Lilac, Red and a Lady Tie

Haha... so I had a little teeny bit of a hair mishap, just after getting this wig, actually. I have maybe possibly accidentally dyed my hair fluorescent pink (I ignored my own advice to DILUTE DILUTE DILUTE your hair dye always, which was really silly!) Neon pink isn't so bad, but I also did a really dodgy bleach job, and didn't get the roots white enough. So it's kind of weird-ombre-fluorescent pink. And it does not look good. So you'll all have to get used to me wearing this wig for a little bit, while I sort my hair out! Anyway, can I please talk about how much I love etsy stores for a moment? (Particularly this etsy store but we'll get to that.) Whenever I get something from an etsy store, I am made to feel like the most special lady in the world, because a ridiculous amount of care and time goes into making the whole thing, packaging included, entirely adorable and I usually get a little thank you card as well! The etsy store that I'm talking about today is Flapper Girl, who sent me two super cute Lady Ties. I am a little bit obsessed. They are such an amazing accessory, they instantly make any outfit more interesting and they work on anything that is collared! wearing tie - c/o Flapper Girl blouse - Vintage shorts - Cotton On tights - c/o Oasap shoes - Rubi Shoes hat - c/o Wholesale wig - Ebay You all ready for the weekend? ;) xxx Annika

Just a quick shout-out: new blog header!

So, if you're here, you'll notice I have a new blog header! I was sent this today out of the blue: (http://teardropsarefalling.blogspot.com.au/) I love it so much. Getting fan-art is something I never anticipated when I started this blog a year ago, and it's so exciting/flattering!! I just want to let everyone know where they can find the amazing illustrator, her name is Rachel and she is from Venezuela! You can find her blog here. Go and say hi, she has a really lovely blog! xx Annika

Sweeter than Sugar

I have a confession to make. I have a condition which makes my hair grow at a ridiculous rate. I actually usually have to cut it every day to stop it getting out of control, or it's just floor length by the time I wake up the next morning. I just get up in the morning and trip over my own hair. It's a pretty serious health hazard. But I decided to let it grow out today. It also grows out pink underneath. Yup. So anyway, I'm joking. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this wig yet, I guess it's odd because I am not used to seeing myself with long hair (although gosh I wish I had it). I got a bit more used to it while editing and uploading these photos though, and, well, wearing it around the house all day and pretending it was my real hair, haha. I also got on the train wearing it the other day and embarrassed the heck out of my boyfriend, who told me I looked like a crazy person (thanks). I was amused though :)  wearing dress - c/o Oasap bag - c/o Mochi Beaucoup tights - c/o Oasap wig - Ebay necklace - c/o Oasap shoes - Raben Footwear Hope you're having a nice week, all! xx Annika

Three Quick Questions with Meg Carroll

I have been quite the fan of this lady's blog ever since I came across it - Meg is a 16-year-old Australian-based blogger who wears her hair in victory rolls near daily and has just started making her own clothes, including a gorgeous long pink circle skirt (see below). Need I say more? And while I'm very glad to have left my 16-year-old days behind, I kind of wish I could go back just so I could dress a little better - I wish I had been this trendy when I was 16!!! If you've read my other interviews of this nature, I give the blogger in question three random questions to answer. So here are the questions I gave Meg. Enjoy! Q: I love your hair! How long does it take you to do your hair and do you do it yourself? Who taught you? Do you wear it like that every day? Well, things like the victory rolls and faux bangs can take under three minutes, but this is only when I’m concentrating. If I’m not, I generally stuff up, get more frustrated and have to start over multiple times. But with plenty of bobby pins and hairspray and a steady hand, it all turns out quite well. As for learning about the different styles, it was sort of self-taught with the help of multiple Youtube tutorials. Initially when I started doing it, friends would ask if they could poke my rolls or my faux bangs just out of curiousity, so I did get a few weird reactions… I have been getting very lazy recently and have done my hair less and less, mainly due to the fine line regarding uniform policy at school. Most teachers just say “my aunty had hair like yours” or “you look so vintage, are you a fashion student?” but a few would be like “take out that flower or it’s discipline point!” So my flair for hair has been a bit repressed, but I think I shall be making a come-back. I just love the pin-up style so much and I’ve finally discovered something to do with my hair for I am ashamed to say that I cannot plait. That’s right, I cannot even plait my hair! Q. Where do you predominantly shop for clothes? I would love to say that I’m an avid op-shopper, but I must admit that apart from the occasional miracle, I am yet to acquire the real knack for it and yet to find a local op-shop with the promise of regular hidden treasures. So I source most of my clothes online. Above all, I am devoted to Etsy and always have a million things in my cart I know I most likely will not buy (being 16 doesn’t allow for much of a budget). I also love Ruche, ModCloth and ASOS for the modern side of my style. Nowadays, I look down at what I’m wearing and it’s generally 75% from online. When it comes to buying locally, I’m pretty limited in Geelong, so every now and again I take the train up to Melbourne and wander to places such as Brunswick St where there are vintage boutiques galore and a plethora of clothes calling my name. Q. If you had to dress in a totally different style from the way you dress now, what would that style be? I think I would love to dress like a hippy/bohemian with sun-streaked hair to my waist, long flowing skirts, crocheted tops, the occasional tie-dye, daisy chains, headbands and of course bare feet (this being possibly the polar opposite to my actual style). I just think it would be fun, especially if it involved dancing around to the nonsense of “I am the walrus.”  Go and check out Meg's blog and say hi if you get the chance - she's a super lovely and friendly little lady! Also, fellow Australian (and New Zealand) bloggers, go and enter this giveaway here if you haven't already. YOU HAVE THREE DAYS! GET ON IT! Make up for our lack of winning gold by winning a skirt... or... something. (Olympic-related-quip, oh yeah! Relevancy and such!) I hope you enjoyed this interview! xx Annika

Lady In Blue

wearing dress - c/o Glamorous UK belt - Vintage bag - c/o Wholesale tights - c/o Oasap shoes - Rubi Shoes hat - c/o Wholesale necklace - Wholesale This dress from Glamorous is so seriously awesome. The arrival of this dress in the mail conveniently coincided with me realising that I had accidentally dyed my hair blue from the night before, so I spent the entire day swooshing around, going around university all pastel blue and feeling like a mermaid. I had big plans for a ballet-themed shoot with this dress (I did very competitive-level ballet for 10 years and feel like this would be a good time for it to come in handy, if nothing else), but the weather wasn't particularly great, my remote-timer was broken and it's too hard convincing someone to take photos for me (any other bloggers out there who have to bribe their friends/boyfriends/parents into taking just a couple of outfit photos for them? Remote timers are now my best friend.) Hopefully I'll get to do that someday, though. This dress just looks incredible in motion and I want to try and show that off somehow! Thanks for your lovely comments on this post a couple of days ago. It was nice to hear that I come across as a super-confident person because I'm actually pretty darn shy. But I was even happier to get comments saying that my (pretty lame, haha) little story had convinced people to be a bit bolder in their style and clothing choices, ignoring what other people would think about it! It's little things like that that make me really happy to have a blog and to be inspiring, in some way, to some people out there. You're all awesome and I love you :) I hope you're all marvellous! xxx Annika

How to dye your hair pastel pink - Adventures in Bleaching and Hairdye #2

Although in the last couple of weeks I've gone lilac (and now blue again), I've been dying/maintaining a pastel pink colour in my hair for about 3 months. This post is a kind of sister post to this one I did a while back about dying your hair pastel blue. It seems to have helped a lot of people, so I want to do the same kind of thing but this time with pink! DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER While I am not a hairdresser, and have never bleached anyone's hair but my own, I am well experienced in home hair dying and bleaching (I'm pretty sure I haven't seen my natural hair colour since I was 12 years old) and have had black, brown, pink, purple, red, very bright red, blue, green, bright blonde, orange hair. I never go to the hairdresser. That said, don't use this DIY as absolute gospel, and if you think if I've got things wrong or it sounds silly, you can ignore it or go to your hairdresser for advice instead. However, by all means use this as a guide to help or inspire you if you're trying to achieve pastel (particularly pink) hair. Okay, disclaimer over! I have to say, pastel pink hair is a lot of fun. You will definitely be noticed with a head full of pretty pink locks, and it's so much fun to brush, curl, straighten and style especially when you pretend it's cotton candy! Pink hair is awesome because you can wear all black for an interesting-yet-sophisticated look, look ridiculously sweet by pairing it with more pastel pink, or you can go all out and wear a bunch of different colours, because it basically goes with everything. How to dye your hair pastel pink Step 1: The bleaching. This is the step that probably claims the most victims. While bleaching, you need to be patient, and expect it to take upwards of a month to get your hair light enough to become pastel if you're starting off with darker hair. You also need to be very careful to not burn all your hair off. If you are scared of this happening, then go to your hairdresser. However, if you're stupid like me and still want to do it all yourself, then read on! My hair started off a dark brown (hair dyed), but naturally my hair is quite dark anyway. For this first step, I used a bleaching kit, Schwarzkopf Nordic Blonde "Ultimate Lightener L1++". This is some pretty serious bleach, designed to lift your hair colour from 6 - 8 shades. It also has a blonde toner in it, so your hair doesn't go as yellow as you would otherwise if you were just using developer and powder bleach. I highly recommend it, it did a fantastic job for the first bleach! Before bleaching, make sure you DON'T shampoo your hair for at least a day, and let it get nice and greasy, or your scalp is going to HURT a LOT. The chemicals in your greasy hair will protect the skin on your scalp :) Start bleaching on the ends of your hair, working your way up. DO NOT apply any to the roots until the last 10 - 15 minutes of the bleaching process (I did this, and look how blonde the roots still went!) The bleach will work on your roots really quickly because of the heat raditating from your scalp at this level. The bleach should not be on your hair for any longer than 45 minutes. Really. Your hair will melt off. Now, don't expect your hair to suddenly be ready to dye after the first bleach. If you have started off with very light hair, then you're probably alright to dye it now. However, this is the process my hair went through: You should NOT consider trying to dye your hair pink until your hair is at least as light as my hair in bleach no. 3 there. If you still have dark yellow bits, even if its just on the ends, your hair will not look good if you try to dye it. Between each bleach Do not bleach hair twice within a time frame of about 2 weeks (unless you want to ruin your hair). Between each bleach, you will need to do a lot of deep-conditioning treatments, which can be done by covering dry hair with conditioner, whacking it up in a shower cap, leaving it for a few hours then rinsing it out. Do this a few times between each bleach. If you bleach it in excess of five times and it's still not getting to the level of blonde that is needed, then here might unfortunately be a good place to give up :( you can, however, try to get rid of the yellow bits using a Silver toner (I used Schwarzkopf's LIVE Colour Silver Toner) and then see how it looks. If you can't get it light/yellow-less enough, then you can always go a darker colour, like a pretty midnight blue! Step 2: Dying your hair pink Okay! So your hair is now finally light enough to go pastel. If it's still a little bit yellow-toned, that's okay for pink. It would only not be okay if you were trying to go blue or lilac.  So which dye should you use? Don't buy an already-pastel  hair dye. These wash out far too quickly. Instead, buy a really vibrant colour and then dilute it with conditioner. This way, the colour will last a lot longer. For my hair, Directions Carnation Pink has been really good. I use a diluted Carnation Pink. This consists of a mix of 1 part Carnation Pink to every 6 parts conditioner. To dye, I wet my hair, towel dry it (so it is still damp), and spread the mixture through my hair, starting at the roots. I then throw my hair up into a shower cap, and leave it for about 6 hours (the dye doesn't hurt your hair, so you can leave it in as long as you want). Then rinse it out thoroughly (I've been told that if you do this part with cold water it'll last longer, but I refuse to suffer that much for my hair so doing it with warm water is okay too). Hooray! You should have pretty pastel hair! If it's a bit too bright at first for your liking, don't worry - it should fade to a nice pastel colour with a couple of shampoos. If it's too pastel for your liking, then you'll just have to dye it again - just use a little bit less conditioner this time. Step 3: Maintaining the pink You will have to dye your hair once every 3-4 weeks. If you don't want to do this, then don't go pastel pink. Tips which can help (which I totally ignore out of laziness/wanting to stay warm, but you should follow) are to wash your hair with cold water only, and also to put a tiny amount of your hair colour into your conditioner bottle. Also, it will obviously help if you don't shampoo your hair every time you have a shower - I have pretty naturally greasy hair so I use shampoo once every second day, and on the days I don't shampoo I use dry shampoo (you can probably just find this at your grocery store or chemist), which I spray on just before styling my hair - that stuff is magical. You will also have to re-bleach your roots often (I do this once every 2 months but I have very slow-growing hair, and am not that bothered by my roots showing, either). Once your hair is very light, you don't need to leave the bleach on for long. I usually put it straight onto my dark roots (not on the ends, which are already super light), put it in a hair cap, and leave for about 20 minutes before washing it out. I use powder bleach mixed with 30 vol developer for re-bleaching my roots. But times and the strength will vary depending on if you have dark or light roots (you may need a stronger developer if you have dark roots, and weaker if you have relatively lighter roots). I hope this helps somebody out there. If you have any questions, please comment below! Also, if you'd rather go a pastel blue, read this post here. xxx Annika Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr