I Tried It: Ombré Hair Color

Since I have decided that 2011 will be my year to spice things up (I turn 25 this year which kind of freaks me out!) this weekend I ventured out to check off my first to-do on the list. I've been wanting to change up my hair for the longest time. I got the Brazilian Blowout at the end of the summer - and loved it. I fully intend to do it again this year closer to May so that I can really get great use out of it for beach days. I got my first taste of change and I was craving more. I decided  to go a little bit further down the path and do something other than just changing the texture of my hair. (But without the cut. I've been enjoying it long lately and I'm not quite ready to part with the length yet ;)) The next thing that came to mind - Color! I've always wanted to dye my hair so at first I thought about going drastic and doing it blonde. But Bill convinced me I might want to start with something smaller first to see if I liked it. After running through some ideas - it hit me! Ombré! I have seen so many celebrities rocking this new hair trend and looking amazing doing it. Drew Barrymore and Rachel Bilson to name a few. What is Ombré you ask? The look it's supposed to give is kind of like grown out roots. It usually starts out dark on the top and fades to a brighter color on the bottom - maybe honey brown or blonde. It's very bohemian and beachy (which I so heart). Plus, this would give me the hint of change I needed without any of the real color commitment. One of my favorite ladies to sport this look is the oh-so-gorgeous Lily Aldridge. She's a Victoria's Secret and model and the Queen of two-toned hair.

Totally gorg right?

I found a salon that was running a special and called to speak to a stylist. Jaye at Forme Salon was super informed about Ombre. We had a quick 10 minute conversation about what the process would entail and how drastic I wanted to go. I made my appointment for Saturday and printed out some pics to take with me. When I arrived at the salon I was super nervous - I was basically a color virgin! But I showed Jaye what I wanted and we talked about going just blonde enough on the ends without it being too "buttery". I'm pretty inquisitive whenever I take on a new project so I was asking questions every 5 minutes. I found out that before Jaye put the color on she teased the section of hair she was coloring so that the line of color would be softer and not so drastic. She also didn't do every single end on my head so that it would a littler bit more natural looking.
So cut to the end result: she took the foils off and I literally about fell out of the chair. I had blonde hair on the ends! And it looked pretty rad. I kind of totally loved it but told myself I needed to see if dried before I could make any judgements. I knew that it wouldn't look exactly like those celebrity photos I've seen but I still left the salon feeling pretty good.

   

Sorry I don't have better pictures right now - I haven't had time to really style it. Plus it's much more blonder in the back on the bottom than this picture is doing justice. I can't wait to see what it will look like when it's straight. So far, I love it. I also am pumped about the fact that I didn't have to make a commitment of coloring my hair every so often since I left my roots alone. Plus as my friend Katie put it my hair looks "sunkissed". Have you ever tried this? Are you interested? Do you like it? Let me know! xoxo and Happy Monday!

images via Glamour and We Heart It