As someone who dyes their hair on a regular basis (I haven't had natural black hair since 2008!), I've become well versed on how to maintain hair colour. Below, I'm going to outline some fairly simple tips to maintaining your unnatural hair colours (and these tips are especially true if you've got unicorn hair or grey hair). 

First off, just keep in mind that unnatural hair colours will fade and you will need to spend lots of time and money to keep that hair colour, unless you are into letting it fade and becoming an ombre. Hair colours that aren't brown require more upkeep and money. I also do not recommend dying your hair at home - unless you're just going for a brown colour (depending on how strong you want the colour, red is also doable at home). Box dyes do work (depending on brands), but colours are usually limited to browns, reds, and a bleach box. If you want more natural-looking hair colour, box dyes are okay to use. The bleach box that is offered by any brand is NOT okay for use. You will not achieve the bleach you want. Your hair will turn out orange, and dry. I do not recommend bleaching your own hair at home unless you are a hair professional and have good bleach powder at home.

So enough of the warnings, and let's move on to the actual tips:

1. Stop washing your hair everyday. Washing your hair everyday strips away its natural oils, and can produce negative effects. Shampooing too often can create breakage in your hair because it is drying your hair out. 
• "But my hair feels gross!" This is something everyone thinks and says when I tell them not to shampoo every single day. It only feels gross because you're not used to it. The oils that are building up on your scalp are actually good for your skin, because it provides a natural barrier for your scalp from dirt and other nasty stuff.
• If you're worried about it looking dirty, tie your hair up. Ponytail it, put it in a bun, or slap on a snapback/touque/hat.
• Shampooing everyday means that you're washing out the colour faster. Vibrant colours like bright reds, blues, platinum blondes, greys, ash colours, etc. Water strips the colour out, and if you wash your hair everyday, that colour you just spent close to $1000 getting, will be gone and dull within 2-3 weeks. Do you really want to go back to the salon and spend another $1000 so soon?
• If you had to bleach your hair before getting the colour you wanted, the more you wash your hair, the quicker you'll revert back to that nasty brassy orange colour that's underneath (quite similar to my before picture above). Now there's no actual way to prevent getting that colour, but you can prolong your colour by washing your hair less.
  
2. When you're not washing your hair, use dry shampoo. Dry shampoo helps absorb odours, sweat and excess oil. Many dry shampoos are scented, so they also provide a clean, fresh scent to cover up the fact that you haven't washed your hair in a while. 
• I suggest using a brand that offers a super light-weight feeling and outcome. Heavier dry shampoos produce more product buildup on your scalp, leading to a more dirty feeling overtime. 
• Batiste is a cult-favourite; it's relatively inexpensive (~$10 at drugstores) and offers 200mL of product. It sprays white, but as you work it into your hair, the whiteness disappears. They also offer a variety of scents. However, I'm not a fan of Batiste for long-term unwashed hair. Every other day washes would be fine with using Batiste, but I find that Batiste leaves product buildup on my scalp and makes my hair feel super gross, limp, and mangled by the time I wash it.
• Higher-end dry shampoos are often "lighter". I currently use Living Proof's Perfect Hair Day Dry Shampoo, and I find that it doesn't leave product buildup on my scalp.
  
3. Use sulfate-free shampoos!!! I literally cannot stress this one enough. You spent $1000 on your new hair colour, and you want that to last right? That $5 Tresemme shampoo you have? Throw it out. Sulfate is responsible for giving you that lather in your shampoos, but it is the number 1 culprit in stripping hair colours. Sulfate-free shampoos are pricey (~$30-$40 depending on brand), but if you're not washing your hair every single day anyways, that shampoo will last you quite a while. Now keep in mind that there are studies out there saying there's a negligible difference between sulfate-free shampoos, and regular shampoos in maintaining hair colour, but I find that the more chemicals that a shampoo has, the faster your hair colour strips. 
   
4. If you went white-blonde, or ash blonde, use purple shampoo. Purple shampoo distributes purple pigment to neutralize brassy, yellow tones. 
   
5. If you went unicorn, use Manic Panic (or any other at home unicorn dyes) to maintain the colour. Some people suggest mixing manic panic and white conditioner and coating your wet hair in it, whereas others suggest using it directly on dry hair (like a dye). 
   
6. If you can't invest or don't want to invest the money and time into maintaining your unicorn hair colour, don't colour your hair. Please. It's the absolute worst when people have this super gorgeous purple hair, or whatever, and then within 4-6 weeks it is this brassy orange colour. Trust me on this one. I've had that brassy orange colour. At the time, I didn't think anything of it, but looking back at photos, I realized that my hair was super orange and brassy. Not a good look in my opinion. I don't have the sort of income to go back to the salon every 4 weeks to tone my hair colour, so I choose to wash my hair less in order to prolong the colour. 

Now I'm obviously not a hair professional, I'm not licensed to do any kind of hair dying, cutting, etc. These are all my opinions on how to maintain MY personal hair colour. My only qualification is the fact that I dye my hair crazy colours all the time. I've been platinum blonde, browns, black-purple, dark blue, pink, ash grey, lilac grey, and brassy orange.

Funny anecdote, when I dyed my hair a really nice dark blue, people at my work place that I didn't even know personally would talk about my hair all the time. I became known as that girl with the blue hair! My supervisor said that whenever they had meetings, I would always somehow come up in the conversation. It was very awkward, knowing that all these professors with PhDs and several published academic journals and articles knew who I was, but I had no idea who these people were.

This is not a sponsored post; if any of the photos are yours and/or if you'd like me to take them down because you are the featured model, let me know please! I screencapped all of the photos off Instagram (public accounts). 

I am finally back with a long awaited updated! Unfortunately, it's not a new ABCs post. I realize that I am super behind with that series but I haven't had any time to do any research so all my research will have to take place during Reading Week. 

So now, onto the products that I have finished in between the time I wrote Empties No. 1 and now.

So this is the Banila Clean It Zero. I wrote a blog post about it here, where I compared it inadverately to Shu Uemera's Cleansing Oil. To summarize, I really like this cleansing balm; it's travel friendly (I actually finished it while I was back home in Vancouver!), the balm consistency means it doesn't flow down my arms while I'm using it, and it takes up very little space on the counter. I repurchased two (opened one already) for backups. I highly recommend this cleanser if you are the type of person to regularly put on a ton of makeup and hard to remove waterproof mascara.

This is the Marula Intensive Repair Shampoo. I purchased this back in June and finished it in November. This took me a long time to finish, not because I disliked it, but because I don't wash my hair every single day. I actually wash about 1-2x a week because of my hair colour. I dry shampoo every other night. I have the conditioner from the same line, but it's on its last drops now. I have purchased Living Proof's restore shampoo/conditioner to replace the two (mainly because Sephora no longer ships it to Canada, but also because I didn't see a huge improvement in the condition of my hair).

This is Philosophy's Hope in A Jar Night cream. This is my absolute holy grail night cream for the winter. Especially because I live in a dry climate, this is one of the few things that keeps my face super moisturized. I highly recommend this night cream to anyone who lives in a drier climate or suffers from dry skin. It is kinda oily feeling (but not like putting straight-up oil on your face oily), but the cream sinks into your skin really nicely, and when I wake up in the morning and wash my face, I'm not washing excessive amounts of cream off. Unfortunately, I did not repurchase immediately after running out because every time I went into a Sephora to try to repurchase, it would be OOS. I am currently using Laneige's Water Sleeping Mask ($30) instead.

Philosophy recently added a new version of the night cream to their lineup but it costs $65 (versus the $59 for this one). 

This is the ANASTASIA BEVERLY HILLS Brow Wiz in Taupe. Holy grail for a lot of people, and I really enjoy using this product to line my brows, but I can no longer justify the $27 for 0.003oz of product. I'm currently using a product from one of those Ipsy bags (my friend gave it to me because it was in the colour Taupe and her hair is dark brown). I find that there is no absolute need to buy this particular eyebrow pencil because there are so many others out there that perform just well. I find that smaller/thinner pencils (the kinds that don't need to be sharpened and are retractable) are the best, regardless of brand. 

Maybelline's The Colossal Volume mascara and Benefit's Roller Lash Curling & Lifting mascara (in a trial/deluxe size). I really enjoyed Maybelline's The Colossal Volume mascara. It lengthened and volumized my lashes in 2 swipes. I had another friend tell me that they also liked this mascara. Perhaps this mascara is good for short Asian lashes? Let me know if you've also tried this product out before. I will repurchase this product again, once I finish using up all of the other mascaras I've bought...

The Benefit mascara I believe I got as a deluxe sample for purchasing their gel liner... or as one of those Sephora 100pts rewards.  Either way, I did not like this mascara. Both of Benefit's two most famous mascara did not work on my short Asian lashes. 

This is Make Up For Ever's Step 1 Skin Equalizer Primer in Travel Hydrating Primer. I liked this primer but I'm not really the type of person who needs primer to get makeup to stay on my face all day long. However, I know beauty gurus really like this primer in both the Smoothing and Mattifying version. As for providing moisture/keeping my skin hydrated, I felt that this did an alright job. After taking my makeup off at the end of the day, my skin was not noticeably drier or anything so I assumed this was doing its job to some extent. I did repurchase from this line, but I bought the Nourishing Primer in the full sized version (because it's winter and my skin is always super dry during the winter).

Just a money saving note, if you're looking to buy either the Smoothing, Mattifying or Hydrating primer, it's better to buy the travel version which is $19 for 0.5oz but $43 for 1oz. When it's summer again, I'll repurchase the Nourishing primer in the travel sized to save some money. 

Heroine Make Long & Curl Mascara Super Film and Too Faced's Better Than Sex mascara. Both have passed the 6 months mark, so out they go (just as a further note, I throw out all my mascaras within 3-6 months even if they're not close to done). The Heroine Make mascara was newly released when I bought it so there wasn't a lot of information on it, but I figured any of the Heroine Make mascaras couldn't be too bad... 

And what a utter lie that was. This mascara. It's got lots of tiny fibers, so it coats each lashes individually properly but it doesn't do much. It barely lengthened my short lashes, and did not hold a curl as well as the original Long & Curl or Volume & Curl mascara. I would recommend either of the two original mascaras over the Super Film version. If you're into a very natural look, this mascara would probably be a good fit for you, but as someone who's into heavy eye and face makeup, this just wasn't doing it for me.

On the other hand, I really liked Too Faced's Better Than Sex mascara. It curled AND lengthened my short lashes really well. I didn't have to layer another brand of mascara on top of this just to get some length. The only draw back is the price. It's $30 for 0.27oz of product that I will never actually use up because of mascara's short life span. If it comes back as a deluxe sample or 100pts perk, I will definitely be getting it.

My holy grail foundation - the YVES SAINT LAURENT Le Teint Encre de Peau foundation in B30. I believe I'm on my 3rd bottle of this foundation now. This foundation is super lightweight but it gives medium coverage. It provides a matte finish. Even when I get mild pimples, I don't even use concealer. I just use this foundation on top to cover it. By the end of the day, this foundation doesn't feel heavy on my face - in fact, I barely even remember it's there! 

Because I switch between foundations regularly, I am able to use one bottle for around 7-8 months, which is good, because this foundation costs $64 for 0.84oz. I'm actually looking into buying Becca's Aqua Luminious Perfecting Foundation and/or the NARS Velvet Matte Skin Tint, so maybe the new bottle I just opened last week will last even longer than 8 months. If anyone has tried either of those two, please let me know what you think about them! 

And that's it for this round of empties! I'll be back soon with an update of the ABCs series (at the earliest next week during Reading Week).