Clairol Born Blonde Highlight Kit

...I had looked at. Clairol Born Blonde highlighting kit. It cost £6.49 in my local independent chemist, but you could probably get it cheaper in one of the discount chains.

The kit contains everything you need to highlight your hair at home. Well, everything except a willing extra body. Because this isn’t a one person job. My sister kindly agreed to do the work for me.

You get a plastic cap and a metal tool that ...
...hair through. You also get the bleach powder, a squeezy bottle of liquid to activate the bleach, a brush for applying the colour, a plastic “hat” to put on while the colour develops, a deep conditioning treatment, and plastic gloves to protect the hands of the person applying the bleach.

The instructions are very clear and easy to follow. Firstly, do a strand test and time it to see roughly how long it takes for your hair ... more

When I was a child I had the most glorious white-blonde hair. But as I grew up, it slowly darkened, through honey and caramel blonde in my late teens, to its present sad shade of mouse striped with a little grey.

Things have been pretty miserable for me lately, because of the divorce and all, and I decided I needed a change, a new me. And I had a job interview – my first one in about 20 years – and I needed a confidence booster. I chose blonde highlights, rather than the more labour intensive full head colour. I couldn’t afford to keep up with colouring the roots and highlights are more natural looking. I telephoned the hairdresser and was stunned when they quoted £42 for highlights.

I needed a radical change of plan. £42 for a bit of a pick me up is way beyond my new single mum budget. So, I popped into my local chemist and perused the shelves there. After about half an hour of box reading, forehead wrinkling, tutting and general indecision, I grabbed the first box I had looked at. Clairol Born Blonde highlighting kit. It cost £6.49 in my local independent chemist, but you could probably get it cheaper in one of the discount chains.

The kit contains everything you need to highlight your hair at home. Well, everything except a willing extra body. Because this isn’t a one person job. My sister kindly agreed to do the work for me.

You get a plastic cap and a metal tool that looks like a crochet hook for pulling the strands of hair through. You also get the bleach powder, a squeezy bottle of liquid to activate the bleach, a brush for applying the colour, a plastic “hat” to put on while the colour develops, a deep conditioning treatment, and plastic gloves to protect the hands of the person applying the bleach.

The instructions are very clear and easy to follow. Firstly, do a strand test and time it to see roughly how long it takes for your hair to lighten to the shade you require. Then you simply brush your hair back from your face, pull the cap on and tie it tight under your chin, and use the metal hook to pull strands of hair through the holes in the cap. This is quite time consuming if you want highlights all over.

The cap is full of little holes, some printed with circles around them, organised into sections. According to the instructions, you can choose to only pull hair through in the sections around the face, to achieve a “sun-kissed” look. Or you can only pull through the circled holes (about half of them) for a natural all-over sun-kissed look. Or finally, the option I chose, you can pull through all the holes for a more dramatic overall blonde look. It took about an hour to pull hair through all the holes, but my sister said that while it was a bit time consuming, it wasn’t difficult to do.

You then mix the powder and liquid together, paint it onto the hair you’ve pulled through the cap, cover it with the plastic hat and leave the colour to develop.

It also helpfully tells you that the hair goes through several colour stages before lightening to blonde, so you don’t panic when it goes gingery orange. Don’t get scared and wash it off at this stage. If you leave the bleach on, your hair will go blonde - eventually. My mouse brown hair took just over an hour to lift to a light, natural blonde.

Once you are happy with the colour, you shampoo the bleach off, leaving the cap in place, and use the sachet of deep conditioning treatment. Leave the conditioner on for a couple of minutes, then pull off the cap and rinse.

So, how did it work? Remarkably well, actually! I was thrilled with the results. I got lots of compliments and my next door neighbour’s mum, who I haven’t met before, thought my hair was natural! Pulling the hair through the cap can be a little painful if you have a sensitive scalp, or longer hair. And the bleach mixture is quite strong and made my eyes run a little, but didn’t irritate my scalp in any way. My hair is considerably dryer now, and needs extra conditioning, but most chemical hair treatments tend to dry the hair, so I’m not complaining.

The highlights are a nice pale blonde colour and give a lovely overall lightened effect. And they have made my sad mouse natural colour look more like toffee or caramel coloured streaks mixed in with the blonde.

I also invested in a Born Blonde toner, costing £3.65 for a 70ml bottle. I bought it just in case the bleach didn’t achieve a natural looking colour. I haven’t used it though, because I was happy with the results of the highlighting kit on its own. The instructions on the toner do say, however, that it can be used a couple of weeks after highlights are done, to “lift” or improve the colour if they have become dull or brassy. So, I might still use it later.

I will definitely be using this kit again. I would recommend, though, if you intend to do highlights regularly, that you invest in a proper rubber highlighting cap, as this will be closer fitting than the plastic one provided with the kit. This will allow you to get colour closer to the root.

Overall, I am totally chuffed with the results, as is my sister, who keeps staring at my head and telling people “I did that”! I feel like a new woman. The new colour has cheered me up and given me a big boost in confidence and I got the job! Ohhh, and I also got a date – so I’ll let you know if it’s true that blondes really do have more fun!

Cheers

Allie xx
 

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