I was a Fallen Angel!! (Schwarzkopf Live)

Member Name: scattyredhead

Product:	Schwarzkopf Live
Date:	28/07/01 (1850 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Leaves your hair in fabulous condition

Disadvantages: Red shades to tend to fade quicker. Those hopeless midget sized gloves!!

I’ve always been ‘scatty’ as far back as I remember. My school reports never said as much, but they very definitely hinted at it! Descriptions such as,'disorganised''lacks concentration', 'careless', with the occasional ‘popular student’ ‘fun-loving’ ‘likeable’ description thrown in to balance the books! Is it any wonder then that I adopted this ‘tag’ along the way!

What I haven’t always been is ‘red’..as in a ‘red-head’! Oh, I’ve been plenty of other colours! ‘Dizzy blonde’ ‘mysterious, ethereal gothic black’, and a variety of shades in between, pink, green, plum. Highlights, lowlights, etc. However I think I have finally settled on red as my chosen colour! I did say ‘think’!!

It does suit my colouring, whereas with hindsight I realise the blonde made me look like Courtney Love on a bad day (apologies to you-know-who-you-are!! Tee hee!)
And the black was “Hello Morticia!!” so now every 8-12 weeks I hit the bottle (the dye one you fools!)

But being an impulsive creature (and a Gemini to boot, sigh!) I don’t always go for the same brand/shade of dye! A change is as good as a rest and this is as ‘changed’ as I want to go these days! This time I have opted for the brand that this op is about. See you knew I would get to the subject in question! Patience my friends!

I have chosen Schwarzkopf for brand and Red Planet as the shade. There are several shades of red in the range but I went for the most dramatic one, never being a shrinking violet! It looks gorgeous on the box, real coppery red (it’s a pity they didn’t use a model with a longer fringe. Check the eyebrows out, they look ridiculous! Mind you, you must NEVER use this to dye eyebrows)

It is the second time I have used this particular brand so therefore I didn̵
7;t do the recommended strand and sensitivity test. I knew I wasn’t going to have any nasty side effects from using it and I didn’t mind too much how it turned out, as long as it was pretty dramatic!

The instructions are very comprehensive and it is well worth following them in order to get the best results. The gloves they supply with it are not at all useful and you are better off slinging them away and using household gloves! The instructions tell you how to mix the two bottles how to apply the dye to already dyed hair as well as ‘dye virgins’

What the instructions do not tell you is that it is not a good idea to dye your hair on one of the hottest days of the year! I was very careful not to get the dye all over my clothes (old towel around the shoulders please!) this time as well as the bathroom walls! My husband always knows when I have dyed my hair; he comes home to a scene from, “The Texas chainsaw massacre” in our bathroom!

Why is it not a good idea to do the dyeing on a hot day I hear you all wondering? Well there I sat with my curls all piled up neatly on top of my head waiting the 30 minutes for the product to take effect. I had an old towel wrapped around my shoulders so that any stray bits would not escape onto my bare skin, red head I want red face I do not!

What I had failed to take into account was that it was a bloody hot day and I was well lets just saying ‘glowing’ a bit (pigs sweat, men perspire, ladies just ‘glow’!) as I ‘glowed’ more and more I could feel drips beginning to run down my forehead, yes you do know where this is leading!

I wiped a few away but as I began to do it more and more I realised that I was losing a fighting battle so I took myself off to the bathroom to do the job properly. What a shock I got when I looked in the mirror!

It was as though my hair had gotten a life of its own and developed a rather n
ice random fringe!! Lots of red lines cascaded down to my brow line..aagghh!!! You have never seen anything so ridiculous in all your life! Out came the high concentration skin cleanser and a Brillo pad. Ok I am kidding you on that one! And I scrubbed and scrubbed to eradicate them before they too became permanent.

I was relieved to see them gradually disappearing leaving me with just a red head to contend with. After the hour was up, yes I know I left it on too long but it was either that or a red forehead! I added a bit of warm water and massaged the colourant well into my scalp, and then it was under the shower to rinse the whole lot off.

I wasn’t surprised or shocked at the end result, having used it before but once again I was thrilled to not how soft and manageable my hair felt. The dye comes with a small bottle of conditioner to use afterwards and boy does that condition well! It wasn’t quite like the girl on the front of the box, but at least my eyebrows don’t look so odd!

Instructions on the side of the box state that the end result does depend on your natural starting colour, and gives you a few pictures of what effect you might get. Obviously the lighter your natural hair colour the more dramatic the end result will be. Which very nicely leads me to the end of this op, almost and to explain the title!

Don’t make the mistake I made a little while ago in thinking that it was possible to lighten my already dyed hair without using a pre-lightener beforehand! I fancied a few chunky blonde streaks in my red hair a few months ago. So I bought a box of a different dye, one with a special applicator so that you can streaks where you want.

I started off by just adding random applications of the product throughout my hair and then got impatient and thought, “Oh sod it, I’ll do the whole lot!” so I slung the applicator away and just massaged the rest through my hair, including my
‘almost-back-to-normal-colour- roots’
Ah ha! Big, HUGE mistake!!

When I rinsed it all off half an hour later (I was erring on the side of caution for once as I was trying something totally different!) I was horrified to notice that instead of having sexy blondish locks I was left with just slightly lighter red locks and a perfect line of blonde roots right down the centre of my scalp! OH MY GOD!!!

It went from bright blonde there to a slightly orangey colour next followed by the lighter red stuff and finally the tips of my hair, which were still quite dark red! I looked like a very confused tabby cat!!! It caused much hilarity at work, especially as most people look down on me (not THAT way!!) as I am sat at the reception desk as people come onto the Ward!

The funniest sight was watching it grow out over the next few weeks, as I was left with a perfect halo very gradually slipping down my head! If only I had followed the instructions on the box that time!

Still never mind I am back to normal now (I am so..!!) and at least it cheered folk up a bit, and my moral is: if you go through life managing to make a few people smile along the way then it is well worth being a Fallen Angel if only for a little while!
Thank you… and goodnight!
Kazz!!

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