Monday 28 October 2013

New Jeans using Dylon Machine Dye

Hi guys! This isn't a hair related post, just a little clothing DIY that I'm pretty happy with. Finding a good pair of jeans takes forever for me, I like my jeans to have a bit of stretch in them otherwise I get that huge gap in the back caused by my waist measurement being smaller than my hip measurement. In fact for a long time, I stopped wearing trousers altogether as I could never find a pair that properly fit. So when I finally found jeans that fit me a bit better (Topshop's Leigh Jeans) I was so excited! Unfortunately the price tag didn't excite me - Leigh Jeans are £38-£40 a pop - and for a poor student such as myself, buying several pairs would be out of the question. So when my old ones developed a rip in the thigh that I couldn't mend, I couldn't buy new ones. What to do? What to do? DIY of course!

Instead of buying a full price pair of blue Leigh Jeans, I decided to I buy these jeans for £15 in the Topshop sale and dye them blue:



I looked for a pair of jeans that were quite light in colour and already had dark blue, black or brown stitching. The stitches are made from polyester and therefore can't be dyed to a different colour so if you want the jeans to look like you bought them blue check the stitching on the outside and the inside (because the inside may peek through to the outside). The inside of these jeans use pink thread but it doesn't show through so I was good to go!


I bought the dye from John Lewis for about £5. The process is easy, the packet dye (rather than the box) comes with the salt and dye already combined and you don't have to do so many washes to rinse out the machine afterwards. I just popped the jeans and dye into the washing machine, used 2 normal spin cycles and I was done.



The colour is more of a grey-blue rather than a jeans blue, but I'm still pretty happy with the results. Because of the two washes, the jeans can come out of the machine feeling a little stiff initially but after a few wears they do soften up and go back to normal. So all in all a new pair of Topshop Leigh Jeans for £20!

Maz x   

Friday 11 October 2013

Mariama's Hair Regimen

I’m sure none of us have days to waste doing our hair, so I’ve had to reduce down my regimen so I spend as little time as possible during the week doing my hair.

I was...
  • co-washing once or twice a week, but who has time for that?! When you have kinky-curly Type 4 hair, your hair can take hours to wash and condition. I tried washing my hair once a fortnight/ once a month but it would get too dirty and dry. Now I try to wash my hair once a week with either the full prepoo-shampoo-deep condition or I co-wash with a deep conditioner (Yeah that’s right, I said deep conditioner!)
  • detangle three times, THREE! What a waste of a day! I used to finger detangle, use a wide-tooth comb and then use a Denman. But to be honest, once your hair is detangled, it’s detangled. Doing it three times is just pointless. I tried just finger detangling for a while instead of combing but didn’t notice any difference in the amount of hair I was losing, it took FOREVER and my hair was more knotty than when I was using combs. Now I detangle my hair wet once a month with a Denman and the rest of the time using a wide-tooth comb.
  • have a lot of conditioners (…in fact I still do, heh) but I’ve decided to stop experimenting and stick with two or three conditioners. But I have allowed myself the pleasure of experimenting with leave-in conditioners, but I am only allowed to buy one at a time!
  • buy expensive oils because everyone was raving about them. Now when making my own products I use only a few ingredients and I cut out the more expensive oils like jojoba oil, argan oil and vitamin E oil. Instead I use much cheaper alternatives that were already high in vitamin A & E. Macadamia nut oil is a much cheaper alternative to jojoba oil, and like jojoba is similar to sebum. If you’re allergic to nuts and would rather avoid them then you can use the even cheaper apricot kernel oil. Altogether I have a collection of six oils that I buy in bulk and use to make my skin oil, hair oil and hair butters. 

Products I use (this list isn’t here to make you run out and buy these products, it’s more to encourage you to find products that work for you.)


Prepoo, Shampoo & Deep Conditioner

L’Oreal Expertise EverSleek range + my hair oil. There are two sub-ranges: Smoothing & Intensely Nourishing or Smoothing and Moisturing, what the difference is I’ll never know. I just buy whichever one is there. I tried the EverRiche line for dry hair, but I prefer these ones instead. 

Co-wash

Depending on which one is on sale (because I like to save my pennies) I use Herbal Essences Hello Hydration, Beautiful Ends Intensive Mask (the conditioner was kind of meh, but this I like) or Dove Nourishing Oil Care Hair Therapy Conditioner.

Styling Products

I make my oil mix and hair butter myself.
For my edges, buns and puffs, I use aloe vera gel and sometimes Zainab’s puff cream (which she told me she’ll tell you about soon).

Phew, all done. Tell me about your regimens!

Maz xx