Dyeing my Hair!

Hoooly goodness. So I dyed my hair like flipping two weeks ago and I never posted about it like I meant to. Ha. WHERE DID TIME GO?!?!?




So here's some before and after shots....

Most of the red faded, especially in my ends.




This is what I used:

 Splat hair color.  This is the same brand I used a few years back to dye my hair pink. I hadn't had any problems with it, so I figured why not. I decided to mix the Luscious Raspberries and the Crimson Obsession together, because I felt I wanted an in between color.

This says to use on bleached hair for more intense color, and mentions in the directions that a more natural color can be achieved if you don't bleach it first. But forget that, I wanted intense. This also says you might need two kits. I actually used about two and a half bottles of the dye to get all my hair covered. Only two of the bottles of bleach to bleach my hair though.

That's what the kit looks like inside.

I still have a bottle and a half of the pink fetish dye, so I pulled that out to compare it (not the insides though) to the bottles I was using. The raspberries looked pretty red, while the crimson looked almost black. I'm glad I decided to mix it.

First thing I always do before dyeing is don a trash bag. Too often was I ruining clothes unnecessarily. And going without anything on just left stains everywhere. Ha. So a trash bag works nicely.

This was after the bleaching. I then cover my hair with a plastic grocery bag. I left the bleach in for about half an hour I think.  The directions say to dye roots first, though I never understood that - the roots of my hair is "virgin hair", which should take coloring the best, right? So shouldn't I do the ends first? So I did that.... it was much, much more difficult to do the rest of my hair with my ends already colored. Plus, since I did the ends first - and it took longer to get the rest because of it - that means my ends spent the most time in the bleach. Which is not a good thing, because the ends are always the least healthy. I had to trim half an inch to an inch off from the ends after bleaching because the hair was so badly damaged. But... the bleached color on the ends looked more like the bleached color on the roots.... hahaha. Okay, so lesson learned.  Do the roots first. At least when bleaching or doing permanent hair dye. Haha.

 That's my nice orange-yellow hair. Haha.


You have to make sure your hair is dry between the bleaching and the coloring. I just waited until it was fully dry, because I didn't want to throw even more damage at it with a hair dryer. By the time it was fully dry, it was close to midnight, so I just went to sleep and colored it the next morning.

I mixed the two colors in an old bowl and then apply it with a tint brush. When I did this with the pink, I used the bottle with the applicator nozzle and my hands. This was MUCH LESS MESSY with the bowl and the tint brush. Ha.

 Also, the directions suggest using vaseline to cover your hairline and your skin to prevent dye stains. Last time with the pink, I started, and then thought... "If I cover my hairline, I'll probably miss the hair right at the root, because it's covered in vaseline... that seems stupid." So I did without. What a great mistake that was. I had so many pink stains... and they lasted for quite a while. lol.

 THIS time around, I went petroleum-jelly-crazy. I covered the hairline... my ears... my neck... the area where my trash bag neck hole was.. my arms... my entire face. This shtuff was everywhere. I did not leave anything to chance. Ha. Let ME TELL YOU - vaseline is normally easy to remove... but I went way too crazy with it, and it took a heck of a long time to get it all off. lol.

But here's the thing!! In the end, I still missed parts with the jelly, so I was still left with stains, (although a HECK of a lot less than I had with pink) aaaand, I missed the hair right at the root, because part of it was covered in vaseline. So there are spots around my hairline that are still blonde, because I missed it with the hair color. And those spots drive me nuts.

So... was it better without the jelly and dealing with the tons of stains? Or was it better with the jelly and dealing with minimal stains but those damned blonde hairs??  I honestly don't know which I'd prefer. lol.

 Here are the bathroom pics after the red was fully dry...

I tried to take a similar picture of my shoulder to the before pics, so you could see some the same parts. And I don't know if you can see, but the red didn't take all that well on some of those bits. Ah well. It's not a uniform red of course, but I like that.


I wasn't too fond of the shots inside though, so I wandered out in the sun to get more pics.

This was actually the very first picture I took, and wouldn't you know it? It's my favorite one. lol. It's now my  channel photo for my Youtube channel.

A nicely overexposed pic..

I was having trouble taking pics - for one, the first person to drive by actually stopped and stared and it creeped me out to where I ended up pretending to walk inside whenever a car came by, and for two, it was sooo bright outside I was having trouble seeing if the pictures came out or not because the screen just wasn't bright enough in comparison. lol.

And then on my fourth pretend-walk-back-inside, I snapped this shot in the shade and went in for real. Hehe.

I did a quick before and after video on my hair too:




So it's been two weeks or so since I've dyed it, and I still quite enjoy it. I'm thinking I might try a different hair dye in the week before C2E2 to redye it a nice bright red before the expo. I'd get Splat again, but here they only sell it as part of a kit that includes bleach - and I already have one bottle/packet of bleach I don't need, I do not need to pick up another one or two. Ha. Plus, the Ion Color Brilliance is like, $5, (At least, that's the price online, so let's hope it's the same in store too.) while the Splat kit is around $8, (It comes with bleach though)  so I can get two for less than I could get two of the Splat. I don't think I'll be mixing two colors together this time though, so the red might end up brighter. We'll see. Should be interesting.



I tell ya though... if I know myself at all... it'll be about 6-8 months before I get tired of the bright red, and then I'll spend 1-2 years with various forms of "natural colors", (the old "black cherry" color included, mind you.)  before talking myself in to a vivid color. First pink, then red.... I'm thinking a shade of blue is going to be next. My favorite color is green, but I can't honestly see myself in green hair. Blue on the other hand... or even a teal/aqua.... mayhaps.