An outfit to get dyed for

Happy Friday, my friends!

I’m off to the salon later this afternoon to get my hair color touched up (hence the corny post title). Can you believe it’s been 6 weeks since I went red?! (I feel like it’s not fair to call myself a redhead since it’s not my natural color… will I get over this? Would I offend natural redheads by doing so? I’m probably over-thinking this, right?)

(hair is clipped back and unset because obviously, why bother when I’m going to the salon)

I’m really impressed at how well the color has lasted, given how we all know that red is the color quickest to fade. Of course my roots are getting silly, as you can see below, but the color is really strong still! Not as lustrous, but hardly horrifyingly faded. And that’s what I was really worried about… pretty much my primary worry about going red. I’ve seen so much badly-faded red that I was genuinely concerned that mine would do that really fast. Thankfully it hasn’t!

It’s turning out that 6 weeks out is the perfect time for me to get it all refreshed. My stylist had said I might want to come in after 2 or 3 weeks to get the color toned if I found it was fading quickly, but I never had to!

No secrets to what I’m doing, either…  this has been my red care routine:

• Since I set my hair regularly, I only wash it once a week. For real. It should be said that if I didn’t set my hair, I think once a week would be tough for me as my hair tends to get oily, but it’s much easier to deal with when you do vintage hairstyles. When my hair is just left normal, it pretty much looks like crap after 3 days unwashed. Only exception was this week since I’m getting it colored, I washed it twice so it wouldn’t be dirty.
• When I do wash my hair, I wash it in cold water. I keep it up in a clip while I’m showering, and wash it last. When I’m ready to wash it, I switch the water to cold (and try to keep as much as my body away from the spray, although I imagine this will be less than peachy in winter).
• I use a UV-protecting hairspray. L’Oreal Elnett Super Strong with UV protector… smells like grandmas but the unscented one doesn’t have a UV filter so I suck it up and just spritz my perfume after.
• I use a leave-in conditioner after I wash my hair. There’s just a bajillion of them, but I use the one my stylist recommends and hey, working for me so far! I use It’s a 10 Miracle Leave-In. It’s a small bottle but I think it’s going to last quite some time. (No affiliation with Ulta btw)

Really, that’s it. That’s all I changed in my routine! ‘They’ say you can wash your hair after it’s colored after 48 hours, but I waited 3 days just for good measure. Figured it couldn’t hurt, right?

So let’s talk about my outfit for a minute! I keep meaning to do more outfit posts that aren’t just showing off something I’ve newly made, so here’s one for you. 🙂 This spring, I droned on in my Dublin outfits post about how much I love Cath Kidston, and I’m sporting two Cath Kidston items today!

This dress is one of my absolute favorites, except I ordered it a size too big last year (in the whole what-the-hell-size-am-I-really stage). I haven’t been able to psych myself up to unpick the bodice lining, take out the invisible size zipper and take it in, so I haven’t worn it a lot. Today I realized hello, immediate solution? Big wide belt.

I’m not usually one for really wide belts (I actually try this belt on all the time and think ‘ehhh’), although some vintage gals rock this look frequently and I always think it looks amazing on them. I can’t argue that it was definitely the right thing to make this dress work!

The second Cath Kidston item is my purse, which I bought last year in Cardiff. (That was the first CK store I visited in-person and I nearly lost my mind. I’m not sure what I’ll do when someday I eventually get to visit the flagship store in London. I might explode.)

I believe it’s made an appearance on the blog before, and certainly on Instagram. It zips at the top, it’s waterproof, it’s roomy, it’s polka dots on one of my favorite colors, kelly green. What more could I want? I love this style so much that I bought another in Dublin this year!

The accessories and bolero I built around the dress and purse. In fact, most things don’t technically match—what looks like red in the dress is pink (and my bangles, earrings and nails are various shades of red), and there’s no bright greens in the dress. I pulled in orange (also not in the dress) in my bangles, tying that in with my hair and orange-red Besame lipstick.

I like a challenge sometimes in putting together a cohesive outfit even if some of the elements don’t technically jive! I suspect the boho side of me will be doing that a lot this fall and winter.

The polka dot manicure happened yesterday and though it was a bit of a pain to do, I’m absolutely loving it! I’m channeling Jane and in a polka dot mood big time, but sadly there’s not nearly enough of that in my closet.

Hmmmm… maybe it’ll be one of my fall goals to correct that polka dot problem! 😉

Well, I’m off to the salon! Stepping out with one foot in summer, and one in fall. Have a wonderful (long, if you’re in the U.S.) weekend!

outfit details

dress – Cath Kidston
purse – Cath Kidston
bolero – knit by me
shoes – courtesy of Sven Clogs
1940s cherries necklace – Urban Recycle
Bakelite earrings and bangles – misc.
silk hair scarf – Retro 101 in St. Louis