My Crazy Colored Hair Adventures

Upon knowing me for quite a short period of time, it becomes rather apparent that I'm a lover of colors - particularly brights. My wardrobe is filled with greens and blues and purples and rainbows, and I decorate my bedroom in the same sort of manner. Freshman year of college, I met a friend who introduced me to the world of crazy hair colors...and I've never looked back since! I've had quite a few colors as well as good and bad experiences over the past few years, so I thought I would take this time to share them with you :)

(Also, I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures as I never knew I was going to make an internet post like this!)

Fall/Spring-ish '10: This is when I decided to color my hair for the first time! Sadly, I don't have any pictures that do the hair color any justice. The first time I got it done, I went to my hair stylist at the time and she procured a purple hair dye (I never asked what the brand was). This experience was positively AWFUL. I'm not sure she knew what she was doing, and I don't think she even bleached my hair ahead of time. Keep in mind, I have very dark brown hair. The color showed up a decent amount, but it got on my body, my clothing, and ran terribly. Overall, I was not satisfied with this experience, and it turned me off from dyeing my hair for a while.

Spring '11: This time, I went to a stylist who I knew had experience with doing unusual colors in hair. What an awesome decision that was...she's great! I ended up getting purple again, and the product she used was CHI Chromashine in Vibrant Violet. My stylist bleached my hair in small streaks ahead of time, and I came back a couple of days later for the color. She also gave me some tips about keeping the purple vibrant, a step that was truly helpful. Again, I don't have any pictures which do this color justice - but I absolutely loved it at the time. It also faded to a nice fuscia/hot pink color, and almost did an ombre effect as the time passed.

Summer '11: Finally, some pictures! After having the purple in my hair for a few months, I knew I wanted to keep the fun streaks but needed a change. (That's a common theme with me and hair color - I get bored quite easily!) So, I opted for blue. I went back to the same chica, she didn't rebleach as my streaks were still intact, and we put CHI Chromashine in Rich Blue on. I loved this blue. It was incredibly vibrant and really stood out against the dark brown of my natural hair. This sounds a bit funny, but the purple blended more naturally. The major downside of this color for me was that it faded to a gray shade, not a light blue as I had expected. Either way, I really loved it!

Just a day or two after getting this color - super vibrant!

After a couple weeks or so without touching up

Fall '11: Once fall rolled around, I opted to put some red in my hair. The main reason for this change was school. As a nursing student, I assumed my clinical instructors wouldn't approve of bright blue or purple in my hair. So, red it was! I kept the same sort of streaks, but this time I decided to just do them towards the front - touching up the color on the back of my head was a giant nuisance and required the help of friends! Sadly again, I am lacking pictures of this red. My stylist did the color this time, as well, and she was able to use a more permanent type since red is not an unusual shade. I loved the red, but it soon became too boring for me! I went back to purple and attempted to be sneaky and rebellious while wearing it for school. I know all of my instructors and peers noticed, but since my hair was long, it blended pretty well and apparently wasn't a big enough deal for me to get in trouble over. Score! Another super exciting part? I had started working at a new job as an aide in the late fall, and when I came into work with purple/blue/red hair, they all loved it! So, no more fears of being shunned for weird hair on my part!

Spring/Summer '12: Finally! School ended for the semester, and I was free to do whatever I wanted to my hair.  This time, the coloring was rather exciting. The biggest reason was that I had chopped most of my hair off and rocked a short 'do at this point. At this point, I had also decided that it was crazy to be paying for my stylist to do the color over and over again (with a cut, my appointments were around $80-100!). So, I ventured into the hair dyeing myself! I had some leftover CHI hair dye, and I went off to pick up some bleaching supplies. I was pretty happy with the results - especially since I had never done something like this before.

Bleached just the tips for my first time around - if I messed up, I could just chop it off!

Summer '12: Yet again, I wanted a color change, but I ran out of my leftover CHI hair dye. So, I popped on over to Ulta and picked up some Jerome Russell Punky Colour hair dye. This stuff was love at first application. The first color I used was Violet. I was really satisfied with this brand, though the Violet was darker and less of a pop of color than I had hoped. However, I still loved it! Punky Colour is an amazing brand of dye, and I've never gone back to CHI nor felt the need to test out any other brands. There's a wide range of choices that I'm satisfied with, and until I want a color they do not offer, I'm sticking with this kind. Again, no pics of the violet :/

Fall/Winter '12: After having done red, purple, and blue, I decided that I had to try out a much desired color on my part: teal. So, going back to my trusty Punky Colour again, I picked up both Turquoise and Lagoon Blue. Yet again, I bleached my hair on my own and was even more satisfied with the results than I had been the last time. I popped on some of the Turquoise, let it do its work, and washed it out to find an amazing, brilliant shade of turquoise/teal. I absolutely loved it! This color started out more blue and faded to the greener spectrum. Even when it had been in my hair for a month or so without touch ups, it still looked pretty darn good.

Oh, just showing my bleached hair for a chuckle.

This is probably after two weeks of wearing the color...love!

After about a month or so without touch ups...you can see the green tones more here.

Winter/Spring '13: Since I had purchased the Lagoon Blue at my last Ulta trip, I decided to try it out since it was just sitting around. But, I didn't really wanna go full out blue at the time, so I made my first dye concoction! I mixed some Turquoise with Lagoon Blue and popped it onto my hair. It came out to be a fabulous shade! I did some mixing touch ups a few times over the months, not really paying attention to how much I was putting in each time compared to the last. I had a lot of fun and even added some of the Violet shade once to darken up the results a tad.

Combo of Turquoise and Lagoon Blue

Lagoon Blue with a tad of Violet to darken it up!

Late Spring '13/Now: I kept the above combinations in my hair for about five months. That may seem like nothing, but it was a very long time of the same-ish colors for me! So, deciding I needed a change, I chose to do the only color I really hadn't dabbled in before - orange! I covered up the old stuff, re-bleached my hair, and popped in some Flame (again by Jerome Russell). Once the dye had been rinsed out, I was on the fence about this one. While I liked the idea of having orange, I wasn't super excited about how it looked with my dark hair, how it appeared against my skin tone, and how it appeared in general. Needless to say, I kept the color in and have been wearing it for a week or two now.

Lookin' all cool and hair/shirt matchy

Future Plans: I haven't been taking all that great of care on my orange hair so that it will fade more quickly, and I hope to re-color soon since I'm not the biggest fan of it. I recently purchased Purple and Atlantic Blue from the Punky Color line, and I think I'm going to do the Purple shade next. I think I'm just a purple/blue/green type of gal (those are my favorite colors in general anyways), and I probably won't go for orange again, though a red (maybe purple toned) may be up my alley down the road. We shall see!

If you liked this post, please let me know! I love reading about wild colored hair, and I think it's interesting to see what people enjoy using/how they use it/how they liked it, etc. In the weeks to come, I'll probably do a post about my hair dyeing routine and one about how I attempt to maintain my color, so keep an eye out for that.

Later gators,

Liz :)