Disclaimer: PR Appointments – I have not been taken care of this feature.
The last picture of me (that I could find) before going red.
I started assembling this post with the intention of detailing my hair story during the last couple of years, since I’ve been visiting Jo at Charles Worthington a great deal, trying new things here and there, and I thought it would be fun to appear back at what we’ve tried. When i was pulling the posts from Instagram (that really is like a hair diary for me personally!) I realised that one element of real interest was my experience of going from my usual blonde to some dark plummy red, before getting bored and getting Jo to return me to blonde again. Getting red hair blonde is indeed a challenge that takes a lot of work, so here’s a post looking at how Jo managed it.
Getting redder…stolen from my Instagram feed.
You’ll likely know from my previous posts that I’m virtually obsessed with Charles Worthington, as it’s hands down my favourite salon to visit. Obviously a large part of that is due to Jo (Johanne Herald – the absolute best colourist I’ve seen, and I’ve been fortunate to visit a lots!) as she completely gets my hair, knows me good enough to tell me when I’m asking for something that won’t suit me, but also skilled enough to take my stupid requests making them work, but the salon visit itself is always a really positive experience because it provides all the elements you’d expect from a top London salon, without having to be intimidating or unnecessarily pretentious. it as a self-care to make sure that I visit regularly, to give myself a break from reality where I can sit around, drinking coffee (or Prosecco when the mood strikes me…), nibbling on brownies or pretzels (probably both, don’t judge me) and reading magazines at a leisurely pace – it’s like a mini restoration break.
Red Head!
So! This past year, after being various shades of ash blonde for absolutely ages, I arrived for an appointment with Jo with the plan of going for something completely different. I experienced a grunge phase in my teens, so of course, at the age of 34, I felt now was a good time to visit such a look. In fairness, I did actually really like the plum, the main problem with seeing someone like Jo is the fact that she knows exactly what suits me and also the shades of blonde she weaves through my hair are about as flattering as you can get for my colourings, so every other side, whilst still great, just won’t be as good. Plus, I’m a blonde in mind, through and through, and no other shade will change that.
Ready to be blonde again.
Jo took my hair an in-depth plum shot through with some burgundy to give the colour life and texture, and the finish was a gorgeous mix of multi-tonal reds, plums and hints of pink and purple. I’ve said it before, but Jo is the only individual who I would trust to do this kind of drastic change for me (she convinced me to have a “Peekaboo Balayage” of pink and purple underneath the blonde a few years ago, and it looked fantastic!) because she knows my needs so well; she knows what sort of maintenance I’m capable of managing, what colours suits me and just what my tastes are, so I had complete faith in her own and I really loved the hair for a good six weeks or so…
Getting blonder, after the cleanse.
…then I WhatsApped her and asked her if she’d change it back. Thankfully she agreed, and that i was all booked set for my appointment to get me to an icy blonde ‘do. Going from red to blonde is a lot more drastic and time-consuming than going from blonde to red, and if you want hair that’s cool-toned (so, not red then!) you will need to do it over a couple of appointments to keep the health of the hair. I was actually really surprised by how healthy my hair was after the transformation (Charles Worthington Salons work a great deal with L’Oreal and are big believers within the benefits of Smartbond – as am I) considering the hair was basically stripped of colour TWICE, before more blonde was put on reduce the red. As you can see within the images, my hair was still being looking and feeling very healthy and certainly didn’t appear traumatised as you may expect.
Blonde again!
After the cleanse, Jo went along with a toner to get rid of more of the red and yellow, but even if I haven’t just dyed my hair an extreme shade of plum, I have a battle to keep my hair ashy (purple shampoos people, that’s what you need) so my hair did start starting to warm up a little after a couple of weeks, but that was expected and we had already planned accordingly with my next appointment, using the sole focus being adding all the ashy toners alongside some cooler blonde highlights to obtain my hair back to the way I like it.
Before and after.
Appointments with Johanne Herald start at lb45 for any Blow Dry (she’s also amazing at adding texture to very flat hair!) and go up to lb160 for a full head of highlights. Obviously my transformation was incredibly bespoke, so if you’re looking for something similar, I’d recommend booking a consultation directly for a price.
