Appearance

I have to admit, I've not been taking that much care over my appearance lately. I think it was a combination of the flu/throat virus tiring me out, the optician telling me I had to stop wearing contact lenses for a little bit, and maybe just my own apathy/lethargy/depression (apparently this plays a factor and I can understand that - when I'm feeling low I sleep more and so have less time or can't be bothered to make myself look nicer).

I shouldn't let that stop me though. Fact is, when I've put a bit more effort into what I'm wearing or how I look, I tend to feel a bit better about myself. I know it's silly that make up can have that effect, but it does.

I think my ankle has had a lot to do with it in the last couple of weeks. Because of the pain in my ankle, I can't stand still for very long - even standing at the sink to brush my teeth or wash my face was too much: I ended up sitting on the (closed) toilet while I brushed my teeth and switched to skincare that didn't need water (Lush's Ultrabland, which I was using to cure the red blotches on my skin), so I could take care of my face while lying in bed with my ankles propped up.

I'd even been skipping showers/baths cause it's too painful standing in the shower trying to keep my balance, and sometimes I just didn't want to be lying around in the bath.

But I decided to push myself into having a bath and washing my hair - even redyed it this weekend, before my roots started majorly showing! And tonight I'm gonna wash it again, after doing my laundry and hoovering my room. Not been able to hoover it and every time I want to do laundry the machine is either being used, or people are coming to view the flat so don't really want my delicates on display for strangers...

Last night for the first time in a while I painted my nails (subtly sparkly powder blue) and looking at them today makes me feel better. I'm also wearing little pumps instead of my trainers, which I've been wearing constantly for nearly 2 weeks. Hard to feel nice and ladylike when wearing proper trainers!

Tonight I hope to do a bit more pampering/preening and maybe tomorrow I can finally put in some contacts and put on some make up. I've just been neglecting myself a bit lately. I've been indulging in resting when I can, and of course can't do much with my ankles, so it's made me feel a bit down lately - the rest I'm getting because of my ankles actually bores me cause I'd rather be doing other things before I leave the country in 12 days...

I'm looking into some new haircare too, cause, despite having my hair cut recently and conditioning it regularly, I've got split ends and they just look tatty and frizzy even if they're not splitting...

Hair dye

I've been slacking off again, with everything. Well, everything not work-related.

So I've not been studying, I've not been blogging...

I just about made time to pamper myself a little, and tonight I'm finally going to dye my hair again!

My natural hair colour is - of course, since I'm of South Asian descent - very dark brown, bordering on black if not seen in natural or bright light. When I was still at school, I always wanted to dye my hair different colours, which is something my sister actually did instead of dreaming it. For almost any bright colour to show, I would have had to bleach my hair, like she did, so I ended up not doing it. It was too much hassle, I was scared of ruining my hair with super strong bleach, and the school got incredibly pissed off when my sister dyed her hair.

(at our school we had to wear uniform until we were 16, and then the rules about hair were a bit more relaxed as well. My sister started dying her hair green, blue, red etc when she was still in uniform, so there were a lot of senior staff complaints)

Then in my second year of uni (19 years old) I decided to finally dye it red. Not a firetruck red, mind, but something red that would show. My mum first suggested using henna, which is what she did when she started to go grey (a very traditional South Asian thing to do). I tried it, but it just made my hair dark brown and it smelt like henna (which I associate with mud) for ages. So I asked some friends for advice, and they recommended I try Schwarzkopf.

Anyone who knows a teeny tiny bit of German might see why someone with my natural hair colour was recommended a brand called "black head". The dyes come in different shades depending on your natural hair colour, so if you're anything from light blonde to dark brown to black, you should be able to find a shade which will show up on your hair.

Perfect for me!

And ever since I've continued dying my hair with 43, Red Passion. And gotten many compliments about it.

Sadly, it's now a very popular shade - yesterday I had to go to 3 different Boots to find it. And then a new type of their hair dye caught my eye, next to the other reds. (My one has a different picture on the box...)

A red hair dye with natural lightening in it, no need for an extra bleach step (which I don't do anyway). So I thought, why not! Although, since my hair is already mostly dyed - except for the inch of roots which is driving me mental, though since my hair is naturally dark anyway and the red isn't bright, it's not as bad as it could be - this could go horribly wrong.

If it goes wrong, I'm dying my entire head a nice light shade of brown.

We'll see.