I've always been the person who's known for dyeing their hair, I would be one of the only one in my friendship group that would dye their hair all the colours of the rainbow, and I still am! While all of my friends are opting for the natural look of blonde and brown I'm still dyeing my hair unnatural colours, I'm currently a seafoam green type colour, hoping to go pink as soon as I can!
Cue baby pictures, embarrassing photographs and an array of selfies here.
So when I was born I had dark brunette hair, and as I grew up into a toddler it sort of went more blonde, my mum wouldn't cut it at all! I think my first trip to a hairdressers was when I was 6, and I remember asking my mum if it would hurt! These two pictures are school pictures, the first one I was around 2 I think, and then the second I would have been 5. Look how cute I was.
As I grew a little bit older my hair turned dark brown all over and it was long enough that I could sit on it, around the age of 10 I cut most of it off because I was going to Nant BH for a few days (it was a school trip where we stayed for a few days doing loads of adventurous things like climbing mountains, exploring mines and gorge walking), so I couldn't handle all of that hair by myself! But instead of going to a hairdressers like normal people I had my hair cut by my nan, it was all over the place! A few months after, I had a hairdresser cut and style my hair, I even had a few highlights put in, I went into school the next day thinking I was the bee's knees because I was the first person to have highlights.
And now the emo years, this is where I started actually doing different things with my hair. I'd had the same brunette hair (like the first picture) since I was 13. I was 15 in these pictures and I'd just started hanging round with the local goth/emo/scene kids, there were loads of us and we'd spend all day sitting around on the bandstand in the middle of town. I led a very exciting life, honestly. But I was exposed to these knew people with insane hair and I knew I needed to try it. I started off by just bleaching the underneath of my fringe and having blonde running down the sides of my hair, not that eccentric but it was a start.
And now 16, I think this was the height of my emo phase. I started off with just dyeing the blonde in my hair purple, which later faded the nicest pastel baby pink ever. I then dyed it pink, blue and purple but it all mixed into one colour after the first wash, I was gutted! Fast forward a few months and ombre was the new thing, but teenage Steph didn't want to follow the crowd, so instead of blonde she went green, pink, blue and purple. I think my hairdresser must of hated me! This lasted a lot longer than my fringe colours. It eventually faded and I decided to dye it all blue instead. (Also can we take a minute to acknowledge the fact I used to put my name in the bottom of the picture, so emo.)
When I was 18 I stopped hanging around with the emo kids, I lost contact with almost everybody, I think I speak to about 5 or 6 of them now, and that's usually on a night out. Compare that to the 30 or 40 people that I used to hang around with on a regular basis. But I had just started college and I didn't fit in with anybody. So I thought I would go back to normal, boring colours to try and fit in. This was also the year that I really wanted to grow my hair out, it had always been long, but I found out about Zoella and I just wanted hair like hers!
19 was the year that I started to not care, so after speaking to my boss to see if it was okay to dye my hair, I went purple all over! It didn't really take as well as I hoped it would and it turned out blue more than purple but I sort of fell in love with it anyway. It didn't last very long and went a yucky green colour! I kept the length too, I didn't want to cut it at all, it had started to get really long and I was terrified to cut it short because I thought I wouldn't like it!
And now this past year I did a second attempt to dye it purple, and this time it worked! It was my favourite colour I went, I got so many compliments on the colour. But alas this didn't last very long and went back to blue! I did love the dark blue it faded to though, it was much nicer to the yucky blue it faded to before! This hairstyle was annoying, because it looked really nice when it was down and curly, but then when I had work I had to pin it up, I'm not very adventurous when it comes to hairstyles so it was always just up in a ponytail, it got really boring after a while and just felt too long and too heavy.
So I cut it, I cut a good half of it off. I'm glad I took the plunge and cut it though, it feels so much healthier lately. I'm in the process of stripping the blue out, I want to dye it pink and I know for a fact that dyeing it over the turquoise I have now will be a really bad idea. So here's what it looks like now, and hopefully in a few weeks it will be pink!
I don't know how long it will take me to go back to a natural colour, I'm really enjoying trying out all these different colours and I have at least 3 more colours planned that I want to go. I think next time I have it cut I'll probably go a little shorter too.
