Life in Colour - 31: Breaking Up with Platinum Blonde

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

After 18 years as a platinum blonde, I finally made the call to go brunette. In this episode I'm talking through the why behind it, the how of actually doing it, and what it's been like navigating my own colour journey through the exact same lens I use with clients every day. I get into what actually prompted the change, why I'm taking the slow road toward a cool, ashy dimensional blonde rather than rushing it, and how understanding my own colours has shaped every decision along the way. It's been a strange thing, letting go of a look that's been "me" for almost two decades — even when I know it's the right call. If you've ever felt torn about changing something that's been part of your identity for a long time, I think you'll relate to this one.I'd love to know if this one resonates with you — send me a DM or email [e-mail], and if you're ready to go deeper, let's chat about a Virtual Colour Analysis, The Colour Collective, or The Style Reset.www.lovingcolour.au

Welcome to Life in Color, the podcast where we dive into the real, raw and wonderfully colorful aspects of life. I'm your host, Ashley, and I'm here to explore the ins and outs of seasonal color analysis, navigating motherhood, thriving in your 40s and beyond, and embracing health and wellness with a healthy dose of humor. Join me as we uncover the secrets behind finding your perfect palette, share stories of the joys and challenges of being a mom. And from practical tips to heartfelt conversations, life in color is your space to laugh, learn and live life. unapologetically in all of its colourful hues. So grab your favourite drink, settle in and let's add some colour to this adventure that we call Life in Colour.

Hi everyone, I hope you are well. For those of you that kids have returned to school holidays, I hope you're getting five minutes peace. For those of you that are like me still on school holidays, I hope you're having a nice time. And for those of you that don't do school holidays anymore, just enjoy, relax the peace and quiet. I do love school holidays, I have to say, even though it's amazing. how they've changed over the years.

And that is a totally different podcast episode to what I've come on to talk to you about today. I absolutely love school holidays, even though they look slightly different to when my kids were little. We don't seem to go out and do activities and everything as much. But it's really nice to spend some extra time with them, especially as I now have, like, one about to go into HSC, like he's about to go into year 12. And then I've got another one who is out and doing TAFE and in the big wide world.

So today we're actually going to talk about something that's more personal for but I think it's relevant for so many of you because I've had a lot of conversations in my DMs about it. And that is, for those of you that followed me on Instagram, you would have heard about this quite a bit already. Hair color and how hair color and color analysis works and how it can affect your confidence. Now, I did actually record a full episode of this back a few weeks ago because I started this process or deciding this process back in March and I started dyeing my hair darker in April and I've done three rounds. and I'm going to take you through why I decided to do that and where I'm at now. But I'm glad I'm re-recording it because, A, there's some things that I've learnt to do with my own hair colour in that time.

But secondly, there's a lot in there to do with confidence too and how our hair plays such a part in how we feel every single day and how the colour of our hair plays apart in every single day. So those of you that are out there that I know there are people in the camp of they're deciding to embrace their sparkles and their natural grays. and I also know there are people out there who still absolutely love dyeing their hair and they want to keep doing that. You do you. I am not about judgment. I am not about trends or anything either, but you know me. I just want everyone to be happy and doing what they do, but to feel great every single day. So to take you back to the start of my hair journey, I have been a blonde like I was a kid that was blonde and I was blonde like it went more of a sandy blonde, but I was a blonde right the way up until I was a blonde.

I was say mid to late teens and then puberty and hormones and me experimenting with, who remembers Sonin? Danny, you remember Sonin? For those of you that do, I have no doubt you will know that you experimented with putting lots of that in your hair trying to make it go blonder because I had gone darker. And it didn't necessarily work out in my favour. My mum then had to take me, this is when I lived in the Middle East. My mom took me to her hairdresser and she really bleached it.

It was like bleached blonde all over, but like that real goldeny yellowy kind of bleached blonde. And I remember saying to my mum, what are we going to do about this? Like, what's going to happen? I had to grow it out. I had to grow it out the painful way. It was not fun. But that's what I did. And then I, in my late teens, I would say I went red and I was a redhead for a really

long time up until like my mid-20s. And then I decided I actually wanted to go back blonde because I really miss being blonde. Now, the thing about being blonde is, as we all know, it's harsh on your hair. And I've had a number of iterations over the years where a lot of the time, and this is before I knew my colours and colour analysis, and before I say anything more, I'm just, I've been sneezing a lot today. I've taken a zirtec, but I've been sneezing a lot. But I really wanted to record this today.

I have decided I really want to be more consistent. And I'm just going to be so honest about this, that the realities of life and health and things get in the way and I love doing this podcast for you. It's one of my favorite things and it just fell away for a bit. And for the second half of the year, I have made a promise to myself that I will be showing up for all of you. So whether you hear me sneezing or sniffling, I really hope not. But if you do, then that's part of my commitment to show up and do these episodes for you. So going back to what I was saying. So in my 20s, then I decided I wanted to go back as more of a blonde, but I didn't know my colors back then and I didn't know that I was cool-toned and I always ended up that brassy,

yellowy gold. Yellow-gold blonde does not suit me. It doesn't do anything for me. It looks lovely on warm tones like that honey and all those kinds of goldeny kind of sunshiny blondes, no. And so it took me a while to figure out that I wanted more of like a cooler toned, creamy beige blonde, like a Scandinavian kind of blonde, but then finding someone who could actually do that for me and it stayed like that took a really, really long time.

So I have been blonde consistently, I would say, for the past 18 years, and I know that because it's my daughter's age. And when she was six months old, I went back to being a redhead because I was like, oh, blonde is such an upkeep. I've got a brand new baby. This will make my life much easier. Oh my gosh, I hated it. I hated it.

And so I think after six months, I was like, take it back, change it. and actually looking back they did, which probably wasn't the right thing. It was not blonde, blonde, but they definitely put more highlights and everything back in because I couldn't stand it. And so then I met my hairdresser that I've had now for the past nine years for a really long time. And one of the reasons I chose her was I first I found her. And she's amazing.

For those that are in Sydney, anyone who's getting married or you have like a wedding to attend or a special event, D-lush hair is your person. Like, she's amazing. And I met her first because that was when I was doing bridal makeup. For those that don't know, I'm a professional makeup artist. And I'm trained in that. And I was doing bridal makeup. And I wanted to do a photo shoot.

And so to do the photo shoot for bridal makeup for my website and Instagram and everything, I needed a hair artist. And so I found Dee because she's local to me. And she's renowned on Instagram. And she does the most beautiful hair. And then when I was going through her page, I saw that she actually was back then. She was a mobile hairdresser. And so I said, on her page, I said, I want that blonde.

And she was like, okay. And so that's what we did. And she is a phenomenal blonde specialist. Now, I've been blonde a lot. She's been with me through losing half of my hair over the last few years from stress events, stress events in particular. So obviously with perimenopause can affect your hair. but I had in 22, 23, I had three hair loss events where literally something happened in my life,

whether it was a child getting sick or some other personal things that happened. I started to lose hair within 24 hours and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Like nothing. And then that was when I tried some new vitamins and I found a new shampoo and that did stop the hair fall out. It did. but I carried on going being very blonde and all credit to D. She did say to me a few times, what are we doing? Do you want to go a bit darker?

And we did try occasionally to go a bit darker. But I felt flat. And I think I figured out now why I felt flat in that particular blonde that we were doing. I had a really long stint during lockdown, both lockdowns in Sydney that happened back in 2020 and 2021. 2021 obviously was the really, really long one. I was due to have my hair done literally the week we went into lockdown both times. The regrowth that I had at the end of 21 was immense.

And I was actually looking back at that colour today that she did because we really had to blend my roots. There was just, you know, inches of my dark hair. So she did a beautiful colour then, really, really lovely colour. but I felt too dark still and so we took it back up. And then I don't really know, I think over time, it just got blonder and blonder, which is what happens when you have like bleach foils every single time, but you don't actually put any low lights through.

She did suggest it. This was totally on me. And it kept getting blonder and blonder to the point where now, if I look at my hair from last year, I kid you not, I look at it and I'm like, my God, I'm Marilyn Monroe. Oh, like seriously, there's a picture on Instagram from September when I just had it done. And I remember saying, wow. And looking back, I'm like, well, that was light.

And that was when my hair decided to freak out. I didn't have a stress event. I was looking after it. But I used the round brush. I've talked about this before. I used the round brush on my Dyson, which I've since learned. If you have the original one, which I have the original Dyson Air Wrap, you're supposed to use the round brush on low heat and low fan.

I didn't know that. Anyway, I had breakage at the back and I remember at my hair appointment in, when was it, about November, November, December maybe, saying to her, I think I've got new hair coming through. I was so naive. So naive and she's like, no, Ash, that is not new hair coming in. That is hair breakage. And I was like, what do you mean that is hair breakage?

And said, no, that is hair breakage. breakage. After the number of years that I have bleached my hair, even with the hair falling out, I have not had hair breakage that far up. And I mean, like, it was literally like an inch, two inches from the root. I've had the ends become brittle, 100%. Have I had that at the root? No. And that was at the crown at the back of my head, the front, not so bad. It was just sort of in one section. And I was like, okay. And so she was like, we need to be a bit more gentle with your hair. So the next couple of times, we sort of, we didn't put low lights in, but she just didn't put the bleach as much in that area. And I remember thinking over the summer in January, I wore my hair

up a lot. And we wear my hair up a lot, that's a sign that something's not right. And I wore my hair up a lot, and I just wasn't enjoying it. I was feeling flattened it. Something wasn't right. It was feeling thin and wispy. And no matter what I was doing, and normally over summer, it has a break because I'm not blow drying it. I let it air dry. I let it air dry. I don't really put heat tools apart from my dyson. I don't put heat tools on my hair at all. I don't need to straighten it because it's so straight anyway. And I don't really curl it at this length.

When it was much longer, I used to curl it with my air wrap. Anyway, so I remember looking at it and it was around March. And I was looking at my hair and just thinking it's flat, it's dull, it's limp, it's hanging. It looks terrible. And I spoke to my mum and I said to her, I think I'm going to have to go darker. and I said to her, I'm not talking a little darker. I'm talking a lot darker in order to save my hair. And she was so lovely and it wasn't like, and I told you so moment,

even though I think quite a few people in my life have been thinking it, including my hairdresser, that it needed to be done in order to save my hair. And she was telling me about some other people from when I was younger that she knew that had to do something similar. With all everything I'm going to say today, even with how I'm feeling about it today, because it does change sometimes depending on the day or how I'm wearing it. I would still make the same decision. 100%.

I would still make the same decision to rescue my hair. And I put up a post on Instagram saying that I realized that my hair was stressed and needed help. And it did. And as my lovely hairdresser said to me when we were talking about it, because obviously she's known me for a really long time and she knows all of the life events and everything that I've been through as well as what my endo does to my hair and hormones. Like every time I have an endo flare, she knows, like with my hair, she can tell. and what it does to my hair.

And, you know, she explained it to me, which I thought was so kind and so lovely, that my hair was the one thing I kept as a constant. Everything else, there was a lot of things going on in my life I couldn't control. And so keeping my hair the way that I wanted it or thought that I wanted it, looking back, because looking back at the Merle and Monroe Blonde, no, like, that's not what I want. Even today, when I decide to go back blonde, because I will, that's not what I'm after. And I know that. I've learned a lot in all of this.

And she was like, that was the one thing that you could control. And so you controlled it. And I am a Virgo. And I actually listened to a podcast today about when there's so much going on in your life, sometimes there are certain areas subconsciously that you do manage and you do control to a real point. because that keeps you steady and it keeps you grounded. And I think my hair was one of them.

And I say to clients all the time, you know when something's off and sometimes you can't pinpoint it. And at my son's formal, I was about to say semi-formal because that's what it used to be called when I had mine. All those years ago, I looked at the photos and I felt my hair looked flat. And I'd styled it and I'd washed it. And I remember looking, it just looks a bit flat. it was the colour. It had gone too blonde and being really vulnerable and open about this. Like, I've done this in a very public forum. Hair is a big part of my job. Aesthetically, and for colours, it is a very big part of my job. And so doing this publicly, scared the living daylights out of me,

not only if it didn't work and looked okay. I knew that I could go darker because I've been darker before, I knew that it wouldn't change my colour palette. I 100% knew that. I also knew that my colour palette wouldn't change, even if we got the colour slightly wrong or it wet, slightly warm, which did happen with one variation that we did. My colours still didn't change. And I stand by that. And some people might think that that's really controversial. But I feel like if anything this year, you know, my word of the year for my work actually was fearless. And I've talked about this before on the podcast. And I feel like it came into my personal life more than into my work life, ironically,

because I feel like to make this kind of change with my hair to save it, but also on such a public stage. You know, I do have a public Instagram account. I've got clients. Everyone's watching what I'm doing. And there I am making these pretty bold changes. And I just had to push through it no matter how I felt or how even now I'm feeling. and I feel like I've tried to be really open and honest about the whole experience because

so many of my clients are too nervous to make a change and I totally get that. But that change and coming out of your comfort zone is sometimes needed a for you or like for me for my hair, it needed it. But sometimes it's also needed for your confidence in order to push you into that level of confidence to show you what is actually possible. And I'm not saying being brunette, like, I am full brunette now. For those of you that don't know, go have a look at my Instagram. I am full brunette.

It has faded, but I'm full brunette. And it took a lot of, I think, vulnerability and quite a bit of fearlessness. And I'm even going to tip my own horn and say bravery to do this in the public scale that I did knowing that color analysis is my thing and that this could potentially not necessarily end up how I wanted it to, not because it would change my colour palette, but because I wouldn't like it or that I would really struggle with it. And then how would I express that to clients who are wanting to necessarily do the same thing? So when I made the decision, I sent a whole load of pictures to my hairdresser and they were still blonde. So funny. There was me thinking, oh,

they're so much darker. I wish I could put like little pictures up to show you. I'll put them in the show notes or something like that. I'll do a blog post on it. there's so much darker looking back now. No, they weren't so much darker, but they were more like a caramel kind of tone with blonde still in it. The thing that happened is that we did that, it faded quite quickly. The amount of bleached blonde that I've got underneath and just the way that my hair works, it sucked it up like a sponge. And so it did fade quite quickly. Now, we could have stayed with that. My hair probably would have coped. My hair looked healthier. I kid you not. Within a week, my hair looks so much healthier and it looked thicker. And we did do

a chop as well. We took about, what, an inch, a couple of centimeters off, took it up to chin length. And it looked really, really nice. But the color that it faded out to was a little bit muddy and I wasn't really enjoying it. And so I think that time, it was five weeks. And I remember saying to my hairdress, look, it's faded out. And we knew that it would and we knew that this was a process. And to be gentle on my hair, she took it really gently. We didn't want to shock. my hair. And so we didn't go in with a permanent. We didn't go in with even like a full semi or demi. She went in with like glosses. She could so explain this so much better than me. But she went in more with a gentle route. So we knew that it was going to fade out. It probably just faded a bit faster

than anticipated. And the shampoo that I was using at that time, which is a fabulous shampoo to protect hair from falling out, was also stripping the color a bit too quickly. But I didn't realize that at the time. And then when the next time around, I was like, no, I'd like to go a bit darker, still keeping some blonde and light at the front, a bit more like caramel-y, chocolatey. And I said to Dee at the time, when I go darker, and this was just because of my experience from when I was younger, and this is where your hairdresser can guide you so much better as well. Like, I can guide with colour analysis.

A hundred percent I can. I don't know a client's particular hair type. I don't. I don't know their natural root base. I don't know those things. So in style reset, I probably know those things a bit more because we've discussed it and we've talked about it.

But that's where I even say to style reset clients who are going to change their hair, make sure you discuss this with your hairdresser because they know so much more about your hair and what it is capable of doing. And whether your natural hair throws ash or whether it throws gold or whether it's more neutral, you need to talk to your hairdresser about that. And so at the time, I was like, when I go darker, I need to be a little bit warmer so that I don't look washed out. And she was like, are you sure because your hair throws a little bit of gold, but it's pretty neutral? And I was like, yeah, yeah, that's what I would like to do. She did not take it that golden at all. She literally

did a smidge, a smidge of, because I really didn't want ash. Even now, I still don't really like Ash. The thing is, again, it faded pretty quickly and the gold came through. And even, I remember I was in my path through one night and my husband came in. My husband's quite a bit taller than me. And he looked at me. He was looking down at my hair. And he was like, why is your hair like a bit copper or red on the top? And I'm like, what do you mean it's copper and red on the top? And like, I've been copper and red. I'm not scared of that. But I could see it. And so my daughter had her hair. done and I showed it to D and I was like D and she's like yep it's throwing gold it's gone too warm she said we are taking it way back the other side she said I know what you were saying and I said

no I can see it now my natural hair it grabs onto red and it runs with it so even though I'm like neutral my base is a level six um which is fairly dark especially when you want to be a pattern and blonde when I was a platinum blonde and so she was like no I'm going right the way the other way when you come back in. Come back in. We would do it again. The hair's filled in really nicely now. So the blonde was being filled in.

Having said that, my hair was looking really thick and healthy. Like it was really, it was responding really, really well. And it was growing so fast, like so fast. The bits that were broken. She was saying to me, if you'd stayed blonde, they wouldn't have grown into the end of the year. Whereas now she thinks around September time they will be grown in, especially if I keep cutting it. I'm literally doing these actions. I'm like cutting my hair.

Not that you can see me. It's so funny. And so I went back in and I showed her another inspiration pick, which was a deep, rich brunette. It was like a neutral cool. There was no warmth in it, a little bit of dimension with like latte-y kind of highlights through it, but nothing major. And that's what she did. It's a beautiful hair color.

And I can so appreciate that now, now that I'm like three and a half weeks. in. It has faded considerably. And so she said to me, I know now how your hair reacts. I know that it sucks up all of the color that we put on. I know that it's going to fade out and wash quite a bit in the first couple of weeks as the color settles, which is totally normal with any color that you put on hair, especially one that's got so much bleached underneath. And I came home and I walked in the door and I didn't put this on Instagram because Dee had done such an amazing amazing job. It wasn't that I was scared to show it with follow-win. It's just D had worked so, so hard. I didn't want to come on Instagram and say, oh my gosh, what have I done? It was dark.

And she had explained to me that she'd gone darker because she knew it would fade out. And she did the right thing. 100% she did the right thing. However, I called my mom and the tears started of like, oh my gosh, I think I've taken it a step too far. The other two rounds, no, it wasn't too dark for me. I was fine. This was dark brunette. Like my eldest son is a deep brunette. He's a light summer like me. And he was like, oh, hey, we have the same hair color now. And then my other son came and he said, well, you're definitely not a blonde anymore. I'm the only blonde in the house, which pretty much made me cry more. I think I was probably a hormone or two. But it was a bit of a shock. And I remember going around the house, feeling

like Mortisha from the Adams family, I was probably very overly dramatic about it and it just didn't feel like me. It was such a departure from what I was used to. Now, the thing is, the hair color looked beautiful. Could I pull it off? 100%. Could I go back to that now if I wanted to? Yep. Absolutely. Because it looked beautiful and it looks beautiful with all of my colors. There's only one of my colors, which is like a cornflower blue. I need to be. a slightly darker cornflower blue. This one just doesn't work as well. I can still wear it.

I wore it yesterday, but I don't love it as much as I loved it when I was blonde. And it took a good couple of weeks and she messaged me actually. My headress is so amazing. She messaged me and she's like, how are you going?

And I'm like, oh, had a little bit of a freak out. Had a little bit of a freak out. But I'm all good. Like, yep, I'm good. I'm good. She's like, it will fade, it will wash, send me photos in a week. So I can see how quickly it's fading because she had some surgery coming up. I'm just like, if I need to do something, I need to know whether I need to book you in.

I was like, okay. And so, and then I started playing around with chat to your pt. It's like, well, if I want to make this lighter, how quickly can I do that or what can I do? And it was that realization that I've got so much blonde underneath this and she's been so patient and so kind. She's like, we cannot re-dye that blonde, your ends. Like, when we said you were committing, you are committing. So I was like, okay.

And it definitely took a couple of weeks. And I wore it. It was, was it last week? Maybe it was last week, beginning of last week. So what? It'd been about two weeks. Yeah, two weeks. And it had faded quite significantly.

And I could see a little bit of the blonde highlight. at the front, like not as a blonde, but lighter. And I was like, oh, okay, I can see this now. I do like it. Like, it's really, it's a really pretty colour. I love the colour. I'm never going to dispute that. It's a really pretty colour.

The overwhelming response on Instagram, I've done a few polls. I think it came in. I did one on the weekend, 80%. The people that voted is probably one of the biggest voting polls I've ever had where people have voted on it. 80% resoundingly said that they prefer brunette over blonde. for me. I feel like I have lived it, breathed it, proven it that I am still the same color palette even though I have changed my hair. And that by changing my hair color, it's just about

getting the right tone and the right color for you. And that can take time. Like when you're doing such a big transformation, whether you're going blonde to brunette or brunette back to blonde or you're going to a copper or a red or you're doing a strawberry or you're doing like a violet, it takes time and it takes a number of iterations to actually get to the color that you want to actually be. Things that I'm loving about this hair color, she got it so close to my natural root. I can't see the grow out. At this time with being blonde, I would have easily have seen my roots.

I can't see it. I'm finding it hard wearing it up. I like wearing my hair up. And this is one of the reasons that I was getting my blonde done all the time is, because when I wore it, wore it down, I couldn't see my roots as much, but when I would wear it pulled back and I would go straight back rather than like a side part, I'd go straight back. And I'd be like, all I can see is dark and I don't like that. And I'm struggling a little bit with that now.

It feels a little bit harsh and that's been a little bit of something that I've had to get used to. When I wash it freshly and I wear it down at the moment, no, I really, really like it. I think it's really pretty and really, really beautiful. My hair is in the best condition that's ever been. I have changed shampoos at the recommendation of my hairdresser. So a shout out to I'm now using the knack range. Pretty much everyone in my family is now using the neck range.

And I use the nourish one, which is in the pink bottle. I can use it with my allergies, which is amazing. Others in my family are using the hydrate one. For those who've got finer hair, the nourished one's better. It's got coconut oil in it. And my hair has never been so soft, shiny, and silky ever, like ever. And the other day, my husband walked past,

and he, like, sort of flicked my hair up. I'm like, what are you doing? And he was almost like playing with my hair. My husband never, like, touches my hair, like, ever. And he's like, it's just so soft and silky. It's just so nice. He said, your hair normally used to feel like straw. Like, it feels so nice.

Now, that could become a bit addictive. So now I'm two, no, three and a half weeks in. And I don't have another hair at point. until the 1st of August because my hairdresser had surgery and she's taken time out. And having this break where I literally cannot say to her, I need you to change my hair, I think, obviously, I would never want her to have surgery ever. But it would have been so easy for me to say, you're going to have to do something because I'm struggling with it.

Whereas this, I've been forced to live with it, which has been the best thing ever, because it's meant I couldn't make any knee-jerk reactions, which are things that I talk about with my clients. Like the clients in Star Reset in particular, I don't let them shop, which I know it sounds so hard, but I don't. Don't let them shop in the first few weeks because I'm like, no, you don't know what you want yet. You don't fully know what we're after yet. We don't fully know your body shape. We don't fully know your colours.

I literally put them on like a shopping van. I said, you can try things on, but I don't want you to buy yet. And that's how I am with my hair. And there are days when I really, really love it. And then there are days when I watch. This is going to sound so stupid. I'm watching the new L TV show on Prime video with my daughter. And of course, you know, L Woods, legally blonde, Reese Swet and Spoon.

A lot of my branding from work is blonde. I'm blonde. And when I watch TV shows like that, I look at it and I'm like, oh my gosh, I miss my blonde. Now, there is a definite thing called blonde blindness. I think 100% I have it, without a doubt, but I also think being blonde, it's what I always come back to in my life because I was blonde as a kid and I feel like it's part of who I am and my identity. And there are days when I struggle a little bit with that. And that's okay. And that's what color clients feel too. If they've gone from wearing really bright clothes to muta clothes or from they thought they were a winter and they turned out

to be a summer or they thought they were in autumn and actually they're a cool summer, all these things. It takes time for your mind to catch up. And this is something I talk to my clients a lot about. And I'm really proud of myself for living this so publicly to show you what kind of a transformation you can do and what is possible and that your colours don't change. But I'm also really proud of saying that it's okay to have those days where you wobble or you're not quite sure or that it is a process to do this. And it is a process to do this. I don't know where I'm going to end up on this hair journey. I know that I'm loving not having regrowth. Like I literally stood in front of the mirror the other day. I was trying to find my regrowth. I was trying to find the line.

Couldn't find it. Literally could not find it. It could be that I keep a lot more of my base coloring now and that over time we just add some blonde highlights back in when the time is right. And that just lifts it for me a little bit and lightens it. I feel like it's going maybe a little bit warmer now as I'm washing it and as it fades, which is totally natural. That's what hair does. So it'll be interesting to see how it goes over the next month before I have my next hair appointment. I love that I'm not having to get it done as much and the condition of my hair that can become addictive. I remember following, there's a lady called Lisa Purdue on Instagram. She was really big on YouTube though. And about four years ago, I want to say four years ago,

she was really, really blonde and she went brunette, oh sorry, she went brunette to save her hair. And her hair is the most lustrous, thickest, beautiful hair now that she never had before. And I could see how that could get addictive. Like even when I blow dry it now, it's so much more bouncy. I am not using any different products. Like I've changed my shampoo. But in terms of styling products, nope, not using anything. And it is so much more bouncy. It sits so much better. Like in the cut that Dee has done, it doesn't look wispy at the end. It. It's, It doesn't look thin. I look like I've got a lot more hair than I actually have.

And that's also when you're darker. I've learned that the pigment fills in and so the hair looks thicker. And it just looks better. There's no doubt about it. It just looks better. It's me having the identity of, you know, that once a blonde, always a blonde. So I don't know where this is going to end up. I have no doubt that there will be a part two to this, maybe at the end of the year,

maybe in a year's time when I can look back on this journey. I do not think it's frivolous or vanity-based to feel upset when your hair is different to how you want it to be. And I've even had people say to me, I've gone a bit darker because you've shown that you can do it. And the thing is, my hairdresser was so lovely. She sent me a picture because I sent her one. She was like, Ash, even if you want to, you're thinking that that's still dark.

but that's level nine highlights at the front. We can't do that. And then, you know, I don't want to do a color dissolve or anything like that. And she was like, just remember nothing is permanent. And I have to remember that. Nothing is permanent. And I'm just embracing it and having fun. And some of my colors just look like when I wear pinks and lavender's and teals

and that blue and yellow and it just looks phenomenal with it. And I'm going to tip my own horn and say that because it does. But that's also because I've worked really hard at knowing my colours and knowing how to dress myself. And so confidence-wise, I haven't taken a knock at all that way because I know my colours and I know what suits me. One thing is a side note, because I know I've been going yapping on about this for like 36 minutes.

One thing I will say, and I'm going to do a separate episode, is I did change. my makeup. Now, some things I changed because I just wanted a new one, like my foundation, I changed. But I did need new eyeshadows as well, but I changed those. It was more lipsticks. And what I'm actually really enjoying is when I was really blonde, I could never find the perfect nude lipstick for me. I knew that I wanted a pink-based one, but I could never really find it. And so when I was blonder, I could go a little bit more peachy. Pitchie doesn't work with this at all. I have to go more cool-toned with my makeup. And so I found it's a Charlotte Tilbury red carpet pink. And if I, I kid you not, if I was still as blonde as I was, it wouldn't

look as good on me because it's just the way that the lip color interacts with the hair color. But I'm going to do a whole episode on that and my new makeup because I'm really enjoying it. And I want to give you guys some tips as well on what different makeup and all that kind of thing that you can do. So that's me. That's my current hair journey. So what? I started this. I started thinking about it in March and I remember my hairdresser saying to me, I need you to send me a voice note saying you commit to this for a minimum of six months. So we started it in April. So May, June, July. So really six months is like October time. We can't do anything drastic anyway because my hair is so dark that the blonde is still underneath it. I've got about two.

to five centimeters of regrowth, maybe even more three to five centimeters of regrowth now coming through. So there are some areas like underneath. They're completely grown out. It's more what's on the top. So watch this space. Let's see what happens. If any of you want to have a chat with me about hair color, just send me a DM. I'm at Loving Color, double underscore on Instagram or you can send me an email to Ashley at Loving Color. And if you're interested in knowing your colors, then hop onto my website, grab a virtual color analysis, it's $150. There's a game changer. And I know that that, you know, people will think she will say that.

She's a stylist and a color analyst. Yeah, but I've also been a lot of other things. I have worked in at agencies. I've had my own clothing store. I've designed my own clothes. I've done, I'm a professional makeup artist as well trained and I've learned a lot about color theory. I know what I'm talking about.

And I know how to help you feel the best in the clothes and the colors that you wear every single day and I can help guide you. Like you get full makeup recommendations personalized to you, get shopping recommendations. You also obviously get your colours. It's an invaluable tool that makes such a difference. It always surprises me that colour is such a powerful tool to use for confidence, for clarity, for how you feel every single day and people just don't use it as much as

what they should. I always say that colour is at the heart of every single thing that I do. And it is not just because I love it, not just because it brings me joy, but because I feel like it's the biggest leverage that you can use in your own personal style and color journey. Anyway, that's enough from me today. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you have enjoyed this episode.

And yeah, I watch this space. We'll see. You never know. I might eat my words and be like Christmas. I'm never going back to blonde. Who knows? I very much doubt that. I cannot see for the rest of my life and never going back to blonde.

But for the moment, I am a very very. happy brunette. So take care, everyone. Talk to you soon. Bye.