Next, I wanted to talk about L'oreal's Elseve Oil Conditioner (middle bottle in photo above). In USA, it's branded as Elvive; in Asia, it's branded as Elseve. It's an oil-based conditioner with 7 types of oils like Argan and Morrocan Oil, and comes in different iterations, like rose-oil or normal oils (I was using the rose oil conditioner; after about 3 bottles I switched to their new formulation, the 7 Oils conditioner. Serendipitously, I was wishing for a conditioner with a stronger and longer-lasting scent, and voila, the 7 essential oils formulation presented itself during a trip to the personal care store). 

I recommend their conditioners - every time I wash my hair with my shampoos, I apply a generous amount of conditioner to the ends of my hair after that (be sure to avoid the roots to avoid an oily scalp the next day!). The effect is immediate, smoother, softer, and more slippery hair 10 minutes into your nightly hair wash routine!

L'oreal Elvive/Elseve conditioners, especially the 7 Oils Conditioner, use 7 types of essential oils and smells delectably of amber musk and caramel. And because it doesn't scrimp on the ingredients, the essential oils mean the scent on your hair doesn't fade after your hair wash but instead lasts the whole of the day after you apply it in the shower.

The secret to cool-tone ash brown-blonde is two-fold. First, you need to bleach your hair to achieve that silvery light brown you oh-so-desire. And for us Asian ladies, who usually have pitch-black hair, that means bleaching it 2-4 times before dying. This is because black hair tends to red and yellow after bleaching, and if you have very thick hair follicles, you need more than 1 sitting of bleaching to achieve that nice light brown that is popular among East Asian countries now.

Secondly, you need to wash your hair diligently with Purple Shampoo. Purple Shampoo tones your dyed hair, especially if you have blonde or silver undertones. It takes away the brassiness or copper/red-undertones your hair has. This is a trick many people do not know, which explains why a lot of us here on our sunny island has very brassy, orangey-brown hairdos.

And if you're wondering, bleach does make your hair a little dryer, but it's not as harsh on your hair as expected. I suggest bleaching your hair over the course of a few months (perhaps 1 month in between each bleach) so as to see what the effect the bleach has on your hair. For me, I did notice some differences, such as mild oily scalp - the minty, eucalyptus shampoo along with the strong smell from the oil-based shampoo and the toning shampoo did help me to solve all my issues!

For my global readers, I have included a mini-Amazon store below for you to purchase some of the products listed in my post. (Just a disclaimer, these are affiliate links and I do earn some commission or cash-back from your purchases.)