Tag Archives: hair dye

Life update: the year (so far) in review

Long time, no blog! I hope you’re doing well. I’ve been trucking along with grad school for the past few months, and realized I hadn’t written here in a minute after posting pretty consistently for awhile. At first thought I didn’t feel like anything major has changed in my life recently, but looking back on the first (almost) half of 2021, I’ve done quite a bit. Here are some highlights…and lowlights:

I dyed my hair green! Well, it was supposed to be dark green, and it turned out more of a teal-blue color. Hazards of a DIY dye job, I guess? I loved it while I had it, though (I’ve since chopped off the dyed bottom half), and I’ve been planning to write a blog post about the whole process for, well, months now. Hopefully I’ll actually get around to it soon!

The color right after dying my hair, one month later, and two months later.

I broke my arms. This was definitely a defining event of my winter, for better or for worse—in early February, I fell while ice skating and fractured a bone in the wrist of one arm and near the elbow of the other. It was actually the first time I’d been ice skating in over 10 years, after another semi-traumatic fall happened the last time. So, unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be ice skating again any time soon (though I may try to brave the ice again next winter, provided I’m decked out in full hockey pads). I was pretty immobile for about a week and then slowly recovered over the course of the following month. Although this experience undoubtedly sucked, the silver lining was all the care, love, and delicious food I received from my local friends while I was out of commission—it definitely made me grateful to have such a strong community here.

The initial splint situation (plus a sling I had to take off to drive home from the urgent care).

I started a style-tracking Instagram account. I’ve been following, learning from, and engaging with the sustainable fashion community on Instagram for a long while now, and I finally decided to join in on the fun myself! I post outfits, occasional makeup looks, and lots of thoughts about fashion, sustainability, and my relationship to my closet in the captions. Going forward, I plan to better integrate my Instagram & blog content, delving deeper into the topics I thumb-type in my captions and maybe even sharing some outfit roundups or styling ideas. For now, if you’d like to follow along on this Insta-venture, you can find me here.

My latest style ‘gram!

I road-tripped down South. I tagged along with my friends Kae and Katie to dogsit in rural South Carolina for a few weeks, and we had a lovely time. We didn’t do too much venturing out into the world because of COVID, but we walked the dogs a bunch and hiked and watched multiple Shrek movies together and it was great. Also, I was able to get vaccinated while I was there; definitely another highlight!

The dogs in question.

I was diagnosed with ADHD. This is a very recent development and something I’m still processing, learning about, and figuring out how to live my life with. I’ll dedicate at least one post to talking about this in the future, because it’s been a long journey to even get diagnosed and I’m sure an even longer path of learning, changing, and fitting this diagnosis into my life lies ahead. So for now, let me know if you have any specific questions and I’ll try to answer them in a separate post.

Unrelated to the ADHD thing, I got to see this cool orchid a few weeks ago—the yellow lady’s slipper, Cypripedium parviflorum.

That about brings you up to speed on my major life events so far this year. As summer has begun in earnest (if not yet in astronomical time), I’ve relished being outside, seeing friends in-person now that we’re fully vaccinated, traveling a bit, and having more time and brainpower to devote to my actual thesis work now that the semester is over. I hope you have a great summer, and I’ll see you back on the blog soon.

Review: Kristin Ess Signature Hair Gloss in Wild Berry

I’ve been a fan of Kristin Ess since the early days of The Beauty Department (RIP). Her beautiful bright red hair has always been #goals, and I’ve had my eye on her haircare line since it launched at Target a few years ago.

Since I’ve been on a curly hair discovery journey, I have resisted the urge to pick up any Kristin Ess Hair (KEH) products for awhile now, beautiful as they may be. But when it came to my attention that Kristin was launching an entire set of curl-specific products among her 2020 lineup of new products, it felt too good to be true. New year, new hair…new me?

The product that most intrigued me, though, wasn’t actually one of the curl ones. It was a new shade of KEH’s Signature Hair Gloss: Wild Berry!

Kristin describes this shade as a “deep rich burgundy” and recommends it for darker-haired folks looking to refresh or add burgundy tones to their hair. The beautiful shade on the box had me mesmerized from the moment I saw it, and it was only a matter of time (read: a few hours) until I picked it up at my local Target.

Before I did, though, I called the company to confirm that this product is vegan (the whole KEH line is certified cruelty-free by PETA). A real person answered the phone immediately and confirmed that all the hair glosses are vegan. A great customer service experience!

What is a hair gloss, anyway?

From the Kristin Ess Hair website:

I always recommend that my clients come to get glossed and toned between salon visits to extend the life of their color. I’m finally able to give them, and you, something that is easy to use at home. This in-shower treatment is formulated to instantly boost vibrancy and shine, while adding deep burgundy tone to color treated or naturally brown hair. It will help you keep your color looking fresh, shiny and healthy between appointments.

The way I understand it, it’s like a lip gloss, which adds shine and some sheer color to the lips—that, but for hair.

The transformation

Here’s my hair before: Very dark brown base/natural color, with some reddish highlights I got a couple months ago that are fading. (The colorist I went to actually used a gloss after bleaching for these, which is probably why they faded so quickly—glosses aren’t meant to be permanent.)

Annnd here’s the after:

  • All photos taken in the same location, wtih natural lighting (but at different times of day).

As you can see, my highlights took on that lovely burgundy tone! My base color is pretty much the same, which I more or less expected because it’s so dark. The overall effect is not too in-your-face, but not invisible—when I saw my friend the next day, she immediately asked if I had colored my hair.

Read on for the process of applying the dye and more photos of the results!

The process

This gloss is supposed to be applied to wet hair and then washed out. As suggested, I lightly shampooed my hair beforehand because it was pretty dirty.

Then, I put on the included gloves—Kristin recommends doing this before getting in the shower because it’s hard to put gloves on wet hands, which is a pretty great tip!—and got back in the shower with the two bottles of product.

You basically mix one bottle into the other, then apply all over your hair and leave for 15-20 minutes. I did just that, and it felt pretty foolproof! The instructions were very thorough. One word of warning, though—this shade of the gloss does look a lot like blood when you’re applying it. When I was rinsing it out, my shower looked like a crime scene.

  • Kristin recommends doing a face mask while you’re waiting to rinse the gloss, but I didn’t plan ahead and bring one into the bathroom with me. Next time!
  • I did, however, drink some red wine while I waited. Honestly, it was quite fun.

I was concerned about the blood gloss staining my skin and/or shower tiles, but it didn’t at all—it just wiped right off.

After rinsing out the gloss, I shampooed and conditioned with the new KEH curl line. I may review those products soon once I’ve used them a bit more.

The results + final thoughts

I’m now a couple weeks out from my first at-home gloss adventure, and I’m glad I did it! Kristin Ess created an approachable product that I felt comfortable using, and I plan to use it again in the future, whenever this round of the gloss fades out.

I’m happy with the results—as I expected, it didn’t do much for my natural hair color besides a bit of burgundy glow in the sunlight. But it colored my highlights quite well. So if your hair is super dark like mine and you don’t have any highlights or naturally lighter bits, I wouldn’t expect more than a subtle effect. I also didn’t notice much of a difference in the overall shininess of my hair, so I can’t really speak to that. But if you’re looking to add or revitalize some red-violet tones in your not-the-darkest-brown hair, I think this is a fantastic product!

Here are a few more photos & videos to show you what the color looks like on my hair:

  • On the bus- you can see the purplish glow from the sunlight here!
  • This photo taken by my lovely & talented friend Katie Ehrlich!

Let me know if this review was helpful or if you have any questions! Have you tried a KEH hair gloss? Will you?