Any other credit crunch brunettes out there? I've gone back to my roots and it feels great!

[Dragonbutter]

I finally admitted I can't afford to keep getting my blonde highlights done at the salon and bought a chestnut brown colouring kit.
DH did it for me and it was a bit of a giggle and i'm pleased with the results.

Anyone else?

I refuse to be credit crunch grey, I need roots and highlights/lowlights, every six weeks,I will cut back and cut back until theres nothing left and then I will starve if need be, I can't live with two inch grey/white stripe on my head, I don't want to look like a skunk

I have not done this yet but have always been economical with my hair in that I have a mobile hairdresser. Every 6 weeks it costs me £20 to have blonde highlights or lowlights, trim, blowdry, DS's hair clippered back and sides and trimmed on top, and DD's ends trimmed. However this time for the same money I also got a total restyle from half way down my back to a sort of choppy bob. So should hopefully save a bit on the electricity required to dry all that hair.

I did this four and a half years ago when I was pregnant and had given up work and had to drastically reduce my spending on frivolities as well as having a seriously back-to-nature moment.

Best move I ever made . But I am still quite blonde.

ive always been a scruffy hippy...but i have got blond/pink hi-lights.... just can't give them up....

I did this recently when we moved house as the hairdressers here as sooooo expensive. No way that I can afford to spend over 150quid every 6-8 weeks. And I don't have the time as the kids now come home at lunchtime.

Was a bit at first as the colour was a bit reddish, but it has died down a bit. I used the Loreal recital stuff too.

Just need to find a salon to give me a decent cut now, I am very unhappy with that at the moment.

I am using body art quality henna on my hair because I was worried about what all the chemicals in commercial hair dyes were doing to my hair.

I'm pleased with the results although it is a messy process to apply!

You can find out a lot more about it here:

www.hennaforhair.com/

I love to look at peoples before and after pictures o he mixes page.

i think i'm going to try and get a dry cut done as i just need my fringe done and they always dry it before they cut it anyway.

unfortunately the way my brain works i think well i've saved £70 on my hair, i can buy a new pair of shoes instead.
am resisting so far.

Lol, Dragon. I am justifying getting a cleaner with my savings.

Oooh, might try that henna - love the coppery colour. I used to dye my own hair all the time (and every colour) but then I grew it longer and home dye was a bit hit and miss. Am shorter again now, so should really go back to it.

Am mousey blonde/brown and would have to be a lot more skint before I'd stop having my highlights. I've gone for a darker blonde so they only need doing every 3 months now, as the regrowth hardly shows, so at least I'm not forking out every 8 weeks like I was before (it was ruining my hair too).

My hair is baby fine and dead straight, cut in a choppy crop - I find that the colour helps give it a tiny bit of body so am loathe to cut it out completely.

Another one here who's gone more natural... Last time I went in for highlights I got them to take my hair back to it's natural colour. It's growing in without roots now - I'll need to do something about the greys though. They are multiple stray ones at the moment rather than the whole head but they do show up on my brunette hair whereas they were more hidden in the highlights.

I am using Herbal Essences colour. I was a Nice n Easy devotee for years but as I have got greyer, I find that the colour goes dull very quickly. HE keeps the shine a bit longer.

Blonde highlights can be very aging.

Lol at the shoes Dragon!
I'm so like that too

I've been using a colour at home kit for ages - I have fine hair and it gives it a bit of woomph - also I have this weird Mortitia Adams / Cruella type white forelock and like to keep it camouflaged.

I use a semi perm and it fades out over time. I colour the grey bit 'blonde 10', and it comes out light brown? doesn't look too odd I think!

I have to get my hair cut well, so I go to a local salon and get the best stylist there. I go every 6 months or so costs me 55 euros, plus tips. I have longer than shoulder length hair and find that for about two months before I get it cut I wear it up in a clip.

But keeping your hair too dark can be aging too. Your skin gets paler as you get older, and even if you were very dark naturally at twenty if you still have that colour at forty, you will look like Siouxsie Sioux.

Chocolateteapot - do a patch test first - you don't want to have your hair ending up looking like Ditchwater Sal's from the film Stardust here. Yikes!

I agree. The thing is, trying to keep the colour of your youth (either through blonde highlighting or dying your hair to your 20something natural brunette) doesn't work. Just as piling on make-up to look pink-cheeked doesn't work either.

Hair and make-up need to be done differently as time goes by. Which is where "going back to natural" can help - because you rethink your look and colours from a "bare" starting point.

I am surrounded in these parts of Paris by Desperate Housewives bit-part lookalikes . I want to take them and scrub all the hair colour and make-up off, and tell them to gain 5kg and put some clothes on. Grrrrr. No point trying to look 18 when you are 48.

Anna you talk sense.

I couln't go grey yet though .

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I have a few grey hairs on my temples and I quite like them . I have totally natural hair colour, a very expensive cut (but this is of course much cheaper than colour as I only have it done 4x a year) and I wash and condition and blow dry every morning. J'assume

the condition feels lovely christiana, the kit comes with a conditioner to use once a week for 6 weeks.
i'm no expert on this by any means, this really is the first time i've dyed my own hair and i have no idea how it will fade or what the roots will be like.
i'm just hoping that the colour is close enough to my natural colour that i wont have to dye it again for a long time.

it said on the box it would cover grey hair well too.

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i don't know. do a search for it, i'm sure it's been discussed before.

me too! The hassle of highlights had put me off going for so long that last time I went to asked them to dye it browny red. So from now on I will do it myself. Saving a shitload of money and time. It was quite exciting too, instead of spending £100 and no one noticing, i spent £60 and everyone noticed.

My sister's tip for blonde hair is to buy proffessional hairdye and use that. She says the colour is much better. You have to buy in bulk but she says it's worth it. She goes to a place in Dulwich. In anyone is intrested I will get more details from her.

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