Monday 6 September 2010

Review: Schwarzkopf Country Colours

Yesterday I died my hair using Schwarzkopf Country Colours. It's a temporary colourant that can last 'up to 8 weeks'. I used shade no. 58 - Grand Caynon which is Red. I got if from Savers and as far as I can remember it was either £1.99 or £2.99. My box looked like this...


...but I think that's old packaging and the product now looks like this...


I use a lot of hair dye and in the past, my go-to for temporary colour is Boots' own brand but they stopped doing a red shade years ago. In fact, I spent a long time looking for a semi-permanent red in all of the high street stores and the only ones I found were over £5 which is a lot to spend on a DIY colour that, on my porous hair, will only last about 3 weeks.

The Kit
The gloves are old-school - like the ones you get at the petrol station. Many dyes now come with much better fitting gloves but this wasn't a problem.
The colour was orange in the bottle but as always, that's no indicator of how it will turn out - it was just a bit off-putting.
It comes with 22.5ml of conditioner which is a lot, but unfortunately it's in a tube with no way of resealing so you either have to use what you want and throw it away or keep it for later with the risk of spilling it everywhere.

The Process
This dye has to be applied to wet hair. Not after washing - you are just supposed to wet your hair before using this dye. This was strange to me since most hair dyes I use have to be applied to dry hair.

The instructions say processing time is between 20-30 minutes depending on how intense you want the results to be. This seems a lot for a semi-permanent dye.
My hair is just longer than shoulder-length and there was more than enough of the product to cover my hair. It advises using two boxes if your hair is below the shoulder but I think you would only need two if you have very long hair.

The Result
I left it on my hair for the full 30 because, in my experience, colours need longer to take to my hair and the result is indeed very intense considering I had brown hair to start with.
My hair feels amazingly soft but it's not very shiny.

I really liked this product and it would now be my first choice for semi-permanent dye. I liked that there was plenty of product because in the past with other brands, when I had longer hair, I'd have to spread the product really thin or buy two boxes.
The range of shades available is also great, as is the price. I'll be using this one again in the future.

Sunday 5 September 2010

More Primark Bargains



More stuff from Primark:
Marvel T-Shirt - from the mens section. Originally purchased for my brother but I like it and he doesn't!!

Wayfarer rip-offs. Reduced to 50p and they matched my outfit - these are actually the first pair of white sunglasses I've bought this year. I also have these in black.

Flower hair slides. Recently I've been wearing my hair up and I wanted something to jazz it up a bit so these will be great for sticking in for a bit of flair.

I'll try not to post so much shopping. I just love buying stuff!

Thursday 2 September 2010

Ikea Trip!! Shall I buy a Helmer?!

I went to Ikea yesterday with one of my House mates for this year! We were just browsing to get some ideas for decorating our house and went to the cafe too for some of the famous, yummy yummy, Swedish meatballs.




The best part of any Ikea trip - the meatballs and chips. Mmmmm.
With my Ikea family card, I got the meal for £1.50 - such a bargain. I don't know if it's a nationwide offer or just in Cardiff but it's available Monday to Friday 3-6pm.




I bought an absolutely deeelicious smelling candle. It's called a Tindra and I bought the medium sized one but you can also buy them as tealights or huge ones. 
This is the nicest smelling candle I've ever had the pleasure of sniffing! I was holding it up to my nose most of the way round the store. There are no flavour names, but the picture on the label was of a selection of berries. So next time you go to Ikea, pleeease give it a sniff!




And finally - the first Helmer I ever laid my eyes on! Every time we turned a corner, I was immediately scanning the area for the Helmers.
I've wanted one for ages to house my ever expanding nail polish collection but there's no room for it in my bedroom at home. I have a bigger bedroom in the house I'll be living in this year so I think it's inevitable I'll end up with one.
It's bigger than I was expecting and my polishes won't quite fill it up which is a good thing because I also need somewhere to store my similarly growing collection of make-up.

The only dilemma is, which colour shall I get? Red, White or Silver? It's a tricky decision since whichever one I get will clash with the colours in my room.

Have you tried Ikea meatballs? Do you love them as much as me or are they not for you?