APL ish?

[Rosalaun]

Hi! I'm new here, I just started looking around yesterday and realised just how much I missed having BSL hair, and how much I'd love to try going longer.
At the moment it's bleach blonde and full of split ends, but not as straw-like as some bleached hair gets thankfully. I've decided to get lots of the split ends chopped off at some point this month, just to give my hair a better chance to grow properly, so I'll end up loosing a good inch or two before I start. I'm also seriously considering henna dying over the bleach, but I'm slightly worried about it going a brighter orange shade - I'd really prefer an auburn-type shade.


I can't decide if to class it as APL or not quite yet though, any ideas? I had it in a french braid overnight, so it's a lot wavier than usual here, one before and after brushing :) And sorry if the image is too large!
http://i52.tinypic.com/nxblz.png

[UltraBella]

I would say you are not quite APL :)

[McFearless]

Your longest layer, yes. Pulled straight I'd say you're at APL. I stretch my hair straight when I measure. Waves and curls can eat up length! Btw you might want to check out the "recipes, henna & herbal haircare" section of the forums for more info on henna. You don't have to have orange hair :)

[Avital88]

Almost there!Happy growing, you will make it before you know it.
Your hair will get a lot better if you start to use henna,you can also try to stretch washes,no heat and coloring and your hair will grow a lot faster.
Good luck!

[Rosalaun]

Thank you for the replies!
In that case it's great to know that I am pretty close to APL, so I'll use that as my next goal. I know after the trim it'll be the goal anyway. It looks quite... frazzled in those photos :D It's not usually anywhere near that bad, so I guess sleeping with it braided wasn't the best idea if I want to keep it straighter.
I've already decided to stop straightening, and I never blow dry so that'll help, and I'll definately raid the Henna section, I had a look into henna a while ago, and everywhere said it'd be best not to use over dyed hair, but I couldn't find any photographic examples and recipies of it over bleach.
It'd be useful to try stretching washes too, at the moment it's every other day, and for the first day it's always really poofy, then the second it's much better.

[2peasinapod]

You're definitely touching APL in those pictures. I'd guess that you are APL pulled straight.

Those french braid are beautiful! For the record, I love the color of the bleach. I hope henna works out for you, too! :)

[Rosalaun]

Awesome - yay for being pretty much there.
French braids are so pretty, but kinda difficult to do, my first attempt yesterday:
http://i56.tinypic.com/20fryn7.png
Not really perfect but it stayed in overnight! I played around with a crown braid today, but my arms got tired too quickly, and the fringe made me do it tighter over one side of my head, so I had a wonky crown :D So for today I have a weird Dutch braid instead.
Thanks, I love the colour too, but it's not so nice when you can see the roots unfortunately, and it is a bit of a hassle to even think of re-bleaching the roots every couple of weeks.

For some reason my mum is really against the Henna idea, not sure why. Maybe she has heard some bad things about it? She suggested that she'd pay for me to have it all dyed the same colour as my roots at the hair dressers, but I really don't think that would help the condition of my hair in any way, and I've seen pure henna on ebay (normal and Indigo) for a total of £6, way cheaper than hairdressers. I might post in the henna section and see if anyone over there has dyed over bleach.

[Azhtabak]

That braid looks great, much better than anything I can attempt with a similar length of hair :P

You have an interesting colour effect going on, I'm guessing that's what you mean by the roots? :P

As I understand it, henna can be applied over bleaching, colouring, etc, but only if its pure BAQ henna. I'm not too sure though.

[Rosalaun]

Hehe, thank you :D
It's weird, I had loads of colours in it (pink, purple, blue and green, they were pots of plant-based colour) but it washed out of the rest of my hair really quick and I've still got a few bits of pink and purple floating around underneath near the roots that I can't get rid of! Apart from the mini-rainbow going on, the lighter blonde around the braid is the bleached and the areas in between the add-in bits and around the edges of my head are the roots. It's a little difficult to tell because of the flash though. These are the closest I could get to the real colours:
http://i52.tinypic.com/1554d38.png

[Yasmine91]

You're just about where I am too. You're almost there though, you're SL/APL. :)