Washing powder and lemon juice.

Self grooming and appearance is something we all have views on. Some *say* that they’re not bothered about it and I can see their sentiment. Yes personality is more important but theres still something about making an effort that make you feel good.

The importance of what you look like pretty much determines your social status once you hit secondary school and if you didn’t ‘do’ you were pretty much a tramp.

But who teaches you these things? My family was never really beauty conscious and I’d never really met any of my friends parents so we pretty much relied on teen mags and ta dahhh Google!!!

So we learnt the art of plucking eyebrows, shaving legs, painting nails and the art of blow drying properly by reading and testing it out on each other with a determination to precision (of which of it could be bottled and sold would make a fortune) and we all pretty much got the hang of it.

Needless to say, we all have our favourite areas to focus on, some their tans, some their make up and other their hair. My favourite to faff with was my hair. (As a disclaimer: I do not mean into any kind of style or cut I purely mean colour.) I love blonde hair, pink hair, black hair and every colour hair. However, I get bored really easy and can never afford to have it professionally done, besides there is something comforting about the stench of peroxide, the achievement of DIY and looking back at the mismatch of the colour patchwork on the hair towel built up over the last 11 years.

The first time I dyed my hair I was about 12 years old and went from platinum blonde to ‘electric pink’ which my mom did for me whilst sitting in the garden, and ever since I have been every colour since. (When asked at a much later date why on earth she did it, my moms reply was simply: if I didn’t you would have.)

There had only been one time in the last 11 years when I have had my natural colour through, and that was after cutting my hair really short (grade 2) twice so I could finally go bleach blonde and not have to worry about two tone ginger bits!

I rocked the blonde for about 9 months (the longest I have ever been one colour) until I got bored again, booked and appointment at the college hairdressers to go ginger (yes I do embrace the ginger as and when it suits) which I loved. I was actually in love with this colour but alas I was told it was permanent, but exactly 4 washes later and it was virtually gone.

So now I have decided to go back to my natural blondey brown hair but I don’t want to cut all my hair off again, so what to do? Obviously the only thing to do is turn to google. It is shocking how many people claim to be experts and the advice ranged from ‘get over it’ to ‘mix bleach and vinegar’ neither of these seemed suitable so I decided to go with a mixture of washing powder and lemon juice mixed into a paste and left on for a minimum of two hours. Yes I questioned my sanity and did say a quick prayer that all my hair didn’t fall out. But it worked my hair is lighter and back to blonde in some places.

So the moral of the story is do not me afraid to try, and yes advice might be a bit bizarre but there will e some one that knows.