How to Care for Color Treated Hair

Almost every woman I know, even some men, have colored their hair at some point in time. Whether you are trying to enhance your natural God given color,( most women have no idea what that is :), cover gray or have highlights, there are definitely tips to help prevent fading and help keep your color looking fresh until your next appointment. Not to mention, keeping your money from going down the drain!

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• If possible, wait at least 48-72 hours to shampoo your hair after having your color done.

• Only use sulfate free shampoos and conditioners on your hair. Sulfates are detergents to help create lather in shampoos. Sulfates remove color molecules right out of the hair shaft which results in fading.

• Do not use super hot water on your hair. This causes the cuticle to swell and all your color will go down the drain. Literally.

• Condition your hair with a conditioner made for your hair type...this applies to fine hair too. If you fall into the" fine hair" category and are nervous that your hair will fall limp, only apply to your ends and not at the scalp. After conditioning, rinse your hair in a cooler water temperature. This helps close the cuticle which promotes shine and reduces fading.

• If you color your hair red, auburn, chestnut, copper, strawberry, anything that could be in the "red, orange or violet" family, try to go a couple days between shampooing. Same goes for resistant gray or gray hair that fades quickly.

• Try using hair powder or a dry shampoo to help absorb excess oils and add volume to your hair instead of shampooing everyday. 

• You can rinse and use a conditioner on your hair, but try to limit shampooing to every other day.

•  When shampooing, keep the shampoo off your ends. Your scalp is what needs to be cleaned, not the ends of your hair, unless you have product build up.

• If you have any color on your hair, DO NOT use a clarifying shampoo. This will strip the color out of your hair. If you must use a clarifying shampoo, make sure to do so closer to your next color appointment.

• If your hair is over-processed, damaged or breaking, ask your colorist about re-constructive treatments. Most professionals will have a line or products designated to help rebuild and reconstruct the hair shaft, which will minimize breakage.

•  After shampooing and conditioning, spray Seal liberally all over the hair. Seal is a SEVEN product that helps seal in moisture, (hence the name :), and closes the cuticle to reduce fading.

• In the spring and summer keep sun exposure to a minimum. Ultra violet light is a killer for colored hair.

• If you love to swim, try to keep your hair from absorbing chlorine by wetting your hair down before entering the pool. 

Happy Coloring!!!

I think I'm in love!

I would like to be adopted by Ree Drummond, so I can go and live on her ranch and she can cook for me. Ree writes a fabulous cooking blog called The Pioneer Woman and the pictures that she posts of the food that she cooks are TO DIE FOR!

Check these out:

Layered Salad

Raspberry Crisp

Gazpacho

Crash hot potatoes

And you know what's even more amazing!?! Her tutorials are THE BEST. She takes you step by itty bitty step, with photos, through every recipe that she posts. Fantastic!

By the way, when I said that Ree writes a cooking blog, I lied.

She writes a blog with several different sub-blogs; one of which is about cooking. She also writes about photography, homeschooling, her life...

Take my word for it, you must visit Ree's blog. You could get lost in there for days!

Here's another food photo, just in case you're not yet convinced!

Fudgy brownie cookies

Well, what do you know? - A book review!

Some of you may recall that I received Specials by Scott Westerfeld for my birthday. Here's the pic to prove it:

Well, I've read it, and I'm sure that you're dying to know what I thought of it!

Firstly, you should know that Specials is the third book of a trilogy. The first is Uglies (you can read my thoughts here) and the second is Pretties (review here).

As Specials opens, we find out that Tally has been subjected to an operation without her consent to turn her into an agent of 'Special Circumstances', the military officers of her city. Gone is her pretty face and body, having been replaced with cruel, sharp features and weapon-like physiology.

Tally's mind has been tampered with too; her senses have been sharpened and she sees everything with absolute clarity. Now she realises that 'specials' like her are the only thing standing between her city and anarchy. The citizens need her and her fellow 'Cutters' to keep them safe, secure, and under control. In effect, Tally has become everything that she used to fight against.

I highly recommend this series to teens, both boys and girls, from ages 10 - 15, depending on maturity. Westerfeld has managed to address tricky themes while maintaining an authentic teenage viewpoint, telling the stories through Tally's 16-year-old eyes.

For me, I enjoyed the books, but liked the first one (Uglies) best, and each sequel a little bit less. I'm not sure that Westerfeld really had much more to say after Uglies, in terms of the issues that he was exploring. While the plot resolved nicely, I would have appreciated a deeper look at the issues of individuality, freedom of thought, and the balance of individual freedoms with the good of the whole that he introduced.

I think these books are a good conversation starter; a beginning point. I hope that my kids will read and enjoy them. I think that they could be used successfully in the classroom, and that they'd be an excellent addition to a school or class library.

The Big Day/Night Part 1

freestyle THEORY

Yesterday and last night were amazing and a HUGE success!!! I'm pretty sure this was our best show yet. The Creative Team was definitely on it's "A" game and it showed :)

We started around 11am at Bellevue SEVEN for our 8pm show. Lots of work and planning go into these shows. It is almost like planing a wedding. Months of meetings and going over every detail...only to be over in 30 minutes once it starts. And like most weddings, it's always worth it in the end.

All the models were wonderful to work with. Without boring you to tears on all the details, we had 30 models all together. 10 of which are non-professional and 10 of which are professional. All that means is that the 10 pros have runway experience and they are signed with the agency TCM. We also had 5 male models and 5 pedestal models.

The pedestal models are one of my favorites to work on because they get over the top creative hair. Each of the girl's hair represented a city:  

Seattle, London, New York, Tokyo and Paris.

Richard working on the London look

Dani receiving the Paris look

Yuriko for Tokyo

Getting hair prepared for Jade

Evan curling wefts

                              

Evan working on braids for the Seattle look

Masumi and Evan prepping hair wefts

Noah creating the "I love NY" heart on Jade

While the Pedestal models were getting their BIG do's...the 10 non pro models were getting their hair cut and colored. They either represented Tokyo or London down the runway.

Color time

Antonio and Richard at work

Processing color

Jodi being a trooper

Tony working his magic

Nicole

Here are some of the final looks before show time

Yuriko proudly representing Tokyo

Nicole working London

Me with Yuriko and Jeana

The London and Tokyo Models dressed and ready to go!

The entire day ran pretty smoothly. We did have 1 model that came down with a stomach bug, but we saved face and our very own Masumi filled in and walked the runway. A special thank you to Masumi for being the ultimate team player! :)

More runway and backstage shots later...

Making life better

I love a bit of personal development, self-help, whatever-you-want-to-call-it. I'm always looking for ways to make my life more meaningful. Underneath my random exterior beats the heart of a deep thinker!

Sarah Wilson writes for one of the Sunday papers, and blogs too. The purpose of her column, and blog, is to document her journey to make life "better, sweeter, bigger, more meaningful, nicer, smarter, heartier". Sounds good to me.

I love this post, in which Sarah tries out the Pomodoro technique. Never heard of it? Well then, click on the link and find out what it is!

(Picture from Sarah's post on the Pomodoro technique.)

Sally McGraw's already pretty blog is awesome because Sally combines fabulous fashion with thought-provoking articles about body image, not to mention fantastic "how to" articles for those of us that love fashion in theory, but struggle with it in practice!

Check out this post, in which she challenges the idea that you can't dress a certain way because you have the wrong body shape, no money to shop for clothes, or are simply too scared to dress the way you really want to! Awesome!

And I love Sally's "daily outfit" pics. Here's one:

While we're on the subject, Julie Parker's blog Beautiful You is a wonderful source of inspiration for all things positive to do with self-esteem and body image.

In this post, Julie explains that she is giving up gossip as part of the inner mean girl cleanse!

At the moment, I'm reading a book called The Element, which is about finding that place where your passions and your abilities meet to create your optimal zone for purpose and enjoyment in life. I've been reading it in very small increments, due to amount of uni-related reading that I've been ploughing through, but I'll be sure to let you know what I've learnt from it when I've finished.

In the mean time, may you enjoy and appreciate all the great moments in your life. And me, mine.

Almost Show Time!!!

It's the night before the big show!!! And, I have to say, I am so excited beyond words! Everything that can be done is ready to go! Just have to load up the car with all my peeps and hair and we will be off to have the night of our lives!!! Wish us luck! I'll be posting behind the scene pics on Monday!!!

Now it's time to get my toes under control so I can walk the runway with "perty" feet. Yes, I'm southern :)

See you all tomorrow  night!!!  ;)

Quote of the Day!

Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things. - Denis Diderot, 1713-1784

Have a great day!!!

Feel Good Friday - The Shopping Edition

Yes folks, it's upon us again - Friday (hooray!).

This week it was my birthday, and my mum and dad were kind enough to give me a generous gift of some money to buy myself something nice.

I went shopping on Wednesday, and this is what I got:

One lovely new top for spring. The photo doesn't quite capture the colour, which is a vibrant fuchsia.

 One delightful new skirt for spring.

I was going to add a photo showing you how lovely the skirt and top look together, but Blogger is being a bit difficult about uploading photos, so you'll just have to imagine it :)

Now it's your turn.

1. Write a post on your blog titled "Feel Good Friday". Make it uplifting, or funny, or cute...basically anything that makes you (and hopefully your readers) feel good.

2. Make sure you mention my blog "a reader's random ramblings" somewhere in the post and include a link to my blog if you can. (I'm working on a button for future weeks, but for now you'll just have to copy and paste the URL.)

3. Use the Linky below to link your post to mine so that all my followers can visit your blog and read your Feel Good Friday post. Make sure you use the URL of your post, not just the home page of your blog.

4. Visit the other participants, read their posts, and FEEL GOOD!

Break Time

Mt. Baker

After working 10 hours today, I thought I should take a break from thinking and organizing our upcoming show on Sunday. This is the view that greeted me off my living room balcony...Begging to be in a picture. Mt. Baker in all it's glory!

My friend, Phil and I, scored tickets to the 1st play off game the other night while dining at a local Thai restaurant. Storm vs. Sparks. We struck up a conversation with the gentleman next to us. Steve Smith is his name and women's basketball is his game. Coach Smith, (the head assistant coach for the LA Sparks), left two tickets at will call for us, so we took him up on his offer. Thank you Coach Smith :)

We headed out the door just in time for the fire alarm to be going off somewhere in the building...

                                                                                                                                                             

Just a false alarm...Thank goodness.

Onto the Monorail where I got to play tourist in my own city.

Finally, game time and boy did Storm bring it!!!

Lauren Jackson

Beat LA!

Go LAUREN!!!!

 Sue Bird

The game was awesome! The Storm WON!!! Sorry Coach Smith but thanks for the tickets!!!

On the way back to the Monorail, I took some pics of the space needle. It just so happens to also be a full moon, so it made for some nice pictures.

Fabulous

Full moon by the space needle

 

 

                                                                                       

Now, after a great game and a beautiful evening...I'm off to bed to dream about hair ;)

Today I Heart...Cute Crafts

In reality, I'm a thinker rather than a doer. And I'm more of a "big picture" girl than one who fusses over details. So I'm not really a natural for pretty, cute crafts. But I love them!

In my imagination, I can whip up the sweetest cupcakes and the cleverest crafts and really enjoy doing it. In reality, I hate doing fiddly things and would not last more than half an hour on a craft project at any one time.

So when I feel the crafty urge, I head on over to oh my! handmade goodness for a fix.

Check out this amazing rainbow birthday cake made for a Wizard of Oz birthday party:

Article here.

Or the gorgeous necklace (15) featured in this post of Mother's day gift ideas:

There are sometimes even giveaways to enter, like this one to win notecards with matching lined envelopes - to die for!

If I ever REALLY  had the urge to make something, I could follow this helpful tutorial...

for making the cutest personalised notepads:

So, isn't it wonderful that I can experience craftiness vicariously via oh my! handmade goodness? Yes it is.

One of My Favorite Places

 Jackson St. headed toward the sound.

It is a gorgeous day today in Seattle! I have been running around and getting everything ready for our show on this Sunday the 29th! 

One of the places that I visit quite often in preparation for a show is 

Western Beauty Supply!

  Jackson and 23rd, Seattle, WA

They are such a great store and they have definitely seen a lot of me lately :)

This beauty supply has everything and more. If you ever need a wig, real hair, fake hair or hair accessories...Western Beauty Supply has it all!

Pins, rollers, nets...you name it, they have it.

Hair accessories from barrettes to toggles and boggles,

to all kinds of hair and colors.

Here is a sneak peak of some of the hair for two of our looks!

See you Sunday the 29th at 7pm for Zebra Club's and SEVEN's show for Bellevue Fashion Week at the Bellevue Hyatt...

"freestyle THEORY"

Tickets are available at both Zebra Club and SEVEN, Seattle and Bellevue