Bleach London Vs Loreal Feria Review

Pastel hair is a trend that has been becoming increasingly popular this past year and being a blonde myself I'd be lying if I said I wasn't swayed by all the pretty colours I see on the likes of Sam from Batalash and Jenna Marbles (basically I'm a huge Youtube junkie.)

Bleach London

So for Christmas my little sister was an absolute genius and surprised me with a set of Bleach London temporary hair dyes. (http://bleachlondon.co.uk/)

Now as soon as I unwrapped them I got all sorts of crazy ideas because the set contained 6 bottles of different coloured dye including peach, pink, green, blue and purple. I took right to Pinterest for cool ideas and then set to work dying my hair.

Now the Bleach London kit has very easy instructions but what I would advise is to Youtube tutorials on the product because many people have found that leaving the dye on for extra time etc made the colour come out better. 

I would definitely advise leaving the colour on longer than the advised 15 minutes. Second time I used the dye I left it on for an hour. 

So I put three dyes on my hair at once cause I have no fear and went balls to the wall on Christmas day totally fearless of potential diasaterous results. 

The three dyes were: 

 Photo Source: http://bleachlondon.co.uk/

So the instructions say to use a bog standard shampoo, I used moisturising shampoo which probably wasn't the best idea, when using the Loreal Feria dye I used a bog standard one and you'll see the difference in colour payout in later photos. My advice is to use a supermarket shampoo to ensure you get it right and not one with any sort of moisturising or colour retaining extras. 

Again, leave thedye on for an hour, even as a blonde the colour didn't look that great when I left it on for 15 minutes.

Here's my result:

The violet turned my hair a stunning silver colour and you can see the pinks and peach going through it but it just isn't as vibrant as some of the colours I saw on Youtube. I still loved the colour and got plenty lovely comments on the picture. My blonde hair was going quite brassy by this point and the dye totally livened it up. Also I got a Nyx lipstick this day that totaly went with the pink colour as well (bonus!)

To summarise product:

The colour could have been much brighter, this could have been down to the shampoo I used but still, the colour was kept on an hour and I expected it to be way more vibrant. Texture-wise my hair felt totally fine, not dried out or sticky or anything. In regards to how long the colour actually lasted I think I got something like 2-3 days out of these colours which was alright.

Would I re-purchase? Probably! It's pretty hard to get pastel dyes here in the UK in stores apart from the Loreal Feria dye which I'm about to talk about unless you have a look on Amazon. Bleach is online and has a bigger variety of colours as well so yeah I'd say I'd buy again. I should also point out that if you buy the single bottle of dye it is much bigger than the pack of 6 I had. 

Loreal Feria

So I bought this dye after trying the Bleach London and getting totally hooked on the pink colour. After a bit of research I found the Loreal Feria in my local supermarket which was awesome because usually to get a nice pastel colour you have to go online to Amazon or to a specialist store so this is pretty much available to everyone.

Sadly when I got to the store they only had the Peach colour available. The whole of my town must also be on a crazy pastel hair colour kick and had bought out all the other colours.

 Source: http://www.loreal-paris.co.uk/hair-colour/all-over-color/feria/

That's another thing to keep in mind with this brand, they only offer peach, pink and violet in their pastel range so you have much less choice than you get with Bleach London. 

The product itself comes as a sort of toning conditioner that you just put straight onto your hair whilst wearing gloves. Beacsue it's like a toning conditioner your hair is left feeling really nourished after and you don't have to use any further products on your hair after washing it out. I also found it way less messy.

 

Now I bloody STRUGGLED to take a photo that done my hair colour justice because I'm naturally blonde. Trust me when I say it looked awesome and also kinda...pink! The photo below of me shamlessly wearing my sisters pageant crown is how my hair looked after a few washes, it definitely looked much more peach by that point but I still loved it to death.

 

The feria product lasted in my hair for a whole week at work, which was awesome, got a tonne of compliments on it and had people asking me how I achieved the colour etc so I would recommend this dye for its staying power. 

The only thing that really annoyed me about this product is that it cost me about £5 a go. Now £5 isn't a lot of money but I can buy a permanent dye for that amount and this is advertised as lasting 1-5 washes or so. If the price was reduced I'd be a lot happier with it, especially when you also only get a variety of 3 colours. You should also remember that for long hair you also often have to use two bottles of dye.

Overall, both products have their benefits and drawbacks. Bleach has a massive variety of colours and came out pretty good, Loreal lasted ages but also cost more than I expected. Bleach London is £5 a bottle but the bottles are bigger and it's also a more premium brand. I'd say it's really 50/50 what product you choose, as a short-term colour solution both get the job done and look pretty awesome.

 

Just found this!! This is a much better look at the hair after the Loreal dye, it totally looks pink here. You can totally tell this is a selfie I sent to my best friend haha! That double chin though!   

Anyway I hope this review helps anyone wanting to dye their hair pastel colours, I'll defnitely be doing it again, still got 3 Bleach London dyes to use up. 

Christmas 2014

A very belated Merry Christmas to those of you reading this! I had hoped to post this particular entry last week but New Year activities and seeing friends meant I've had to leave sharing some of my favourite presents with you until now.

Christmas is a day me and my family really love and this year we decided to go all out and really enjoy ourselves. In our house the day usually involves a really early present opening session followed by a light prosecco breakfast and then the afternoon is spent relaxing (napping) and cooking the dinner in prep for early evening. We took the day slowly and in the evening were joined by friends of ours for a game night which is always a laugh. Family fortunes was quite an intense but hilarious affair.

I should mention before you see the photos that we start shopping for presents in October to take some of the pressure off and really upped our budgets on eachother this year so there are a few presents I want to share with you. It's not me bragging I just want to share with you some of the lovely things I got. With the make up in particular I'll do reviews later on to let you know how good they are.

I apologise for the surface these photos were taken on and the lack of lighting but times against me and I had to make do with what I had!

The trusty YSL box!!

The absolute best smelling perfume in the world!

I do have the brush for this palette it's just upstairs with my collection

As is the brush for this palette

I got two of this palette because I've been going on about it for months and so two of my friends decided to put me out of my misery!

I could sniff this palette for life it smells that damn good

Yet another eyeshadow palette, this one I bought for myself because I always miss the Urban Decay limited edition palettes and because I get discount through my work. Not sure how to wear all the colours so I'm gonna have to play around with it but I love the jewell tones this offers. Got my sister one of these for her Christmas as well.

Cute present from my sister for my office

My sister got these shipped over ,the third colour is my absolute favourite to wear when I have pink through my hair. Swatched below!

Me and my sister absolutely love the film New York Minute and Ashley Olsens character 'Jane' had this organiser she basically lived out of in the film. My mum and dad got me and Lisa these for Christmas because we've been obsessed with them ever since. Mine has been used a tonne since I got it.

The following are a bunch of books from my Amazon Wishlist that I really wanted:

This is one of my old uni books and it gives me the worst flashbacks even though the book itself is amazing!

Pattern blocks! At last!!

Another uni book that was amazing

I went a little mental with wanting shoes and handbags this year as well and my work had these crazy sales on in the lead up to Christmas which totally prompted me to buy some of these! I was good and didn't wear them until Christmas though...

Julien MacDonald bag from Debenhams

Faith handbag from Debenhams

 Freaking amazing army boots that I LOVE and stop me falling over in the snow and ice


If anyone wants and inside views of the books or any of my opinions on them then leave a comment and I'll put up a post on the particular item. I've ordered a whole load of books off amazon since Christmas that are starting to arrive and I think are really good for fashion students to hear about and have a read of so I'll get those up in the future as well.

Have a good day!

Winter Wonderland-Edinburgh

I'm very lucky in that I live a mere 25 minute car journey from Scotlands capital city Edinburgh. It's a place that's really easy to take for granted when you live so close but thousands of tourists come here every year to see the castle, the architecture and the Fringe festival which is an unreal arts/theatre/comedy/music festival that takes place all over the city in the summer months. In short Edinburgh is a pretty awesome place to live near.

However I'm at a total disadvantage, whilst the commute through to the city is mere minutes I am very rarely through there to enjoy myself due to things like work and having to plan months ahead for a day where all of my family is off so we can go through together.

So this year as a Christmas treat to my family I put a date on the calender and got everyone into the car for a night at Edinburghs Winter Wonderland to help get them into the Christmas spirit. No ifs, no buts, we were going so help me God!

I was also reeeeally craving crepes with nutella and banana. 

Edinburgh is a pretty amazing place to behold anyday of the week but it really comes to life at Christmas time. Princes Street Gardens becomes a hub of activity as amusement rides are set up, market stalls become occupied and all manner of foreign foods and goods are sold to tourists and locals eager to bask in the festive spirit. Princes Street itself becomes lined with christmas lights and the high street stores window displays become so extravogant it's impossible to walk past and not catch the Christmas spirit.

There's just something amazing about walking through the European Market decked to the nines in knitwear, clutching some form of potato dish and listening to Christmas music whilst perusing all sorts of items that are there.

Some of the items we saw for sale there were hand-crafted Christmas decorations, hand decorated chocolates in the form of tools such as hammers, chissels etc and then hand painted to look identical to their metal counterparts. There are also fashions such as hand-knitted scarves, spice stalls, jewellery counters, coffee bean vendors, anything you can associate with Christmas is pretty much in Edinburgh for you to have a look at and buy whilst sipping hot wine.

My sister and I also decided to take in the sights from the Ferris Wheel (partly because the seats were enclosed and we found out they had heating) and listened to some facts about the town. We had a look at the ice rink there but if there's one downside to Winter Wonderland it's that everything is much more expensive than where we stay so you kinda just have to pick one ride to enjoy. Needless to say I still managed to spend a bomb on the family but everyone had a really brilliant and more importantly festive time.

Below are some photos from the night which were unfortunately taken on my camera phone and therefore aren't the greatest photos in the world but you get an idea of just how festive and lit up the place is at night and just how much there is to see and buy in the markets...