The curse of the lovely silk dress...?

This is a picture of me and my gorgeous niece and nephew at Christmas time.
I am wearing my treasured Kate Moss at topshop silk dress. I say treasured as it is silk and therefore quite delicate, so as much as I love the pattern I don't wear it often as its got the dreaded "dry clean only" label on the inside (grr why does everything I buy say that?)

However after mixing with kids all day I found a little grubby mark on the dress- oh no! I thought I refuse to get this dry cleaned yet again its too expensive! How can I wash it myself and not make a dogs dinner of it??
I tried these tips and it has come out the other side as good as new! (Washing tips, me? My mum would be so proud!)
1. Use lukewarm water
2. Wash by hand only
3. add a 1/4 of a cup of white vinegar to the clean rinse and rinse again, this tip ensures any of the soap residue is neatralised! Bazinga!

I also used the festive period to dabble with my hair colour (again) as I wasn't at work and decided to try Directions Hair colour in Lilac over my blondish hair. I was pleasantly surprised by the result. After leaving it on for about half an hour - which is longer than the directions state, but decided to have a good stab at getting a bright result - it came out a cool purple and has now washed out to a pale violet... Oh how I wish I could turn up to work with this colour hair!