In a bid to speed the process up Ellen suggested the colourist dye her hair one complete shade and then add the tips.
“It started on Thursday, and it started with the same sentence all bad hair stories start with: ‘I tried a new person’,” said Ellen.
“Not good,” she went on. Two to three hours later Ellen looked in the mirror and was shocked.
“I looked at it in the mirror and was like, ‘This is not good’,” she told her audience. Ellen’s hapless colourist tried to recolour her hair and again it did not go well. Ellen says by this stage her hair was so many colours it was like she ‘had the pride flag on my head’.
Ellen’s hair then started to break and fall out.
“I think my hair was so embarrassed, it didn't want anything to do with my head, and said, ‘I'm getting out of here’,” she told the audience.
Eventually Ellen switched to another team of colourists who came to her home to try and save her hair. With much finessing and a significant amount of love and care Ellen’s hair was repaired but it is now extremely fragile and she needs to be very careful with it, she explained.
“I can’t touch it,” Ellen joked to her audience.
“Today I should be fine if I don’t sneeze or blink.”
There are a couple of lessons here, says hair stylist and founder of Esstudio Galeria Aleks Abadia.
Firstly, don’t try someone new when you’re looking to switch up your colour altogether. “It’s always better to go with a colourist who knows you and your hair and your preferences,” he says. “That way you’re working as a team.”
Also, be aware that bleaching requires harsh chemicals that can damage hair significantly and long term too. Accordingly it must be handled in a very delicate fashion and by someone who has a lot of experience in doing so.
“Baby steps are better in terms of going lighter,” says Aleks. You want to be very careful that your hair is able to withstand that kind of treatment and taking it lighter over a period of time will make the challenge that much easier.