Showing posts with label hair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hair. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Etude House Silk Scarf Treatment Review

By now, my hair has endured 5 rounds of bleaching and dyeing, and alas, with no special treatment in between! I had tried a sample of this product before and liked it, so I went for the full size. Let's just say now I know why some consumers think the quality of samples is better...


Brand: Etude House [에뛰드하우스]
Name: Silk Scarf Hair Treatment [실크스카프 헤어 트리트먼트]
Size: 200mL, 9cm high
Expiry: 12months
Price in Korea: 7,000KRW


Paraphrased translation: Containing several different seed oils (sunflower, macadamia nut, camellia), this hair treatment repairs dry and brittle hair into strong, silky soft hair—as if you had wrapped a silk scarf around your hair! Leave it in for 5 minutes and use once or twice a week.



▲ 
The tube is soft (i.e. bendable),
light pink in color, and wrapped
with a sticker. The cap is golden
and dented all around. 



It’s veeery thin and runny, even more so than Suave conditioners! You don't even need to squeeze, it drips out on its own! In short, it's *very* easy to spill, and it doesn’t help that the opening is a bit wide (1cm). ►

The texture is so light that once applied, it feels as though I've applied nothing at all! That's why I end up using a lot each time.


It's only *slightly* moisturizing for me, no more than what a very average conditioner would do. (I used a lot too!) Basically, it makes my tangled straw feel like smooth straw, woohoo! The effect fades almost completely within a day or two. Regular Pantene does way more for me.

I regret buying this. Come to think of it, 7 bucks for a wee little tube is already bad enough, let alone a  very unimpressive conditioner. With all their advertisement about the fancy oil ingredients, it’s funny to note that they’re listed last on the list--preceded even by perfume! Above all, I was disappointed/shocked because the sample was way better (creamy, moisturizing, fragrant, the whole shebang!). Maybe mine was a dud? 

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Palty Nama Caramel Latte

I was applying for a job a few weeks ago, but say whaaaaatttt, they required a photo with my resume! I’ll elaborate more on that in another post, but long story short, I reluctantly surrendered my bleached locks for a more socially-accepted brown.  Today I will be sharing my results with the Palty dye that I'd used. It actually didn’t turn out as planned…



Please be forewarned: herein you shall see more pictures of my homey sans-makeup look, complete with unwashed and messy hair! Please don’t judge meee~~


Without further ado, here is the Palty Nama Caramel Latte hair dye! I got mine at HanKook Supermarket for $10.99.
Result swatches from the back of the box:


Hair dye mix and hair comb applicator:


Instructions (in Japanese), conditioner, and plastic gloves:


Scent: There is definitely a bleach scent, but not at all unbearable.

Irritation: It itched my scalp towards the end of 30 minutes. The bit that I got on my neck was quite irritating within 10 minutes.

Consistency: I found it to be a bit runnier than the Palty bleach and L’oreal dye that I had used before. I didn't expect it to be so drippy, so I accidentally flung a bunch on my mirror! Oopsie~~


Bottle Amount: I have chest-length hair, but because it was runny I was able to cover all my hair with just one box. It was a thin layer though, so I used another half-box to thicken the coverage.

I should note that I have notably thinner and less hair compared to most Asians, although it’s still more and thicker than many Caucasians' that I’ve met. I hope that didn't sound racist, I didn't mean it that way!

Quick Intro About My Hair History:
Before I show you the results, I thought I’d explain a bit about what my before hair was like: For the past 1.5years I have been using Palty Hard Gold Bleach to bleach my hair myself. Each time it came out a little uneven (nothing wrong with a little dimension in your hair color! ><) After a few cycles of bleaching, I acquired several shades of blonde within my hair. It'll be interesting to simultaneously see results for multiple shades! :D

(All these pictures were taken under natural lighting. I tried to pick the most accurate ones, but because of the light reflection off my hair, there's still a bit of discrepancy. Hopefully there are enough photos that you can get the gist of it!)



(This is the most accurate picture of my overall hair color.)

Overall: Overall, I'd say my hair now looks like a caramel brown with streaks of dirty-blonde going through my short layers. Here is a picture of my whole head from above:

Since my hair color was uneven to begin with, there is a lot of variation in the results after dyeing! Let's take a closer look at each part:

Roots: It did a great job lightening my dark roots to a very nice light brown color! Quite like the box swatch!

Under brighter lighting, it looks like a light caramel-brown. In indoor/dimmer lighting, it looks more like dark chocolate brown:

Short Layers: My short layers were the parts I had bleached the most, so they were the lightest. Before, they were a brassy gold and now they are dirty blonde (for the most part). Ultimately, I wouldn't say my blonde got much darker persay; but in hindsight, the dye did remove a lot of the brassiness. The actual shade varies slightly with lighting; sometimes it looks more golden and other times it looks a bit grey-ish:



Long Layers: It may be hard to tell in the Before picture, but my longer layers were originally an orangey-brown. Now they are light brown, with a slight a touch of orange:

In the next picture, you can compare how it shows up in sunlight and in dimmer lighting (under the shadow of my forearm):

Here, the arrow points at the color that is most accurate of how my ends look in real life. Again, it's a light brown with a slight orange-ish undertone:

In conclusion, this dye did a great job lightening my dark roots to a nice medium brown, but it did little to darken my bleached blonde hair, except reducing the brassiness. 

Damage: Did you notice how messy my and unhealthy my hair looked in the after photos? They were taken the day after. Even though I had conditioned, my hair was sooo unbelievably brittle, dry, and knotted!! It was so bad that I just left my hair alone (hence the messiness). I'm assuming it was from the dye, since I did nothing different. Thankfully, after a few days of conditioning my hair went back to normal, but I do have split ends now... 

Hope that helped! Thanks for reading!

Question: What Palty dyes have you tried? How were the darkening/lightening abilities?
I might have to dye my hair again...Any recommendations on a nice dark brown color? ^.^ 

Friday, January 20, 2012

Korean TV to the Rescue! Butterfly Hair Bow Tutorial

So I don’t know about you, but I suck at doing hair. I’ve always wanted to try a hair bow, but all the tutorials I watched seemed to require a lot of skill—not to mention patience, hair, and bobby pins—that I just did not have, so I gave up.

But I was watching Korean TV the other day and I stumbled across this super cute and SIMPLE hairstyle that I had to share! They called it “Butterfly Hair”. It’s a much more petite and subtle version of a hair bow, and I’d imagine it would look super adorable with the ulzzang look!

Best of all, you don’t need a single bobby pin! Just one single hair tie! Check it out:


Oh hey, did you notice my little nose drip? 
Photobucket
How unladylike of me, teehee. It's Oppa's fault for getting me sick (again)!

Anyways, continuing on...I've split up each step into several sub-steps; but really, once you get the hang of it, it’s just 3 simple motions:

(Please excuse my unattractive roots. I'm procrastinating.)


There, that wasn't too bad right? With some final touches and a bit of hairspray, this was my result!

Now a few words of precaution (i.e., learn from my mistakes): Again, try to use an inconspicuous hair tie. Also, I wouldn’t recommend this hairstyle if you have dark roots like me. Why? Because from the back, the contrast between brassy split ends, dark roots, and an obvious hair tie isn’t exactly kawaii:

Other than that though, I think it's super cute, easy, and convenient! It doesn't require a lot of hair, a lot of bobby pins, or a lot of skill. If I can do it so can you!

Sangyu for reading! I hope you enjoyed this unique approach to hair bows as much as I did. If you do try it, or have any questions, let me know~ ^^

Monday, September 26, 2011

Weekend Thoughts

It's getting chillier by the day, which means...Autumn is coming, yayyy!!! ‘Tis my favoritest season ever! I loooveeee the overcast weather and cool breezes~~ My ultimate favorite thing about cold weather is when you bundle up and go outside: if your face is exposed, the chilliness freezes your cheeks up, but underneath, the rest of your body is still toasty warm! This way, you get to sample the refreshing cool breezes without actually suffering the bitter coldness! Ah, it's the best~

Anyways, it was Oppa's birthday today! But since we couldn’t wait, we already had our simple/frugal festivities on Friday. My birthday is next week, so we got ourselves a gift to share: Kirby's Epic Yarn!
This game is SO cute! The fabric effect makes everything so adorable, it makes me want to turn into yarn toooo...Ah, playing this game is constant eye-candy indeed! 
Just a random screenshot to show you how cute this game is!
Anyways, today was DIY hair makeover for me and Oppa! I cut his, he bleached mine.
His hair grows so so fast (why do guys hair always grow so enviously fast?) but since he hides in lab all day he doesn't want to pay for haircuts...which leaves me to the task! Normally I do a decent job, but today he was rushing me so he could return to his MC Yoo shows! Nonetheless, the outcome was cute…. like a little boy with a bad haircut kind of cute:



But I guess he was happy.


He patted his head and decided, “I think this is your best haircut so far!”
Then he looked in the mirror. "Hey!! I look so cute right? Like the little things that squirrels like!"
"You mean acorns?"
"Yeah! It looks like an acorn!"
-.- An...acorn? 

Actually, I see what he means. 


Oh well! He bleached mine right after, but I'll save that for another post. Baibai!