so last year, i jumped on the ombre bandwagon. mind you, i was too poor to spend $300+ (seriously, wtf) at a salon, when i wasn’t even sure what results i would get. and, i’ve heard horror stories from friends spending 6+ hours in a salon, spending $400+, and not loving their ombre.

so i did what i normally do in these situations.

DIY.

now, i’m by no means a hairdresser, so you probably shouldn’t take what i’m saying too seriously because i have no idea if it works for everyone, but hey…it worked for me. and really, ombre is supposed to look kinda messy, grown out root-ish, so i just went with it. my biggest caveat is this: if you have haircolor already in your hair, i don’t know what this could potentially do. i’ve only done this on “virgin” hair.

last week my friend lauren over at can i eat that? was in a ombre kind of mood, so i said lets do it (plus i had never taken photos of mine). so we went from this

to this:

(my apologies for the poor pics, i’ve never claimed to be a photographer…)

ok. are you ready now? go.

how to do it yourself ombre in 5 steps:

1. google that shit

2. stop freaking out

3. apply hair bleach on hair

4. rinse, blowdry, repeat on lower half of previously bleached hair

5. repeat for any spot fixes and/or rock it

step one: google is your best friend

i googled diy ombre for weeks, found some girls who had done it, posted their methods, materials, and best of all…showed that it actually worked. i followed llymlrs and zoella’s steps personally, but it looks like there are more options posted now then when i did it first a year ago.

step two: get over your fear

i waited for weeks because i was so scared of f’ing up my hair. i kept searching on line for more tutorials (and a part of me was waiting to see if a horror “oh no my hair fell out” ombre diy story popped up….to this day, still haven’t seen one)

it basically came down to this. i was bored with my hair, i hadn’t cut or colored it in a long time (4+years no highlights/color), and i have a lot of it. i ultimately told myself that “its just hair, it will grow back” and decided to go for it. and now after doing it a few times, i can tell you that it is really hard to mess up. and in the event that you do…it can be fixed.

step three:

get materials (we used two boxes of this) and followed the directions the other girls here and here (bonus! video!) did. seperate hair into two parts in front of you and start at the bottom. (wear old shirt and towels you don’t mind ruining…bleach will eat through it) (lauren also had the genius idea of covering her chair back with a plastic bag since our first go round kept getting bleach on her chair…so i recommend doing it)

start at the tips and saturate the hair with the highlighting creme. i did about an inch and then started pushing it up the hair. i repeated this step a few times, till i had the bottom 5-6” of hair covered.

very carefully pull a few pieces out of each section and especially near face and put more highlighting creme on the strands all the way up to ear level. twisting the piece and then pushing the creme upwards will help you blend the bleach.

let sit for 30 mins, but check to see what your hair starts doing after 20. you may even need to leave on for up to 40 mins, but keep in mind, the goal of this round isn’t to bleach out your hair completely, its to start a gradual base where your hair starts to lighten. 

step 4:

wash out in tub (don’t fully shower, just wash the ends and pieces that have bleach in it, because you then have to blow dry your hair and it’s a bitch to start with completely wet hair again)

once hair is dry, you’re probably going to start freaking out (lauren didn’t…she was pretty much jumping up and down)

now is a good time to asses what you did. if there are any lines in your hair, you’ll know where to trouble shoot (just push more bleach up from those sections). you’ll also be able to see how much the hair has lightened and it will be a good indication of how much lighter you want to go. 

repeat full bleach proccess on the lower half of what you previously bleached. wrap that lower half in tin foil. then start pulling strands and pushing the bleach up higher than you had previously done. 

wait another 30 mins or so. wash and dry.

step five:

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rock it.

for upkeep, grab yourself some purple shampoo and conditioner to help from going brassy. if your hair still is too brassy after a few days, i’ve used this to help and it worked. 

i kept my ombre for close to 6 months, then dyed my hair back to brown for a bit. the brown has now started to fade, so i’m getting a lighter verson of an ombre that i’m digging. 

good luck and good hair peeps.