Soft Waves & A Playful Snow Puppy

Hey everyone!

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. I talked about the new dry shampoo I have been using called Batiste. Well this week I totally put that dry shampoo to the test. I went almost 4 days without washing my hair. Woooooop!  All I did was just fix up my style each day and BAM... a fresh style each day with barely any grease build up...Yessssssssss!

One thing that I wanted to try after reading several bloggers posts about refreshing curls, was a texturizing cream, so I didn't have to use anymore heat than I would have to. I went searching for a few different ones, but all the ones I wanted were tres expensive... and since I'm on a budget these days, I just figured I would go home and see if I possibly had anything that I could use at home.

BF and I were in a mad dash out the door over the weekend. I take so long getting ready so the poor guy had to wait for me as usual. Anyhow... after I re-sprizted my greasy areas of my hair with my new dry shampoo, I didn't want anymore hair spray in my hair, I just wanted to bump up the curls that I somewhat already had from the day before, so I grabbed BF's sticky, waxy hair gel (meant for african american hair), called Murray's Wax and only dug out the littleist (spelling?) amount. This stuff is soooooo sticky, but it holds unbelievable! I tilted my head to the side and just started scrunching my hair, weaving my fingers ever so gently thoughout my hair and again.. more scrunching. I touched up my bangs just a tad, and smoothed everything out. What a frigging difference!!!! My 4th day hair turned out to look fresh, styled and ready for a night on the town. I was shocked on how polished it looked. Since it holds so well, this style lasted all day and night.. The only downfall, having to wash your hands once or twice afterwards... A little bit of this wax goes a loooooooooooong way!

Take a peek...

As you can tell my my bang, it's broken off a bit, that's why I am all for no heat these days

I wore this shirt before I put on my outfit.. This is a lounging shirt for me.. lol

I

I almost felt that it looked nicer than when I have freshly washed hair. Anyhow, I'm thrilled. I think I may be stealing a bit of this Murray's Wax more often. Shhhhhh, can't let BF know. lol. Thank you to all the bloggers that suggested scrunching your hair, it made such a huge difference for me and it has given me soft, simple, loose curls that are my absolute favorite, with NO HEAT!

On a side note: I found this awesome app for my iphone called Process. It costs about $4.99 but you can manipulate your photos in all different ways. Sometimes I like to do different black and white, different tones and colors. Just something different to look at than the average color shot. All these photos today were from that program. You can make the tones as hard or soft looking as you want them... I like it and it's also FUN!

I also wanted to show you some fun pics of puppy! He absolutely LOVES the snow... A little obsessed I may say. He was having such a wonderful time, I thought I would snap a few photos to show you. Puppy is about 1.5 years old. He will be 2 years in June. After looking at these photos, it's clear to me that he is all grown up... tear! However, he still has his hyper puppy-ness still... and I love him to pieces!

My grown up boy.. Love you Remy

Watching BF throw a snowball

After rolling around in the snow

Trying to catch a snowball that BF was throwing to him. He kind of looks like a shark..lol

Running around

Hope everyone has a fabulous day!

Love always,
xo
Mel

P.S If anyone has any great products that they love to use to avoid heat, let me know. I think it's obvious by all my hair posts that I'm a little obsessed these days with getting my hair back to a healthy state... lol

Highlights are BACK & Puppy is all Grown up!

Hey everyone!
Hair talk again!!! I know, I'm bombarding you with all my hair issues...lol

Going dark has been such a rollercoaster for me. At the beginning, when I had all the fresh, rich dark tones, I was INLOVE with my hair, got amazing feedback etc, but as the days went on, it just washed away and always ended up going so brassy, so reddish, so orange-y, and just completely nightmere-ish. My wallet also suffered... oh-my-gosh did it ever suffer because of how much I had to get it refreshed. Seriously, I was refreshing the color every couple of weeks.. not good!

I just recently went to see Cayla (my hair colorist.. love her!)... because something had to be done to stop all this maddness...lol. Instead of staying pretty much all one color, I asked her to add some highlights so that it breaks up the solid-ness a bit. Since I've experienced pretty much every shade of dark (lol), I am starting to see what "look" I like best... Can you guess??  You got it... Balayage!

I personally feel you get the most "natural" look with Balayage (ombre). I am not the biggest fan of super dark with really blonde bottom, I like more of a natural flow with the color.. too much contrast and funk.. is so not my thing!

I was actually a bit disappointed with being so dark.. It was so much of an upkeep, way worse than being blonde. Maybe it was because I have always been blonde, so when I went dark, the color just kept washing away. I am also disappointed because the beautiful color that I had when I first did it dark, stayed for maybe a week, then it just washed away to a god awful reddish brown color.. Nothing is wrong with reddish brown, but that was not the look I was going for. Also, my re-growth was coming in blonde, so it looked like the brown hair was floating on my head... just a disaster!!!

Anyhow, now that I have some blonde highlights, I can start over with Balayage, which means... Next time I make an appointment, I will just get my roots darkened only a bit to a nice cooler tone to match my natural hair, which is dark blonde. I love the dark still, but I need it to blend better for when my re-growth happens, that's why I went back to some highlights.  Unfortunately, getting back to a lighter tone quickly without damaging it, is very hard. So, since my dark has totally faded to a gross warm color, lightening it up only adds to that warm tone. For myself, I don't like any warmth, I like more cool tones... but hey.. that's just me! I can deal with it for now if it means less breakage.

Anyhow, here is how my hair turned out... sorry the lighting sucks big time and I had to take it from my iphone :( The highlight she used is actually a really pretty blonde, it's more of a baby/pale blonde, which I love!

As you can see, there is some warmth to my hair.. not sure why those yellow dots are showing up, it's actually making it look really orange-y in that one spot (which really, it's not that bad at all) but whatevs.

I have to be REALLY careful with my hair.. If you can see on the right side of the pic, I have a piece that's super short!!! Ya... it broke a bit.. tear!

What's funny, well.. not really funny, but that breakage wasn't from the blonde, it was actually from the dark that I put in my hair. Whether you go lighter or darker, it's still somewhat damaging to your hair. I was really shocked when this happened, just because my hair had FINALLY started feeling healthy. I'm trying not to really style that broke piece, just kind of dealing with it right now and baby-ing it...

Anyhow, from this point on, I will pretty much just get Cayla to pull through the darker pieces in my hair as well as the root until my natural hair takes over.. I will also be putting thin, blended highlights throughout my hair every 3rd or 4th appointment, but not applied to the root, just painted on I think.

I know some pieces are that gross orange-y tone, but I mean... it's going to happen when you go from really dark, to blonde again. I would rather do it in a more gentle way, then harsh and my hair breaks off right?

Oh... and I wanted to show you something else... My puppy, Remy... I cannot believe how big he is now. He is 1.5 years old now. It feels like yesterday when he was just a little tot. I just love him so much!

Isn't he the sweetest?? lol

I hope everyone has a fantastic day. I'm also on the hunt for a new shampoo, so if anyone has any suggestions, let me know. I am looking for something a little more sulphate free and very moisturzing!

Love always,
xo
Mel

Happy Halloween from Puppy

Happy Halloween everyone!

I am so excited to hand out candy tonight! I absolutely LOVE seeing all the kids and their costumes, especially the really young ones. Our street has lots of little kids, and I cannot wait to see them. We don't do anything funky with decorating our house, we even forgot to get a pumpkin this year, but our light is on, and we are definitely handing out some candy. Maybe even keeping some for ourselves too...lol

I just wanted to show you what puppy dressed up as for Halloween. We were in Pet Smart exchanging a toy, and costumes were $5. We couldn't resist getting him one. The only problem was that there wasn't one that was big enough for him, so we had to go with a 2 piece costume.

Love my sweet Remy!! What a good sport!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween. Be safe and eat lots and lots of candy!!

Love,
xoxo
Mel & Remy

Puppy & Sephora DO NOT MIX!

Hey everyone!

Just a little post today. Over the weekend, I went to Sephora. Well thank goodness that I took out my purcahse from the bag, because I left the bad downstairs on the bottom landing and O.M.G!!!

Take a peek...

Not a good puppy!

Thank goodness that only the tissue paper and receipt were left in the bag. I don't know what I would've done if he got into the Naked Palette. I can't even think how devastated I would've been! This is why our house is as puppy proof as we can get it. Nothing can be left within puppy's reach. Could you image in he destroyed the whole palette? oh-my-goodness there would be a terrible mess all over our carpet and all over this blonde puppy dog! lol

Love this pup, no matter how much mess he makes!

Anyhow, just wanted to share them with you. Has your puppy ever got into something precious of yours? Comment below and tell me. I always love these stories :)

Love always,
Mel
xoxo