DIY Ombre Dye

Victoria Secret's Angel Lily Aldridge rocking her ombre hair

You might be familiar with the new Ombre hair trend that we've been seeing on a lot of celebrities for the past year. The term ombre basically means that one color fades into another, in hair this has come to mean color that is much lighter/brighter at the tips and then fades out as it gets closer to the roots. You might recognize it from celebs like Drew Barrymore, Rachel Bilson or Victoria Secret's Angel Lily Aldridge:

I have been dying (har har) to try this trend, and since I am a control freak who can't bear the idea of a hairstylist touching my hair, of course I decided to do it myself. There are a bunch of youtube tutorials etc that you can look up to see how other people did theirs, but this is how I did mine.

First I bought this dye, its a highlighting kit especially designed for dark hair.

I put it on my hair starting very thickly at the tips (really saturated so much that I couldn't even see the hair underneath) and then less and less thickly until it faded out about 3 inches from the tips. Then I wrapped each section of hair in tin foil and waited...and waited...and waited. After about an hour and fifteen minutes I had achieved the lightness that I was looking for (and I was worried that my hair might fall out if I kept bleaching it any longer).

Unfortunately, certain areas were blond, but a lot of them had turned a brassy yellowy/orange color. Of course I was also dyeing my hair in the middle of the night, so I had to wear that brassy hair to work the next morning! (oops)

The next day after work I got busy with the second step of the process: toner. Toner helps take the orangey/brassy tones out of the blonde as well as blend it into the rest of your hair. It is an invaluable step in going blonde.

The first toner I used was Wella T27. It was called a "golden violet" color which I though would keep them warm and caramely colored but would take out a lot of the orange. The violet shade really did counteract a lot of the Brassy-ness, and the dark caramel tone really helped blend the tips into the rest of my hair.

Afterwards, however, I still wanted the tips to have a bit of that platinum, "surfer-girl" feeling, so I applied another toner just on the ends. For this I used Manic Panic Virgin Snow, a semi-permanent violet toner which cools down any color, and is apparently the holy grail for people who dye their hair platinum.

So two days later, my hair was perfectly awesomely surfer girl, and all my friends were raving about how it really suited my laid-back, hippie hair. Now lets see the final results and you can see what you think:

This was my hair before the ombre:

And this is the ombre:

I'm really really happy with how it turned out, but I think once my hair has healed a little I'm going to do a few more highlights further up the hair. Right now its kind of this drastic shift between the tips and the rest of my hair, and I think a few little highlights laced throughout would make it blend even better. Still trying for that Lily Aldridge perfection:

Sarah's New Apartment

My dear friend Sarah Warren (remember the posts about dream designs for her bakery) has just moved into a new apartment on 12th st. So, naturally, I've been day dreaming about how it should look and doing some drawings to bring my vision to life.

This is the entryway I envision for her, with a big welcoming picture of her dog Henry, and spots to drop her keys, boots, umbrella etc:

This is a little cocktail corner complete with bar cart for entertaining:

These are two different options for the "dining nook", in this version we see it with a round cafe table:

And here that same nook is outfitted with a china cabinet:

And last but not least a display of pictures on the wall facing her sofa:

These were such fun to do, and its even more fun to see Sarah actually using some of my ideas in her decorating!

p.s. make sure to check out Sarah's blog

Great Finds Over the Fourth of July!

As is my tradition, I spent the Fourth of July in Newport RI at my family's summer house. Of course, my first priority once I got into town was to hit up all my favorite antique emporiums and home good stores. Not only did I get I get some amazing things at my old faithfuls (more on that later) but I stumbled upon a newcomer to Newport called Venetucci Home, where I made some amazing discoveries.

I'd been enamored of some of the accessories that Restoration Hardware is selling this year, but I haven't been that enamored with their exorbinant prices. So you can imagine my excitement when I happened upon some reproduction gear wheels that are literally the same ones sold by Restoration Hardware but at 1/6th the price.

This is the picture I took at the store where I bought the gears:

This is the image that Restoration Hardware has on their website of their "Tractor Wheel Gear":

Can you see a difference? I literally cannot see any disparity between the two products, except that Restoration Hardware charges $189 for their version, and I picked up mine in Newport for $29.

I bought some for Jessie and Derek's apartment as well as some to decorate the showroom at Desiron where I'm interning this summer.

Leaving Home

My parents are in the process of getting ready to sell the house I grew up in, in Brookline Ma. Considering I'm living in New York, and my parents spend part of the week traveling for work and most weekends in Newport, the Brookline house is left out. They definitely don't need that big of a house just so our blind Bichon can swan around like a queen. The time has come to bid it adieu. And, for the sake of putting it on the market, a professional photographer came in and took some 'glamour' shots:

Front Hall

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Family Room

They definitely make the house look much bigger than it really is, and much more sunny for some reason, but nonetheless I think they came out looking pretty great.

Shoe Lust

I am in total lust over these sneakers, they are limited edition Vans made by Hermes. Sigh......

Venice is Burning

So, one of the items on my bucket list is to attend the Venice Biennale at least once. I was looking through images from the show this year, and I was totally awe-struck when I saw what Urs Fischer showed. He made a number of wax sculptures, including a life-size replica of the 'Rape of the Sabine Women', which functioned as candles. At the beginning of the Biennale he lit the wicks, and every day the statues melt a little bit more.

They are undeniably beautiful and compellingly grotesque. I especially love how the gentleman blends into the crowds so that in certain images it looks as if a member of the crowd has spontaneously combusted.

Crazy for Colors

I have a little side blog that is devoted to my obsession with color, I don't post on it that often but if you have a second, or a craving for color, you should check it out:

http://crazyforcolors.blogspot.com/