My New Fruit Salad Hair!

Hello, hello.

If you've been here a while (or known me IRL a long while), you will know that I love experimenting with hair. I think I have had near enough every colour under the rainbow, from Green too Pink. However, one colour I hadn't used before was yellow, and I was dying too try it. Which, is how my new fruit salad hair came about. I randomly decided one day that I wanted yellow highlights, and on Easter Weekend I made it happen. I also thought that I could talk you through the process and the products we used, alongside showing off my new do! I absolutely adore it, and I have also received the most compliments ever for this colour combo. So, without further ado let's get this show on the road!

As you will know if you have been on my blog before, (and if not, hello! I would love for you to stay) I started with a pink base which was pre-bleached beforehand. If you're not comfortable using bleach at home, and / or if you hair is not strong or in healthy enough condition please *do not do this at home*, go to a salon. I know that is hella expensive, but it's for the sake of your hair. If I'm completely honest, I am not sentimental about my hair. I happily cut it off from near enough waist length to shoulder length without flinching, life is too short to worry about hair! (In my eyes anyway). I knew that I wanted highlights, but I also knew that I didn't want them to be proper chunky and really obvious stripes at the roots. But, too my rescue my mum (who is the hero of this whole process) said she had a plastic highlighting cap, so we used that to pull through the strands of hair that we wanted to use.

Once we had all the strands through we wanted to use (which took ~FOREVER~ do not go into this lightly it takes so so long), we then mixed together the bleach to highlight them. We used the Jerome Russell BBlonde range, with the high lift powder bleach and maximum cream peroxide Vol. 30. These are readily available in Boots / Superdrugs / Savers in the UK and are very affordable, and they do work. I've used them before, and I trust the outcome which is why we used them. It's a 1:1 ratio, and that was all we need. 1 sachet of powder and one little bottle of bleach did a full head of highlights on me, however keep in mind the fact that my hair is shoulder length and I have quite a large undercut. This didn't take long, and also didn't take long to develop, however in hindsight if we left it on a little longer the ends would've been more blonde.

Once we rinsed the bleach off and dried the hair we realised that the hair was pretty much white at the root and the ends were a dirty blonde, which meant that we decided to go with a yellow too orange ombre rather than just yellow. Luckily I already had orange dye in, from when I used to have orange hair. This also didn't take long to do, however I left this on a lot longer than the bleach as it isn't as damaging, and the longer you leave it on the more the colour saturates your hair and lasts longer. So once that had developed, hours later than starting the process we thought YAY DONE. Ha, nope.

Once it was all rinsed and dried I decided I wanted too add some more pink as we had pretty much lost all the colour, so we bought another pink dye and just went through my hair and picked out places where they would work best and Voila! Finally done. This was one the most, if not THE MOST difficult hair dying process but the outcome is pretty gosh darn impressive. I can't believe how much depth and how many different tones and colours there is in it, the other day a customer at work said it looked like 'literal fire' and it made my freaking day. Obviously it isn't perfect, but for a home done job I think me and my mum outdid ourselves.

So what do guys think? Do you like my new hair?? I personally LOVE it. I feel like Hayley Williams circa Misery Business and my 12 year old self would literally be jumping for joy if she could see me now.  My love of colour is not just within my clothes, I share the same passion with my hair! I think I will always be a colourful haired gal, as whenever I go a *normal* colour it never lasts long. Let's hope it washes well and doesn't fade too much, I've got all my fingers crossed that it doesn't.

XOXO, EMMA 

Current Thrift Favourites

Hello, Hello. 

As we have established here on my blog, second hand shopping is my favourite past time. Now that the weather has got better (for now at least), it has meant that carboot season has arrived, so I have been out thrifting more than ever. If I am brutally honest with you, I buy way too much to show all at once (unless I was on YouTube, which maybe one day I will be), so what I have decided to do on my blog is pull out my favourite finds at the minute, tell you why and style them up. No doubt these will end up being monthly at least, as I just cannot seem to help myself when it comes down to sustainable fashion. 

Last week was probably the holy week of thrift finds, I have found some true hidden treasures so I think there is no better week to start this series out. The bits I have picked up are from both Charity Shops & Carboot's, and I will go through the pricing of each item when I get round too it. So without further ado, here are my current thrift favourites. 

Now, is this A LOOK OR IS THIS A LOOK? AH, I am so obsessed with this Scary Spice 90s vibes, it is killing me. I don't even know where to start with this look, it is doing the most. So let's do this chronologically and work from the head down. This hat has got to be one of the greatest accessory finds I have ever come across, it was on a hat stand at the back of one of my local charity shops and I almost walked straight passed it. Luckily I was caught a glimpse of the Kangol logo and nearly had a heart attack. Kangol bucket hats have got too be one of the most trendy street style accessories out there, but the fact that this is red faux fur makes it even more freaking cool. The tragic thing is, I nearly didn't buy this because it was £5! For a hat in a charity shop near me that is pretty much extortion, however I'm glad I decided to get it because this is probably the coolest hat I have ever owned. 

Moving on down to this iconic leopard print flared jumpsuit, I am well and truthfully obsessed with this piece. If you would've told me a few months ago that I would ever be wearing this much leopard print I would've literally laughed it off, but now I am obsessed with it. I am also 99% sure Scary Spice rocked one of these in the 90s, so I am definitely feeling the vibe. This was a carboot find at the mere 50p. I honestly didn't even look at the size, I just knew I had to have it. It looks like a late 90s / early 2000s piece and is in near perfect condition, and I was so happy to find that it fits me like a glove. I threw this old oversized Adidas coat over the top to make the look more casual (and I also think this would make for an absolutely incredible festival look too). This is also an old thrifted find, but is now actually up on my depop if you want to give it a new home! (username: emmalouisloves ) 

Finally, the absolute killers that are the most incredible platform shoes I have ever laid my eyes on. I found these in the same charity shop as the Kangol hat - unbelievable right? However these I almost missed! It was my dad that pointed them out too me, he knows me far too well it seems. These were a purchase though that proves that there is no harm in asking! They were priced up at a tenner, pretty darn steep but considering how much this style of shoe costs new, only a fraction of the price. However, there are a few scuffs on the toes and they aren't in ~perfect~ condition, so I went and asked if there was any way I could get a discount. Alas to my success, the manager came out and said that I could have them for £6! What a steal! It just goes to show, if you think anything is too overpriced for it's condition do not hesitate to ask if they will knock a little bit off the price, if you don't ask you don't get. These are going to come so in handy for festival season, and festival styling lookbooks - which I will 100% be doing in the future, so watch this space for those. 

So those are my top three current favourite thrifted pieces, however there are so many more I would love to feature, these were definitely the winners. No doubt there will be many more of these to come in the future as my addiction to thrifting does not seem like it going anywhere any time soon. But for now, that is me over and out!

XOXO, EMMA. 

An Outcast Fairy

Hello, Hello! 

Today we are taking a trip down my creative mythical side of my brain to bring you this super fun and colourful fairy concept shoot. When I was on one of my walks I found this spot and the look and theme just instantly came to mind, so I ran home got all my stuff together, makeup props and outfit - and returned to shoot it in that same day. So, here is the photo-set and the story alongside with it. 

This is the visual story of a lost fairy who has lost her wings because she rebelled and was outcast. She is a spoiled teenager who had everything handed to her, but now she has to work everything out for herself and learn how to be appreciative. This old tree truck is the portal in which she has come into the human realm, lost and unable to use her powers. 

All she has is her spell book and crystal but they have lost their charge, and she has lost her powers. She has to learn the value of respect, and until then she is banished here until she can learn, and her parents thought there was no better place for her to learn this than from than the humans. Here she still thinks her family are going to come and get here - like they always have in the past so she is bored and waiting to be brought home. At this point she doesn't understand the seriousness of the situation, she's just annoyed. 

Now she is super bored of waiting, and it's starting to hit here that she isn't getting the help that she always used to. Her guard is starting to come down as she realises that she has pushed them too far this time. As she comes from a wealthy high societal family, she didn't get the attention and love she felt she deserved from her family. They used money and possessions to show their affection,  but in retrospect this just made her crave their attention more and more, and she decided that bad attention was better than none. But now she's alone and has to find her way back to explain to her parents how she feels. 

Now she's returned to the portal where she came from and is wishing and hoping that her parents can see what they did and why she acted the way she did, as she struggles to find her way back, but is also deciding if that is even the place where she belongs. 

So, that was my fairy concept photoshoot, I adored doing this. Getting into the character, getting really into the shoot and covered in dirt, it was so much fun and I want to try and do more shoots likes this. The location was just perfect and I couldn't miss shooting in it, and I am so glad I did. These turned out perfect, exactly as I hoped they was. Photo credits go to my Mum (she is honestly the best), and the makeup, styling, and theme was all brought to you by my little brain. I hope you all love this as much as me! These are honestly my favourite photos to date, and I love my little story I have alongside them. 

XOXO, EMMA.