Colour B4 Extra Strength

Hello! Pinky the computer is up and running again and I didn't lose any of my documents. Thank you Dell Datasafe restore or whatever you're called!

So today I have a review for Colour B4 Extra Strength hair dye remover.

You've probably seen reviews for this or similar products on other blogs, these products really became well known within the last year. It's a great idea, if you dye your hair and don't like the result, or get bored of it, or whatever other reason, you apply this stuff and it takes you back to your original colour...In theory. 

 I'm not going to go into all of the science behind it as I am not smart enough and can't be bothered to read into it properly but it seems the basic idea is that this somehow shrinks the hair dye molecules which releases them from your hair follicles, then when you rinse it away it also rinses off the molecules taking your hair back to it's previous colour. Or something...

Anyway does it work?

Well it had a challenge with my hair. It hasn't been my natural colour (except for the roots) for over 11 years. The closest the poor hair came to a break was when I was about 17 and shaved my head. Since then it's been (that I can remember) bright red, blonde, light pink, ginger, dark red and black so I was not expecting the Colour B4 to perform miracles and get me back to blonde, I just wanted to get rid of enough black to enable me to get back to ginger.

So here I am before applying:

 

You can see my hair is a sort of washed out black with lighter brown tips 

 You apply it like any regular hair dye, it comes in a bottle with a spout that you mix the various components in then just apply it to your hair as usual (I am useless on my own so always get someone else to put it on me). Then you just leave it awhile (60 minutes for the extra strength). For it to work you need a warm environment so I wrapped my head in clingfilm, which has the added bonus of stopping clumsy people like me getting it everywhere.

 

I'm beautiful I know.

After you've given it time to do it's thing it's time to wash it off. Unfortunately this is where it differs from hair dye as unfortunately you can't just rinse until the water runs clear, no, instead you need to rinse for at the very least 5 minutes, with the longer the better basically. When that is done you apply a 'buffer' which I think is like a sort of conditioner to bring your hair back to a normal condition, live it for a minute then rinse it off for at least another 5 minutes. Then you apply the buffer again and rinse it off just like a normal shampoo. Annnnd you're finally done! Phew!

And here are the results:

 

  

So you can see it worked quite well! It got rid of all the black leaving me with a slightly darker version of the ginger that was there previously. 

However it has one big major con, the smell. This stuff smells absolutely evil. People have said it smells like rotten eggs, I've never smelt one, but to me it smells of stink bombs which I've heard are based on rotten eggs. It's a horrible sulfurous smell and it's strong. To make things worse for the next month or so after using this every time I washed my hair the smell would come back. Something to do with wetting the hair reignites the power of the stench!

Also the rinsing thing was a major hassle for me as we don't have a proper shower, just a shower -head. Which means I couldn't just stand and let the shower rinse it away, instead I had to crouch uncomfortably in my bath holding the shower-head over me for about 20 minutes in total. This left me with a very stiff neck. But if you have a proper shower I'm sure it's a lot easier.

But even with the irritance of the rinsing and the evil smell I would still recommend this. It does work!

There are various other brands of hair dye remover such as Color Oops and a superdrug own brand one (which is meant to be cheaper but I picked up the Colour B4 when it was on a special) and I assume they're the same thing and work the same. It cost me about £9 which is quite expensive but as it's not something you'll need to use regularly it's not that bad.

Has anyone else tried this, or one of the other brands? Did it work for you? How did you cope with having hair of eternal stench?

Jillian

I've been feeling very down the last few days, this morning I decided to cheer myself up by watching Jedward videos. Those guys are just so delightful and happy they never fail to make me smile. So I decided to do my makeup and hair like them (well as much as possible) because obviously that's the normal reaction to liking musicians.

  

  

This is my attempt at looking androgynous... Well that didn't work but I think there is something slight Jedward reminiscent in my face! 

And if you don't know who Jedward are I think this pretty much explains it all:

God I love them.

Fringe

I have a fringe now.

Terrible photo, my apologies. November appears to have stolen most of the light from my town and tunred what is left a horrible grey colour. Also I couldn't be bothered to get out of my pyjama top. Ahh I am so incredibly hot.

Anyway what do you think? I personally think it really suits me :)

Rubbish post I know, but I'll have a proper one up tomorrow. 

XX

Lillian Loves... her Tangle Teezer!

 So this is going to be a new semi-regular feature, called Lillian Loves. I never get around to posting my  monthly (or even yearly :/) favourites posts, so this is sort of my alternative. I'll just be posting certain items that I've been loving recently and why.

So the first item is the glorious Tangle Teezer. Sure it may feel incredibly light and cheap and look like something you'd use to groom a horse with, but it is the best darn hairbrush I have ever used!

I've sung the praises of this thing before but only recently have I realised just how much I've come to depend on it. My hair is a bit on the thick side, curly and naturally forms tangles and even huge dreadlock-like matts if left to it's own devices (by which I mean if it's not combed, I do wash my hair... on ocassion :P). And for the last few weeks I've been leaving it to it's own evil devices. Why? Well because Claire and I managed to lose both our  Tangle Teezers a few months ago. At first I tried to keep my hair in check with other brushes and combs but it hurt too much and I couldn't work through my tangles at all because I'd just end up ripping out the tangles and huge chunks of my hair along with them. Luckily I found some styling mousse that stops the tangling a bit and makes my hair into big chunky curls so I gave up trying to brush it and just used that. But today I discovered that Claire had bought a new holy-of-holies! 

Using it was just great. When it runs through my normal hair it's just fab, it easily, quickly and painlessly gets rid of small tangles and the rest of my insane frizz. After washing my hair this morning I was left with three huge matts that I thought even the pink plastic beauty couldn't handle. And it took a little time, and a little wincing, but I got those matts detangled without pulling half my hair out!


Also back before I lost the first 2 and was using one religiously, I swear it made a difference to my hair's texture. It became much less prone to matting and just felt and looked a bit smoother and softer. I don't know how it happened, it could be a coincidence as my more recent hair growth hasn't been damaged by bleach like the ends have. But I do think that using the Tangle Teezer made at least a little difference. And even if it didn't I'd still love it because it's the only hairbrush I've ever found that is practically painless for me to use (it's painless unless I have a big matt)

(my family calls hair matts 'sheep knots', which I thought was normal but after googling it, it appears that noone else uses that expression! Bloody family slang)

Claire has also grown to love the Teezer. She wanted to weigh in with her opinions. It really sounds like a cheesy advert but it's what she thought!:

'Since bleaching about 8 years ago and not stopping to let my poor hair recover since, a particular section of my hair near my hairline on both sides of my head keeps breaking off and never gets longer than about 2inches long. Since I started using the Tangle Teezer, those little bits have actually started to grow, and look a lot less frizzy than they used to. And since I'm pretty horrible to my hair, if the Tangle Teezer can do that singlehandedly, I never want to be without one!'

So yeah, I love this guy.

*despite the ridiculous gushing this is all my own thoughts, I bought this myself and have recieved no form of compensation for writing this post. I just really love this!*

Tangle Teezer Review

 (apologies for my absence, back to normal hopefully now :) )

I bought the Tangle Teezer on a whim one day when they was some sort of promotion in Boots where you got extra Advantage points if you bought a certain amount (i love me them points! Will i ever use them?).  I'd heard the claims it makes before but had laughed it off, especially after i got it out of the pack and saw it for myself. Not only does the ergonomic design look more like something used to groom horses than a human hair brush (though a horses hair is probably in better condition to mine...) but the bristles don't look special at all! It's hard to get a picture that will really show it (so i haven't even bothered to try and show you) but it just looks like a regular set of plastic bristles with a shorter set in between each row, really nothing special. So while i needed a new hairbrush and was sure it would work well I didn't believe it would be all that spectacular or different from a regular brush.

Oh how wrong i was! This probably will sound like I'm being paid by Tangle Teezer (I am not, bought it myself and have never been in contact with anyone vaguely related to the company as far as i know) but i can honestly say it is head and shoulders above any hairbrush or comb i have ever used.

If you can't tell from photos, my hair is a sort of straw-like, Scarecrow-esque, brittly, frizzy lump on my head (though going ginger has calmed it a little) and that's the way i like it... most of the time. I abuse it quite a bit, backcombing and hairspraying it to death and of course it had previously been bleached to almost white. Anyway because of this combing or brushing my hair was to be avoided at all costs if i didn't want to be reduced to tears and possibly break the comb. My hair was so full of tangles it could take me a good 1/4 of an hour to just comb out the tangles, which of course damaged my hair more. But this thing, this miraculous lump of plastic is a complete Godsend.

As i said before i wasn't really expecting much from it when i first used it. And to be honest the first try i wasn't that impressed, it got through all the knots and tangles well, but i had actually forgotten how hard it was to usually comb my hair. The next time i used a regular comb and after a while of pulling and wincing i decided to give the Tangle Teezer another go. To my amazement it just glided through my hair, somehow detangling effortlessly and leaving my hair all sleek and knot-free! Usually when i combed my hair i would end up actually pulling out a big knot of hair, but this thing actually seems to be able to detangle it completely, so i end up losing a lot less hair.

As a result of this my hair is sleeker and a lot easier to style. It also claims to help with split ends and to encourage growth, i haven't really seen any evidence of this yet but i haven't been using it for long enough to really see any benefits yet (if there are any). To be honest I think any powers it might have on a normal scalp will be negated by my zombie hair. But still i am so so happy that i can finally brush my hair easily and with little to no pain. It just makes life easier!
Tangle Teezer costs around a tenner and you can get it online, at Asos or at Boots and possibly other places. Personally while at first I was a little dubious that a hairbrush could be worth 10 quid (i know you can get much more expensive hairbrushes, but to me that's just crazy) but now i think it's a fine price to pay and I couldn't really cope without one. In fact I'm going to buy a back-up because i tend to lose things so often :P
If you don't have any problems with your hair tangling then I can't say if it's worth it, but if you have any tangles or knots then i think it's well worth it!

Some Lush Reviews

I was feeling a bit low earlier so i had a really long, hot bath and it made me feel a lot better :) I finished a few Lush things i had been trying, so thought i would do some quick reviews.

Mmm Melting Marshmallow Moment


Lush says:
'Slow melting musky marshmallow marvel. MMM melts into a pink, fluffy waterbed of marshmallow and moisturizing cocoa butter. Each Melting Marshmallow Moment is made with marshmallow herb, which produces a sweet, skin-soothing mucilage that was used to make sugar candies for hundreds of years, and marigold, which is equally calming for your skin. Take your time, savour each moment and have as many marshmallows as you like.'

I tried this in my bath today. You pop this in your bath with yourself when it's full and hot and it melts (shocking considering the name :P) into your bath, though i did have to crumble it a little to help it's on it's way. It's a lovely big pink lump, i got 2 uses out of one melt, you could probably get 3 but it would be more cost effective but a bit 'weak' or if you used the whole one in your bath it would be stronger and probably more effective. This smelled delicious, similar to the creamy candy bubble bar, a sort of sweet, slightly fruity, marshmallow scent. It left a tiny bit of white foam on the surface of the water, but didn't colour the water or anything. The water somehow felt 'softer' but as i used a bunch of other stuff on my skin i can't really tell you if the melt had any effect on my skin itself. The smell was nice and strong in the bath but did not linger on my skin (could also be because of all my other soaps and things i used). It was a really nice bath thing, and really relaxing, i would definately buy it myself (this one was a gift from my friend) but i do prefer bubble bars, because bubbles are always fun! One of these is £3.50 which i think is reasonable, especially as you can definately get at least 2 uses out of it (unless you want a really concentrated bath) and it's a really lovely product.

Space Girl


Lush says:
'Here comes a ballistic of astronomical proportions. We were inspired by The Imagined Village's intriguing interpretation of Space Girl from their second album, Empire & Love. It's shaped like Saturn with added space dust for our alien friends, and the refreshing scent of blackcurrant sweeties will make you hungry for your own space adventures. Space Girl is stellar, just remember your blaster and your freezer gun.'

This is a fun product, i love it's flying-saucer shape and it smells amazing. This is a bath bomb, so you pop it in your bath when it's run and it spins around fizzing madly until it disappears into nothingness. It really does smell like blackcurrant sweets with a hint of bergamot, i think it's absolutely delicious, i love sweety-smells. I was a little bit disappointed because when i read the description i thought that when it said it had added 'space dust' it meant it had popping candy in it (space dust used to be a brand of popping candy over here :P ) and it doesn't. The ballistic also has a bit of glitter on the outside, but there isn't enough for it to glitterfy you like their old Fairy Jasmine used to. It does however leave your bath a nice deep greyish purple. I do like bath ballistics as the fizzing is fun but i don't like them as much as Lush's other bath products as the effects (other than colouring the water and the scent) are short lived, whereas the bubble bars and bath melts stay in the water with you. This is £1.85 which i think is pretty reasonable, though you only really get one use out of it. I think all of Lush's bath ballistic are nice luxury items to pamper yourself occaisionally.

Coolaulin conditioner:


Lush says:
'Coconut conditioner for dry, curly or processed hair. Coconuts fresh from the tree are completely different from the ones we find in the west. Their milk is amazingly nutritious and is used for all kinds of tropical beauty and medical treatments; coconut flesh is soft, calming for the body and softening for the scalp and hair. Our Coolaulin conditioner has a load of coconut milk and fresh coconut flesh to make dry, curly and processed hair soft and shiny. Exotic, Eastern essential oils of vetivert and benzoin gum calm irritated scalps. It's been with us for eleven years and is still going strong.'

I purchased just a little 100ml bottle of this for £3.25. I don't really know what to say about this. My hair is dry, processed and curly so this should have been perfect for me. It's not a bad conditioner at all, it left my hair soft and smelling lovely (though to me this doesn't smell like actual coconut, it's sort of nuttier in a way) but really just wasn't all that special. I generally just use regular drugstore brands of shampoos and conditioners (anything not tested on animals, my favourite is Original Source's White Pear and Avocado for reference the price is £1.96 for 250ml) and i really couldn't see or feel any difference after washing my hair with this. It's nice, works fine, nice to know the conditional is handmade with fresh ingredients, organic and smells good, but i really personally don't think the price is justified as, to me, there was no real difference between this and a normal, cheaper conditioner. I Would not buy it again but might try another one of their conditioners.

American Cream Conditioner:


Lush says:
'Double-strength conditioning cocktail. American Cream was inspired by a vision of 1950s US milk bars, bright red-leather-and-chrome, neon-lit cafes, where teenagers would meet and drink frothy, fruity, thick, creamy milkshakes. Our fruity, creamy conditioner is what the girls would have used to make their hair soft and strokeable before going out on a date, dressed up in their bobby socks and circular skirts. The scent of honey, vanilla, strawberries and oranges is so sexy and sweet that dates can't stay away. If your hair gets a bit messed up, American Cream makes it easy to brush through and smooth out again.'

This is much, much the same as the Coolaulin conditioner, a good conditioner but nothing special. However this one smells better to me, though i don't get any fruit scents coming though, to me it smells of vanilla with honey and possibly some sort of wine. This is slightly more expensive at £3.80 100ml. It was nice to try it but i wouldn't repurchase just because i don't think it is worth the money.

Crème Anglaise


Lush says:
'Creme Anglaise is made with some of the finest ingredients available. We've used toning sweet orange oil and moisturising natural butters blended into an almond infusion. An infusion of saffron, the world’s most expensive spice, gives it the authentically golden colour of real Creme Anglaise. This hand and body lotion will lavish a new kind of luxury on your skin and make you proud to be British.'

Now i'm going to be honest from the start. I HATE the smell of this and in no way would have picked it up of my own choice, but i was given a little sample pack the last time i shopped at Lush and a small pot of this was included, so i thought i would wear it to see how it works. Smell is a personal thing, lots of you reading this will probably love the scent but i find it quite horrible. To me it smells like cocoa butter that's gone a bit 'off'. I tried it on and it's a really nice body lotion, it sinks in easily without any greasiness or tackiness and then made my skin feel really silky and soft. It almost felt 'powdery' as if i'd used talcum powder or something. It is a good lotion but i wouldn't say it's amazing, my skin felt nice but very similar to the feeling it takes on after i use any sort of body moisturiser. The smell does linger on my skin quite stongly, if you like the smell this would probably be good, but as i don't like it i wish it didn't :P This stuff is damn pricey at £25 for 220g (probably that expensive Saffron, though oddly mine was just a light creamy shade, not yellow at all) so i would definately suggest, even if you try it in store and like the smell, you ask for a sample to test at home before you buy the sample. The sample i got was enough for my whole body apart from part of my back, but as it came in a sample set you'll probably get a slightly bigger one. I personally would never buy this, even if i liked the smell and the lotion was the most amazing thing i'd ever tried simply because i would never pay £25 for a smallish pot of body lotion. As it is i think the lotion is nice, but nothing special, and i don't like the smell at all.

Lush Review - Marilyn

It pains me to write this review. I am a huge fan of Lush, as you may have gathered through some of my recent hauls and my current giveaway, and on the whole i love their products. This one however i cannot possibly give a good review for. But do remember that everyone will have different results so while it didn't work for me it doesn't mean it won't work for you.

Lush describes Marilyn so:
'Softness, brightness and shine for blonde hair. Marilyn is for blondes who would like to stay blonde and become even more so, in a gentle, shiny and natural way. It's not good for your hair to bleach it, so we suggest that you use The Blonde shampoo, then use Marilyn pre-wash conditioner as a regular top-up. We make it with softening linseed gel, chamomile for lightness and to calm your scalp, saffron for golden colour, lemon for shine and olive oil to moisturize your hair. It also lightens hair gradually. All things come to she who waits.'

This retails for £7.60, generally i wouldn't spend so much money on a hair product but i wanted to test out Lush's haircare products as previously i had only tried soaps, bubble bars and other nice smelling bits for in the bath, also i bought this during the 'spend £20 get tonnes o freebies' time, so it seemed like a better deal than buying it another time. This is marketed as a 'Hair moisturiser', used on dry hair before shampoo or conditioner to soften and tame hair. This one is specially designed to help blonde hair. As i am complete bastard Monroe complete with peroxide curls the consistency of straw i figured this would be perfect to control the zombie hair.

So i eagerly scooped into the creamy coloured goop (it smells a bit like tea to me) and slathered it on my head. I don't have long hair, it's not shoulder length yet, and to get the majority of my hair covered (i didn't put much on my roots) used about a quarter of a pot. The pot tells you to 'apply a lot' but i didn't want to because i'd already used so much i didn't want to 'waste' any more. I was a bit disgruntled by the amount i'd used, as £7.60 for 4 washes didn't really sound like a good deal to me.

I left it on my hair for approximately half an hour each time i used it, then rinsed it out and washed, conditioned and styled as usual.

The first time i used it i didn't see any difference at all from after my usual hair washes (using just shampoo and conditioner) but figured maybe it would just take a couple of washes to make an effect. And well i was right.

Somehow this stuff made my hair even more dry and unmanageable than before! I don't understand how, but after every use of this my wet hair would have managed to knot itself together and felt drier than before! It also seemed to break more and was a lot more difficult to style. In fact it made my hair feel so bad i took to drenching my hair in leave-in conditioner after each washing. And i didn't see any lightening, brightening or added shine.

So basically i paid £7.60 for something i only got 4 uses out of and made my hair feel and look worse than usual :/ personally i can't recommend this at all and i definately wouldn't repurchase.

Hair!

My hair is irritating me so much. I really need to bleach my roots, but i can't do it myself and everyone is really busy.
Also my hair confuses me because even though i get around an inch of root growth every month it doesn't actually seem to be getting longer! It may be breaking off at the ends, but i certainly haven't noticed it.
Also while my hair is quite damaged because of the bleach i very rarely use heat styling or anything else. Though i do tease it a lot, which certainly isn't good for hair...

Anyway i've been trying to grow it out for about a year now because i don't think i've had hair longer than shoulder-length in my entire life! I'm hoping if it's long i'll be able to get it really huge like a lions mane :P Or sometimes i like to do my hair in pincurls and vintage styles, and i think i could make a wider variety of styles.

I've not had my hair it's natural colour since i was 10! In a way i kind of want to grow it out just to see if it's changed at all (it used to be dark blonde and poker straight naturally, then one day i dyed it red and it suddenly went curly and has never changed back). I also want to dye it ginger, not red but proper carrot-top ginger. And i looked good with black hair, so i am tempted to go back to that, but then i wouldn't be able to go back to blonde for years.
Silly as this sounds but i have a sort of image of myself in my head (like a cartoon version of me) and that has blonde hair.

Going Up and Down

I'm finally doing my roots. The bleach is really really stinging though. But it's worth it, i can't feel groomed at all with such scruffy hair. Soon i'll be a curly platinum haired beauty once more.

Up:
Old Betty Boop and Bimbo cartoons (particularly with Cab Calloway)
Going to Pestival later (www.pestival.org)
buying and trying new skincare products
Illamasqua Intense Lip glosses (review to come shortly)
Being less in debt than i thought i was
Being back home :)

Down:
The intense stinging of this bleach!
Still being quite badly in debt
An art gallery not getting back to me about an exhibition they asked me to take part in
My flabby stomach
Not having any insect themed clothes for Pestival