I love red hair. I’ve dyed my hair numerous colors, sometimes mourned for my brunette, but I’ve always gone back to red. But one thing’s for sure, it’s a pain in the behind to keep it vivid! So here is a list of tricks and things I do to help maintain luscious red locks.

PS, I am by no means a hair stylist so any or all of this information could be tales of falsehood. Feel free to correct me on any of it. This is just what I’ve gathered from personal experience/research.

Picking Out Shades

It starts with picking out your shade. There are a couple different kinds of red. You have your blood reds, your brown-reds, your straight up pumpkin reds, and your natural ginger reds. A good rule to follow if you want to get real persnickety about it is to get a shade that matches your skin tone, just like you would do with red lipstick.

If your skin tends to be pinker, or less “golden” and you have cool undertones, try a more true or blue-based red shade, like Revlon Colorsilk Luminsta in Red (my current shade and the last box in the photo.)  If your skin looks more golden/sunkissed and you have warm undertones, try some crazy orange shades like the first two boxes (L’oreal Feria Copper Shimmer and Revlon Colorsilk, some auburn shade, the box is legit but I forget the name lol.) Or, if you’re neutral-toned like me, you can use any shade you want, or a more neutral red like L’oreal Feria Ruby Fusion (#4.)  And if you just want a natural-looking ginger color, go for something that claims to be just that, like Nice ‘N Easy Natural Light Auburn. These are all shades I have used.

To further explain this, I have some visuals for you. The “neutral” model is a leaning on the cool-side, but it’ll do:

Here is the 3 skin types with their corresponding hair color. You’ll notice that each color compliments the model’s skin quite well. (PS, the first model looks like she’s pretty much dyed her hair purple. You don’t need to go so drastically blue-red haha, but just look for something with purple-y undertones, or just plain red.)

Now here I’ve replaced all the hair colors with warm shades. See how the cool toned skin sticks out? Also notice how the neutral skin isn’t as affected. Neutral toned skin can use any shade or just use neutral shades.

And here I’ve replaced them all with cool hair colors. It clashes against the warm-toned skin, and again then neutral skin stays pretty good looking.

Here all of them are wearing neutral shades. Less drastic clashing can be seen.

During and After Coloring

Although the instructions in hair dye boxes usually say to rinse until the water runs clear, avoid doing this. Try to keep some of the dye in your hair. And no, I don’t mean to keep so much that you can feel it, but just rinse till the water is a little cloudy and then stop.

Aside from rinsing the dye, let no water touch your hair for 3 days. Use a hair cap to take showers. During this time your hair is still very porous from having hair dye shoved into it, so you want to give it time to soak in the color and “close the pores.”

Ditch the Heat Tools and Volumizing Products

Heat styling tools and volumizing mousses, etc all do the same thing: make hair more porous, which for the volumizing products is to makes hair look thicker. But it also lets hair dye seep out much quicker. Set your blow-dryer on cool. As for volumizing shampoos, well they usually contain sulfates to really wash the hair and make it less weighed-down so as to volumize, but sulfates and the like can suck out color.

Before You Wash That Hair…

Try dry shampoo!

Dry shampoo is a life-saver. It makes your hair look as though it had been washed even when it hasn’t. It spritzes out as a dry mist (oxymoron?) and absorbs oil. The bottle pictured above, Suave Dry Shampoo, is amazing (and cheap at $2.99) except for one little thing: the packaging (of some or more of the bottles sold) is very defective. The stuff leaks right out of the bottle, and after 2-3 uses it’s all gone. this has happened with the 2 bottles I bought and all the bottles any of my friends have ever owned. And I’m not the only one. Sucks too, because it’s really awesome.

I tried to take it back, but you can imagine the response to “I swear it disappeared from the tube.”

Instead try Clairol Pssssst. Not as effective, and more expensive, but still works good.

When Washing is a Must

Choose the Right Shampoo and Conditioner

Most “color-safe” shampoos contain LESS sulfates and the like, and while this is fine, if you REALLY care about color longevity, shoot for something sulfate-free like L’Oreal EverPure. Don’t expect it to lather, though.

Curiously, EvePure does lather nicely for some reason, despite being sulfate-free…makes me suspicious.

(John Frieda Radiant Red Color Magnifying Daily Conditioner)

I’ll admit I’m not really an expert on color-safe conditoners…I used to always use moisturizing ones. But today I got some for red hair just because I had never tried so-called color-safe conditioners. Due to the red color I thought it was a color-depositing conditioner (a conditioner that supposedly adds red color to the hair, also available in shampoo form), but it states on the back that it isn’t. Which gets me thinking, what does it do? o.O The packaging claims “Light has the power to maximize the unique qualities of every hair shade. Red hair is vibrant in color, and needs light to magnify and intensify the distinct tones that make it so unique.”  (WTF)

I sort of get what it’s saying; literal light, like in flash photography, does make red hair look nice. But how do you put light in a bottle??

I really don’t know, lol. But despite the gimmickyness it is a nice conditioner that left my hair feeling nice and soft.

Ice Cold Shower

Let’s go back to the pores anology. Just like when you get hot, you sweat, when your hair is drenched in scolding hot water, it becomes more porous and more color seeps out. So take a shower as cold as you can stand it. I personally find it impossible to take an ICE cold shower, so what I do is turn it on completely cold, take it like a man and jump directly into it, then warm up the water slightly. Having just been subjected to such harsh water temperatures the slightly warmer (but still very cold) water actually feels doable.

Closeup on the water drips, because they look so frickin awesome.

Don’t forget your hair cap! Wear this whenever you are taking a shower but your hair doesn’t need to be washed, as well as while you’re washing your body etc to avoid unwanted exposure to the hair from the water. Do everything that needs to be done before you shampoo and condition (leave something for while you wait for the conditioner to soak in, if you’d like) then take off the shower cap and work quickly in dousing the hair and shampooing, because every second under that water is draining more and more red (not to scare you or anything.)

Wear green!

This is more unnecessary, but when you feel like your hair needs a pick-me-up, try wearing a something green. Green really makes red pop (although this photo is very bad and doesn’t show what I’m talking about. Just trust me on this one XD)

Avoid wearing bright red

Depending on your hair red can compliment it, but generally it just makes your color look muddier in comparison. This photo looks pretty good, though…haha, my photos are contradicting what I’m telling you

So have fun with your (still) vibrant red hair! (And maybe red eyebrows isn’t a good idea.)

(Haha, you can see me taking the picture, Yes, yes, I know the photos suck. You may bash me for it.)

L’oreal Infallible Lip Color is a very tempting product, indeed, with all it’s claims about being so long-wearing, transfer-proof AND moisturizing at the same time. It really is one of those love-it-or-hate-it type of things. So I’ll get right into it.

Application

Using the doe-foot applicator, you kind of have to get the hang of it to get it just right. You have to be really careful , because the stuff dries real quick and has a tendency to stain, especially if a finger goes in to smear off excess product from outside the lip line. First make sure absolutely nothing is on your lips, then I suggest applying from the middle outwards, because a lot of product gets on that little thing and if you go for the edges right away, it will get smooshed outwards (a la Beyonce for Glam Shine @ 00:6, if you look real close) which is difficult to correct and ruins the crisp finish.

Wait for it to dry, and while it’s doing that don’t touch your lips together – the stuff is really sticky, and the top lip and bottom lip will pull at eachother and cause the color to tear off. (Yes, I said tear – but it’s not as weird as it sounds, lol. The lip color isn’t a sticker.) When it is dry, which you can tell when it turns completely matte and you can gently touch your lips without color transferring, apply the topcoat gently. Vigorously using the topcoat, after the second or third time, will cause the stuff to start flaking. And flaking is not pretty:

After that

Try to resist reapplying the topcoat because even gently using it will speed up the flaking process. You may want to try using a lip balm that is more emollient that will stick longer so it feels more comfortable for longer – the topcoat tends to disappear into thin air, leaving that dry matte feeling. Also try to resist rubbing your lips together – this really makes it flake.

If you use it right, it works pretty well, but when you start to get hungry…it stands no chance. It will start flaking onto everything and showing patches of exposed lip. Sure, maybe it will last the 12hr mark if you follow all of these guidelines, but who in their right mind wouldn’t eat for that long? The commercial is misleading in a few ways: for one, it shows a dinner scene with napkins and such – this stuff wouldn’t last a chance. Second, it shows her kissing everybody – while this may hold up the first or second kiss, any rubbing or touching of any kind makes this stuff flake so it’s not a good idea. On top of that, the top coat would leave their skin shiny in that area.

Allow me to demonstrate:

And it’s not like a lipstick wherein you can just reapply it – it would look terrible and flake more if you just put another coat right on top. You would need to remove it completely, and that either takes a strong soap or an oil-based makeup remover to do so. Nothing you could do easily at a dinner party.

It’s long-wearing and transfer-proof as long as you are gentle about it. But there are just too many situations where this product would fail.

The verdict: only good for a certain crowd. Let’s say you’re in a play and you want something that just won’t put a huge smear by accident on your costume, and lasts really long under the right conditions – you’d like this. But those looking for the ultimate lip color, you may be disappointed.

Moar photos:

(I was going for the pouty look…lol, messed it up a bit but this stuff is too hard to remove for me to bother redoing XD)

Got this for $6.50 at Dollar General whilst in search of a new night time moisturizer. Oh my gosh, where do I start?

It’s rich, velvety, freakin’ luscious…at first I didn’t like how heavy it felt (probably due to the oils) but I just used a little less and it solved me problems ^_^

Consistency is a tad heavy as I said. Just don’t use too much, as it is easy to do with the way the bottle is (no gaping hole when you lift the lid,  just a small peephole for squeezing)

Glides on very nicely, feels like butter! You don’t get this with oil-free moisturizers – actually, you can feel a resistance with them. This just smoooooooths on.

Absolutely fantastic! Will buy again

Rating: A

(Vamp It Up, Red Velvet, Think Pink)

Mega Last Lip Color – $3, steal! – is a long-wearing lipstick with a matte finish*. But it isn’t matte. They LIE. It’s semi-matte.

The website claims:

Lips take center stage! This 4-hour, longwearing lip color leaves a semi-matte, crème finish in one stroke. Glides on easily with rich, velvety color that doesn’t cake, feather, or bleed. Made with hydrating skin-care ingredients: Hyaluronic Microspheres provide extraordinary adhesion to lips, an exclusive polymer complex offers cushion-like feel and texture, and natural marine plant extracts Coenzyme Q10 and Vitamins A & E help smooth lips. (source)

Four-hour? A bit of a stretch. These last two to three hours on me. *While it says semi-matte on the website, in-stores it simply says “matte finish.” Color is incredibly opaque, and can go on a little bit cakey. Doesn’t feather or bleed, either. However, it is a little drying. I myself never seem to notice whether it “feels” dry or not until the next day when my lips may feel a bit tight. The packaging is cheap. Really cheap. The plastic part surrounding the lipstick refuses to stay in the tube. And that gets a little bit frustrating.

• Think Pink – a light, pretty blue-based pink
• Vamp It Up – a dark purple (Note: photo washes out color)
• Red Velvet- a deep blue-based pink  (Note: photo washes out color)

(Compared to Revlon Matte Lipstick in Strawberry Suede, the only other red matte lipstick I own)

Red Velvet

Vamp It Up

Think Pink

Rating: B

“Neutrogena” (which is what it’s actually called) is a transparent orange soap bar for the face. This is my first experience with soap bars other than for the hands.  Let’s see how it does!

(Kiddy ibuprofen – I can’t take pills, I’m a “gag” queen x])

When you take it out of the box, it’s wrapped in plastic. As soon as I opened it, my first thoughts were: “Staaanky.” I got used to it though.

To use it, I rub my wet hand vigorously over the bar, then work it into my hands to create a lather. If I find the lather to be less than satisfactory, I rub the bar again to pick up more soap. It bubbles up very nicely into a rich lather.

If you haven’t done so, wet your face I had already washed my face and realized I needed to take photos, so I just wet the side of my face to show how rich and velvety the lather is:

The camera doesn’t pick it up too well, since my skin is so pale I guess…but it looked practically white when I was rubbing it in.

After washing, I didn’t feel unbearably dry, which is kinda what I expected. It may have felt a LITTLE dry, but that is to be expected.

Another thing I expected was that it wouldn’t bubble up well, or that I’d have to use a lot of it. Those turned out to be false, too — it bubbles up really nicely, despite the relatively minuscule amount used.

Overall a great product!

Rating: A

1. What is your favourite thing to buy besides makeup?
Oh gosh…I’ve exhausted so many different hobbies, I still haven’t really decided what to stick with XD I go back and fourth. Books, maybe. Or my computer.

2. What is (are) on your wishlist right now?
A lot. XD  I organized a not-so-fancy bookmark folder so I could drag links to things I want. But if I am supposed to list beauty-related wants, weeeell that’s more of a constantly updated shopping list LOL. I’ve been wanting to get an eye cream, because my Clinique Repairwear is running out. I’ve been looking at the ones from Neutrogena, this or this. Probably the first, because I’m cheap x) I’ve been wanting to try out the Rosebud Salve from Sephora, but I’m not sure, because I own the one from C.O. Bigelow, Rose Salve, and it’s awesome, and also seems to be immensely more popular than Rosebud Salve. And the most coveted of all…TheBalm Mary-Lou Manizer. ME WANTS THIS.

3. What do you love about blogger?
A lot. XD I just like WordPress’ interface a little more.

4. What is your favourite/most recommended product(s)?
C.O. Bigelow Rose Salve, a great lip balm – Blistex Medicated BERRY (NOT MINT) balm, another great lip balm and probably my favorite, aaaand…St. Ive’s Medicated Apricot Scrub…and Maybelline Full n’ Soft. I think that’s all, lol.

5. What do you believe in?
…I don’t like to put that stuff on the internet, lol…this is a beauty blog, not a controversial topic blog c:

6. Share a beauty secret!
This weird little thing can do wonders for your skin! Tip: if you want to get a free cleanser with it, L’oreal sells scrubs and cleansers for various skin types with a built-in scrubbie like this one. The cleanser itself is kind of drying, though. I would suggest trying the one for sensitive skin.

7. What’s your favourite sunscreen?
The off-brand rite aid “Sheer Lotion,” I guess. I don’t really have a preference.

8. Where would you like to visit one day?
Japan!

Part 2:

1. What’s your favorite makeup brand, and why?
Hmmm…that’s a little difficult, but I’d have to say Maybelline. They have lots of great stuff. Concealer, lipstick, foundation, mascara, they do well on everything!

2. Do you collect a certain type of beauty product (blush, lipgloss, eyeliner, etc.)?
My eyes tell me to buy every mascara I see, but I hate having them because they dry out and I can’t use up 3 different mascaras in 3≈ months

3. Do you have any makeup-related pet peeves?
No pump in foundation. Every. foundation. should. have. a. pump. Also, when the product comes in a tube with an applicator, and the product overflows when the applicator is inserted into the stopper >.<

4. What’s one piece of advice you’d like to give to all girls?
Makeup-wise? Never buy products on whim. Always look into the product online first. Whenever I do this, I almost always wind up taking the product back, or at least wind up being disappointed in it.

5. Who’s your favorite band or artist, and why?
So many to choose from…sorry, gotta pick more than one. XD The Beatles, for supplying the best in happy poppy rock music. Gorillaz, for being the best at mashing every genre together to create some of the best music evar. And Radiohead, for being plain AWESOME. I can listen to In Rainbows (and various songs from other albums) and just be totally hypnotized.

6. What’s your clothing/fashion style?
I used to like variations of colored t-shirts with any type of neutral pants. Usually jean skirts or leggings. But now I’ve been migrating a bit. I looove puffy sleeves. XD

7. What’s the priciest beauty product you’ve ever bought? Was it worth it?
This, probably. And that sort of depends on your point of view. A lot of the brushes were kind of crap, but a lot of them I use all the time. It’s great for beginners.

8. What’s an occupation you would NEVER consider doing, and why?
Anything that required social skills. Like a salesperson.

Part 3:

1. What is your favorite time of the day?
Generally I like early in the morning. I’m a late-nighter and tend to wake up at around 11 AM, and the sun isn’t as high in da sky

2. What kind of car do you drive? And what do you wish you were driving?
Gotta wait a year on that, lol…but if I had a choice of color, I want it to be pink. Did you know that pink cars are the least likely to be stolen? And black cars are the most likely? Did you also know that the car my parents wish to lend to me is black?

3. What is your ultimate weapon against pimples?
Meh, nothing really gets rid of them. I only have one zit cream, and, guessing it’s the benzoyl peroxide stuff, it makes the area in which it was applied red and sore. Masks minimize the appearance of them, sometimes. My only weapon really is cleaning my face twice a day. If I miss one, I’m almost guaranteed to get a pimple. I have one as we speak from being lazy last night.

4. What is the best product that someone recommended to you and who was that person/site?
Hmmph. You could say most of the beautystuffs I own were reccomended at some point, whether it be direct or indirect, since I research most of what I buy. Recently, though, these would have to be it.

5. Have you ever had a bad experience with customer service at a makeup counter/store? Which counter/store?
Well, almost every time I’m at a beauty store or a makeup counter or anything like that, the people always eye me up like I’m going to steal something. While waiting for my mom to be done shopping for a dress, me and my sister were looking at the Chanel stand, and the lady there stared at us, and asked us if we needed any help. Four times.

6. What is your favorite kind of pizza?
Just cheese, I’m picky. x(

7.What is your MAC shade?
Never got it officially matched or anything, but I would guess around the 15 range, and from experience I’m pretty much completely neutral. Pinky tones are too pink and yellow tones are too yellow. And that L’oreal True Match color match thing also said I was neutral.

8.What is your favorite concealer? And can you tell me a little about it?
Best one I ever tried, which my sister bought and let me try, is the Maybelline Age Rewind concealer/highlighter. Lasted really long without creasing, which are the two big baddies in concealers for me. But currently I just use the regular Maybelline concealer stick.

9. If I visited you in your home country/state and you had to show me around, where would we go/what would we do?
Hmmph…I live in a pretty boring town…maybe get some crabs? But I live in Maryland and don’t like crabs which is practically a crime to the locals xD

10.What do/did you like the best about high school?
Probably the fact that I started doing much better in it than I did in middle school

11.What is one food you have tried before but will never eat again?
Coke, definitely. I’m don’t hate it that much, but since it’s bad for you, I figure I should just never drink it ever again and I’ll never know what I’m missing. xD

12. If you won the lottery, what is the very first thing you’d do with your money?
It really depends on how much. If it’s a small amount I may put it away for the future, possibly cheating and taking $150 for a replacement for the iPod I bought three years ago with my own hard earned cash that is starting to crash and burn. But that is only a might, as the new iPod nano model makes me want to puke. Otherwise it’s hard to say.

13. What are three features that you could change about your physical appearance?
Teeth, tummy, and a little less thigh

14.What’s your favorite cereal?
Harumph….Almond Honey Bunches of Oats and Berry Special K. Oh, and shredded wheat.

15. Do you prefer tying your hair up or leaving it down?
My hair is too short right now, but I bet when it grows long enough that is what I’ll start doing

16. Besides blogging, what is your favorite pastime?
Computering…xD

I don’t know who to tag, so…if you are reading this, you are obligated to repost it!

I’ve been putting every ounce of my attention into school. But when I do go on some sort of break, I’ll try and sit down and make a billion posts set to post periodically.

Until then, FAREWELL~

You might have noticed the sort of better quality of the photos? Our bathroom walls were painted green, and I think it does jazz the photos a bit. The stark white walls made it kind of bland. I still haven’t quite figured out how to use the focus fuction – the way it works is that you gently press the capture button to refocus, and press fully to capture. The way it adjusts is blurring as it focuses on different objects, and then “beep”-ing when it successfully found the object – and reverting to blurr when it failed. Even though in the focusing process it can always focus on the object very nicely, it can’t “hold” the focus. It always fails >.< So I’m trying to figure out if there is such a thing as manual focus so I can take advantage of it.

Anyway…today I’ll be attempting to review a mascara, even though I originally shunned the idea on account of my focus woes. I actually managed to get some pretty decent close-ups

Voluminous comes in so many different forms…I’m not going to sit here and name them all, but some of the main types are the classic Voluminous, and Carbon Black, both of which come in waterproof varieties. I’ve not a clue the reason behind coming up with a version that’s black-er than the original, but I got it just because it was the version I’ve seen in a few reviews. I also got waterproof (bad idea), not realizing  the difficulty of removal. Voluminous sells for $5.50 at Walmart, but for around $8 at other drugstores.

The brush may look clumpy, but you’re good with clumps as long as you don’t try to apply a third coat.

The trick with this mascara (which probably will end with mascarafied lids) is to place the brush at the base of the lashes, pull up, wiggle where needed and release.

(Two coats – yes, not the most flattering picture ever, and I do realize I’m not taking it at a good angle to show how it really appears, but my focus gave me so much trouble that I just had to use what turned out.)

At one coat, you have good volume and no clumping. At two coats, you have OUTRAGEOUS volume, but at the cost of some slightly clumpy tips, if you don’t do it right.

I haven’t tried the non-waterproof, and I don’t intend to until I finish this tube. I don’t like to have multiple tubes of mascara, because I can’t finish that many in (what is it? three months?).

It doesn’t flake, budge or smudge for the whole 12 hours (ignore the black spots in the photo, I don’t know remember what they were from but it wasn’t the mascara, especially since I had just applied it ). But the cost is it’s a pain in the butt to remove. I use my trusty Neutrogena oil-free makeup remover, which removes most if not all of it if I use two swigs each on two cotton pads. I use one on both eyes, then the next to get rid of the stubborn mascara. Despite this I’m still going to use it, just so I can be more hygenic and actually finish this mascara so I don’t feel guilty about throwing it out in a few months.

Overall, it’s a great mascara. The next tube I want to get will probably be the classic NON-waterproof, just because I find the intense black to be a bit harsh, even against my brown hair.

Rating: A

In hopes of banishing my bad luck for good, I went on a mad rampage, signing up for every single contest that came into my rss reader. And when I did, I would turn to my so-called comrades and bellow, “Look, see? I won my first contest! Haha! Haha, ha! HAHAHAHAH!!”

AND I’VE DONE IT.

Karen at Makeup and Beauty Blog held a contest to win the complete set of Avon Glazewears. I’m telling you, the one thing I avoided like the plague were the outrageously awesome contests. I didn’t want to set myself up for disappointment. I went for the lil things. The only reason I entered this was because she was giving away…like…25 of them? I figured my chances were much better x)

The set includes 16 shades of lipgloss in 4 different formulas; Intense (immensely pigmented), Shine (didn’t find them to be a ton shinier, but they were the more generic types – didn’t really fit into a category), Sparkle (sheer color with tons of sparkle), and a plain clear gloss.

The formulas…they seem to last about 1-2 hours on me. I find that they, particularly the Intense ones, sort of “set.” As in, after a few minutes I rubbed my lips and found that it felt a lot thinner – I thought, “wow, it’s fading already?” but it was actually setting, and still looked the same. That’s a plus – applies thick, but dries thin. It isn’t the most moisturizing formula ever, but it didn’t dry my lips out.

The Sparkle formula…well, maybe it’s just me, but…

IT BUUURNS! I mean like NO SCREWING AROUND IS MOM TRYING TO COOK AGAIN BURNS. It’s probably just me. I’ve never heard of anyone having the same effects. Also, when it fades it leaves all that glitter. Booo

In my set there was three different kinds of applicators, sort of randomly chosen for each shade. We have this weird slanted applicator, which is used in all the shades except for Cherry Liqueur, Clear, (short doe-foot) Iced Pink, and Rave (standard doe-foot):

This shorter version of a standard applicator:

…And the standard doe-foot applicator.

Rating: B

More photos:

(Intense: Intense Plum, Crimson, Cherry Liqueur, Brown Sugar, Sweet Maple. Shine: Mauve, Darling, Tickled Pink, Island Glow, Iced Pink. Sparkle: Mocha Latte, Rave, Apple Cinnamon, Mirage, Dazzling Diamond. +Clear)

Intense Plum

Crimson

Cherry Liqueur

Brown Sugar

Sweet Maple

Mauve

Darling

Tickled Pink

Island Glow

Iced Pink

Mocha Latte

Rave

Apple Cinnamon

Mirage

Dazzling Diamonds

Clear