My hair has gone through a lot in my lifetime, but more specifically in the past year. Previous to last year, I mainly only highlighted and lightened my hair a couple of shades. I did once do an ombre and perm, but that got cut off really fast. Then when I got engaged, I decided not to do anything crazy to my hair until after the wedding because a) I didn’t want to have anything super trendy that I might regret in my wedding photos and b) I wanted my hair healthy and long enough to style.

See there’s been a lot going on in just the past year.

I went from brunette to blonde litterally overnight. It was kinda of fantastical. Took us about 7 hrs to complete, and my hair was actually still really healthy thanks to my AMAZING stylist and olaplex. I got bored with the blonde and had been playing with the idea of going lavender for awhile, but was worried about work (I was working in a corporate office at the time), so I had her add just the teensiest about to the bottom of my hair and no one seemed to notice. Then right before my honeymoon my stylist and I decided to do something daring and she did some unicorn magic. She purposefully used temporary color so that while I was on my honeymoon it would wash out from all the swimming. Well unfortunately for me I got and eye infection and wasn’t able to swim very much during my honeymoon so it was still pretty purple when I got back. I was nervous about work, but when I brought it up with my bosses, they kept telling me how much they loved it and told me not to change it, so I didn’t. It eventually faded into the grey silver color. Then I dyed it a dark grey blue and warned my bosses that I was going to go a little more blue (which they told me was completely fine), and I ended up with this mermaid hair (which to this day is still my favorite color I’ve ever had). Well, my bosses did actually end up having a problem with my hair and asked me to change it. I said okay, but that they needed to give me sometime to properly strip the color out of my hair and change the color the correct way. They gave me a week, so I quit my job. Eventually, I  knew I was going to have to change my hair back to a “natural” color so that interviewing wouldn’t be so difficult, but it took me a month of washing my hair, 3 applications of color stripping, and a bleach wash to finally get to the grey/blue/blonde color. It was finally light enough to put another color over without the blue peeking through again, and I decided to go red. I know that red isn’t exactly the most natural color, but for whatever reason, bright red seems to be more “socially acceptable” than other bright colors.

So needless to say, that many time stripping hair color is HARSH on your hair (not to mention goin blonde in one sitting), BUT if you feel my hair, it’s actually pretty thick and healthy still and this is how:

My stylist got my HOOKED on the Pureology line. When I was blonde, strength cure was my MIRACLE shampoo and conditioner. I use the Reviving Red line now to keep my red color fresh longer, but honestly I love all their shampoos (Strength Cure is the best for damaged hair though). She also reccomended I use Olaplex step 3 once a week to hadd the proteins back into my hair (I really only use it once a month because I get lazy). My favorite though are the Pureology Color Fanatic mask, and the spray. It smells sooo good and makes my hair so silky. More recently (like the last 2 months) I’ve been taking the Sugar Bear Hair Vitamins. Honestly, I’m only taking these to help my hair grow longer (it tends to get stunted at my mid back), but I can’t quite tell if it’s working yet (my hair grows really fast already, I’m just waiting for it to get to my mid back to see waht happens). My stylist says that my hair feels amazing, though, so it’s at least helping there! Plus they kinda of taste amazing so I just like eating them.

You probably don’t actually need all of these products, but because I realy want my hair to not fall apart I like using it all. I was going cut one thing out though it would probably be the Olaplex. I don’t actually desperately need it, and to be honest I don’t use it as much as I should. I would definitely stick with their shampoos and the Color Fanatic mask & spray, which is available at Ulta.

Let me know if you have any questions about any of the products. I’ve tried almost the entire Pureology line now, and they all definitely do something different. These are just the ones that worked the best for me.