The colour purple...

I've been dying my hair, on and off since I was 18. In fact, I've been dying it some shade of red/purple for the last 5 years, to the point that I'm not 100% sure what colour my hair is any longer.

The truth is I like my hair colour (currently a reddy purple colour). However, every time I dye it, I can smell the hideous chemicals, and watch them swirl down the drain with a slight sadness. Added to this, I've been using Lush hair products pretty constantly for the last 3 months, and I don't really want to undo all the good this has been doing my hair by sticking a bottle of my usual hair dye on it.

And so the hunt for an alternative began.

The first port of call was Henna, which is extracted from the henna plant. Dying your hair using henna appears to be a bit of an art - the type of henna, the heat of the henna, the time it's left in on, all affect the results. I love the idea of it, but I don't really like the results - it tends to leave the hair quite reddish with a hint of orange, which I've had before and don't think really suits me. I found some auburn looking Henna and did a test piece on my hair, which left it more orange than I'd like...

So henna went off the list and I was back to square one.

And then I was in my local organic supermarket yesterday and stumbled across Naturtint hair colourant in a pleasing "plum" shade, which contains no ammonia or parabens, and some organic ingredients. I took the plunge and bought a pack.

Today was dye day (a last minute pre-holiday decision), and I have to say that I'm please with it so far. It was no different to using my normal dye (apart from the frustrating lack of an applicator bottle...). The colour is indeed plum, my hair feels soft and in good condition afterwards, and it definitely smelt a lot less hideous! The test will be to see how long it lasts for now...

Still here, just internetless....

So it's been a bit quiet on the blogging side over the last month. It's a combination of packing to move house, and then not yet having internet at my new house. Here's a whistle stop tour of what's been going on...

- Money moving - I'm preparing to move my bank account to a more ethical bank account as part of Move Your Money Month...
- Energy supplier - In my new house, we've decided to pay a bit extra to go with Ecotricity as our gas and electricity supplier - this makes me very happy
- Furniture reuse - I furnished the rest of my bedroom from second hand furniture or stuff that was being thrown out. We also rescued two things for our kitchen from skips/the side of the road, and managed to hand on a few bits and pieces we didn't need to other people.
- Forage o'clock - I went foraging at the weekend and picked a load of wild garlic just off the cycle path to Portishead. Talk about zero food miles :)
- Happy pigs - I've just been reading the rough guide to ethical living, and as a result, pork is joining chicken on my list of things that I'll only eat if it's free range/organic.
- Smelling green - Over the last couple of months I've slowly been switching to natural based toiletries. Gone are aerosols and chemical things - I've now switched shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, face wash, moisturiser and perfume. Generally I'm really pleased with how my skin/hair is feeling. Still a few things I need to address - I tried switching deodorant and turned out to be allergic to the one I switched to. Hmmmm. And I still can't find a hair product that prevents my hair from going frizzy without it making it greasy... The hunt continues...

Longer posts to come when the internet is back next week :)