Green In The Gloom

I wanted to try and take some pictures to show my make-up, but all the pictures close enough to show it came out awful. Even in these, it just looks like splotches and all the details of the leaves are lost. I've actually got black and silver gilt leaves all on one side! As such I decided I would rather showcase that my hair has recently been dyed again and is now a green ombre effect, darker at the bottom. This photograph was taken in my new study, which is mostly lit with purple string lights (spiders, five-pointed stars, fiery swirls, bats...) and is purple and black with greyscale Gothic architecture wallpaper. It is not quite finished yet, but I hope to do a room tour video when it is. 

Selfies by the HouseCat

These photos have been subjected to filters and editing. I tried not to get too carried away - mostly just made things lighter and brighter and tweaked the colours a bit. Some of them have been subjected to a soft-focus effect in order to attempt looking prettier and more ghostly.. I am not good at this creative editing thing! 

Selfies by the HouseCat

The bat necklace is by Alchemy Gothic, and I think the winged skeleton pendant is too. I wish I had my selfie booth ready so I could have taken some pictures of today's outfit because it is rather Morticia Addams-esque, with a black wiggle skirt and a top with long bell sleeves, both in black velvet. The selfie booth is going to go into that recess visible behind where I'm sitting in these selfies, but as you can see currently lacks proper lighting. I first need to get the shelves above my desk sorted, and then mount lights onto those, angled into the corner... SO much to do! Thankfully Raven has put in a considerable amount of work into helping me with my study and the decorating and I am eternally grateful. 

Selfies by the HouseCat

I think these photographs are probably the worst for filter abuse, especially the one on the left! I was trying to look all spectral and 'spooky'... I probably shouldn't try so hard! I get quite self-conscious and perfectionist trying to get good selfies - I end up taking a whole load trying to get a small selection of really good ones, then end up disliking most of them, not being able to pick one that really stands out of the mainly mediocre ones that aren't blurry or really awful, and then collating them all into a collage because then they're tiny and it is harder to see the flaws. I'm torn between my vanity in trying to appear pretty (and find SOMETHING to fill my blog with in lieu of properly written content); and my lack of photographic ability. 

I don't smile much in photographs because even if I'm genuinely happy, it looks either goofy or fake (plus I have bad teeth, even after orthodontics) and then when I try to look serious, I either look angry or miserable. 

Gradient Green Hair

This time, on updating my green dye (it fades after a month or two, and the roots start to really show), I decided to do something different. 

I usually use a combination of Stargazer UV Green or African Green for the highlights and Stargazer UV Turquoise or Tropical Green for the lowlights, and thus get green hair with some dimension to it. This time, I decided to do something a lot more dramatic and give myself gradient hair. I've heard gradient hair called "ombre" but I'm pretty sure that only applies to where you've bleached the lower half of your hair and then maybe applied colour over that - a bit like how my hair dye goes after really growing it out! 

This was done by bleaching out my roots first. I hate trying to bleach my roots as they never quite bleach as pale as the neighbouring pre-bleached hair because it's almost impossible to not get bleach on the neighbouring sections, so the already-bleached hair becomes double-bleached, and the roots only once bleached, and then it still doesn't quite match... argh. I am generally not the best at bleaching my own hair. I have to bleach all my hair twice to get it from nearly black to blonde, too, so the second time I have to try and be extra-careful not to re-bleach what was bleached the previous time, because otherwise my hair will get all brittle at that point and is liable to snap, and while I quite like my hair short, an inch and a half long is shorter than I'm prepared to have right now. Sometimes this means I get a narrow stripe of slightly darker hair where I've strayed too far from the previously bleached hair and only double-bleached parts of my roots. If anyone knows how to make this an easier and less frustrating process, I'd LOVE the advice! 

(As long as the advice isn't "go to a hairdresser's salon" because I can't, due to aerosol allergies and cost issues.)

Once all my hair was as blonde as it was going to get, and I'd done my very best to not frazzle it, I started applying the dye. I love Stargazer because it's very cheap and very vibrant and stays quite vibrant for a while, and I used the UV Green for the top section. One of my friends suggested mixing conditioner in with my hair-dye to get softer hair and to help it after bleaching, so I did that, and combed a mixture of UV Green dye and conditioner down about four inches from my roots. The next section was a mixture of UV Green and UV Turquoise and conditioner, down another couple inches, and then UV Turquoise and conditioner for the rest down to the tips. Once I had washed out all the stargazer dye and conditioner, and dried my hair, I put another coat of UV Green over my roots for an extra vibrant neon green, and then got some Renbow Crazy Colour in Pine Green and rubbed it on the very tips of my hair. 

Of course, I can't have this for work, really. As I have had two weeks off from work on holiday, and this week coming is the Halloween week, and work are being quite permissive in the run up to Halloween (I work at a school, so they really get into the Halloween spirit for the children), it can stay until the weekend. After that, I am using up the remaining Pine Green and having dark green hair, but for now, I get to enjoy my fabulously bright gradient hair. At sunset, it literally glows in the UV twilight.