If you’re anything like me, your hair’s gone two or three shades darker over the course of winter.
I’m not too happy with this turn of events, and even though there are some #amazing DIY dye kits on the market, I’m always interested to hear about other options.
That’s why I got pretty excited when I stumbled on the following DIY hair lightening trick this morning!
In a daring DIY venture, cosmopolitan.co.uk writer Lucy AitkenRead set out to lighten her hair just a little at home – with pretty great results:
If you like what you see, here’s what to do:
1. Cut open 10 chamomile tea bags.
2. Add two heaped tablespoons of cinnamon.
3. Add a glug of honey and boiling water until it becomes paste-like.
4. Leave the leafy mixture to steep for an hour.
Lucy then recommends applying the mixture to wet hair – as she had to get “quite involved with the mixture” when it wouldn’t stick to her dry hair!
Whichever way you go, you basically need to…
5. Pack it on and wrap it in a plastic bag and leave it on for a few hours. You may feel your scalp start to heat up and/or get a bit tingly beneath the bag (this happened to Lucy, too).
6. Lucy waited four hours before taking the bag off her head. She warns: “My hair feels weird, soft to the point of being slimy.”
7. Wash the mixture off using shampoo. Don’t worry if this takes a while, as according to Lucy, “it takes forever to wash all the bits out”.
Even after she was all shampooed, Lucy said: “I step out of the shower and look in the mirror and still see a load of tea in my hair! I have to wait til it’s dry to fluff and brush those tea leaves right out”.
So we’ll be double shampooing, then. Good to know.
If you’re having difficulty visualising all of this, here’s a video that shows you just what Lucy did:
One thing’s for sure: it’s a lot better than frying your hair with lemon juice in the sun (believe me, I know from experience).
NB: This writer will not accept responsibility for Lucy’s DIY hair lightener failing you. In any case, she’s probably going to try it herself, because, well, anything for beauty… Amirite?
Main and inset image credit: cosmopolitan.co.uk
Would you try this DIY hair-lightening trick? Do you know any other handy at-home beauty hacks?
