like trying new at home hair color products and when I saw the new Garnier Olia advertised with promises of oil powered color, little odor, etc, I knew that I was going to try it!  So off I went to the store to check out the red options.  There were only a couple in this line (first red flag - no pun intended).  Reds are tough, trust me I know.  I decided on this one:

I opened up the package and was met with this:

Second red flag - the developer wasn't already in the applicator bottle.  This gave me pause, because with most haircolor products the developer is already in the applicator bottle all perfectly pre-measured and ready for the color to be added.  I went ahead and squeezed the developer in the applicator but it was thick and super hard to get out of the tube.  I felt I couldn't get all of it in the applicator, which made me uneasy.  I then added the colorant and shook it up as directed.  It really didn't want to mix.  It was gloopy and splotchy but it finally appeared to be mixed.  I applied it as directed and as I normally do with any at home color.  But I noticed that as the color was running out, the more the mixture appeared to be more developer than color.  Weird.

Tick, tock, tick, tock - time to wash it out.  Took an amazingly long time to get the color out, I've never had so much red left on a towel after washing the color out in my life.  Like a crime scene.  It looked odd, but it was still wet and I decided to let it air dry and see what happened then.  Well, you've seen the results.  I was gobsmacked.  I had no idea WTF happened - or how to fix it.

Long story, short, I decided to go and get Clairol's temporary haircolor with no ammonia in a brown shade to try and tone down the crazy red and even out the blonde/yellow/oranges.  It worked good enough, not great, not perfect, but okay for now.  Luckily reds fade quickly and even after all this time/additional color the Olia is still washing out leaving my towels with a lovely reddish hue when I dry my hair.  Insane.

That all being said, I've seen several people use this brand and love the results, of course they weren't using the red.  Needless to say I won't be using this color ever again. 

As for what I will be using, these are the products that I've been super pleased with and would recommend:

L'Oreal Feria

Hands down the best color in my opinion.  They have a ton of shades to choose from.  I've been using it on and off since it came out years ago.  Delivers a gorgeous, vibrant, natural looking color.  Here's how my hair looked after a Feria coloring a few months ago using the color on the box above:

Gorgeous, right?  And delivered exactly the color promised.  This was an Instagram picture so excuse the quality.

Clairol Nice N' Easy foam

Super easy to apply and reliable results.  Not as intense of a red as I like, but delivers a lovely, natural hue.

So there you go.  Have any of you tried Olia yet?  What are your thoughts?  Any other at home haircolor products to you love (or hate)?  Anybody else had a color disaster?  Do tell!

Happy Weekend!

What a crazy past couple of weeks.  Here's a bit of what's been going on.

As everyone knows Google Reader is going bye-bye as of July 1st.  Thanks Google.  Really, I mean thanks for throwing a wrench in my blog reading/organization world.  Jerks.  Anyway, feel free to hop over and follow me on Bloglovin'.  They are making it super easy to import all your Reader info (it takes a minute, seriously).  I also signed up for Feedly to just have another RSS Reader option (they are making it easy to import your Reader info too).

I signed up for Bloggy Boot Camp in Charlotte!

I'm so excited!  I'm ready to reignite my blogging fire and learn a lot of useful information.  Because, duh, I've been a super slacker blogger lately.  Is anyone else going to be there?  Let me know!

This happened:

I tried a new at-home haircolor and it messed up my hair in the most epic way, I had no less than 4 different colors at random locations around my head.  In over 20 years of coloring my hair at home, nothing like this has ever happened.  And you can tell from the picture how silky smooth my hair was after coloring *ahem*.  I'm debating on doing a post about this, I don't want to be crazy mean to the company, but the issues with this product are multifold.  Would you be interested in reading about it?

And lastly, kudos for PopSugar for taking over Shopstyle and rendering the site virtually impossible to use.  That's why I  haven't been able to do any outfit stuff because I can't create a layout for love or money.  I have emailed, tweeted, DM'ed, screamed, used two computers, a tablet, 3 different browsers and still the site is basically useless to me.  To say I'm angry would be an understatement.  Is anyone else having issues with the site?  It can't just be me.

Boy, I'm all sour grapes today.  Well, it all can't be rainbows and unicorn farts.  On to a better week next week!  Have a great weekend!

Home Hair Color Fun!

I've mentioned before that due to some belt tightening that happened when I quit my job to be a stay-at-home Mom, I've gone back to coloring my hair at home.  Even though I'm working again, I'm sticking to home hair color for now.  I like to try lots of different brands just so I can see what's out there and if I like it.  There is a seemingly endless supply of new hair color products and options so it makes it exciting and fun!  I thought I would start sharing any new products that I've tried in case any of you out there are home hair color junkies like myself. 

First of all, if you are looking for a major color change, your hair is super long or seriously damaged, you are clumsy, nervous, etc. I encourage you to head to the salon.  A stylist can address these issues better than you can at home.   I had a scary incident about 10 years ago when I actually got a teensy weensy bit of color in my eye - REALLY not good - luckily I think it was mostly watered down and I lucked out, so be very careful.  Don't be tempted to color your eyebrows at home for this very reason. 

Coloring your hair can be a bit time consuming and messy.  So grab an old t-shirt and towel you don't mind getting stained - the color WILL stain everything it comes in contact with so beware - and let's get started.

For this round of home hair color fun I wanted to try one of the new foam options, so I settled on Clairol's Nice N' Easy Color Blend Foam.  Since it's a new product, they didn't have many red shade options, so I settled on this one:

Which was fine, because it's the color gravitate towards anyway.  My first impression was that it was weird, in that I honestly thought you would pump the top and the foam would come out - duh.  But instead you squeeze the bottle and then the foam comes out, which was kind of tricky at first because I didn't know how to squeeze it, put it in my hands, then put it down and put the color on, etc.  Once I got the hang of it, it really was an easy application.  The foam penetrates much easier than non-foam and it was so much easier to get the hairline and back of the head than traditional coloring liquid.  It also didn't drip as much either, which is great.

Here's the resulting color:

It was a really nice color, a little darker than I wanted (I would have liked a brighter shade).  Now, I did this about two months ago and the only drawback to this color is that it faded SO fast.  I know that reds fade quickly anyway, but this one was super quick.  So I would suggest coloring with this product every 4-6 weeks instead of 6-8 weeks.  I'm wondering if the same thing would happen with another foam brand?  I also recommend buying 2 boxes of color if your hair is longer than mine, I used every single drop.

I'm going to use this color again (just bought it today - it was on sale).  I looked at John Frieda's foam and L'oreal's Sublime Foam and neither had an acceptable shade of red - at least not in the store I was in.  I was hoping to try one of those.  I'll try something else in about 6 weeks, so stay tuned!

So do any of you color at home and what brands do you like?

Oh, and I was not compensated in any way shape or form for this post, but if a company wants to send hair color my way - bring it on! ;o)