How I Bleach and Dye My Hair

All right, folks. As mentioned in my previous post on my hair dyeing fun, today I am going to tell you all about how I bleach and dye my hair. But, before we get started, there is definitely a little disclaimer I have to make:

I am in no way, shape, or form certified in anything that I am going to talk about in this post. Everything that I have learned about hair dyeing and bleaching has been from watching my hair stylist do it to my hair and from other blogs or posts on the internet. I am not trained in doing hair, and I am not telling you that all of the information below will work for you! Everyone's hair is different, can tolerate different amounts of bleaching, and will take to dye differently. If you want to try out any of my tips or techniques on yourself, feel free but do so at your own risk!

Whew! Now that that's out of the way, let's get started!

So, before putting purple, blue, green, etc. on my hair, I have to bleach it. Because my hair is a very dark brown, the colors that I use will not even tint my hair if I do not bleach it ahead of time. If you are blonde, you might be able to get away with skipping the bleach step; however, that depends on the shade of blonde you are. If you're bleaching your hair for the first time, I would recommend going to a stylist so you can at least watch the process and ask him or her questions.

I use bleaching supplies that I picked up at Sally Beauty.

Plastic mixing bowl, brush, powder lightener, developer

Once you have your supplies, then comes the fun part: deciding what parts of your hair you want to color! Because of my job, I'm unable to have totally out there hair color aka a whole head of bright purple hair. So, what I like to do is put in small streaks throughout the front section. I simply do the front because then I can see everything I'm working with, and I've come to like just having a section of hair that's colored as opposed to going all the way around my head. Now that we've got all that covered, here are the steps to how I bleach:

•  Combine powder and developer in equal parts, making sure it's mixed well

• With a comb that has a pointy end, select a thin strip of hair to bleach
•  Make sure the strip of hair is even and straight for ease of finding the section next time you bleach/dye
• I find that thin strips of hair work better as they look more natural blending in with the rest of your hair once colored (or at least "natural" or discreet enough that my work never cares about my hair)
• Using regular aluminum foil, place the hair on top and hold in place 

You'll figure out what size of aluminum foil works for you! I use about twice the size of an iPhone for reference.

• Paint the bleach on using a brush, making sure to cover every little bit of the hair as well as the backside (it's very important to be thorough)

• Fold the hair up in the aluminum foil and pin back if necessary

• Using the pointy end of the comb again, select another even section of hair and push to the side so that it can remain your natural hair color
• This section can be as thick as you like, working as the in between sections of your streaks
• Select another thin, even section to bleach, following the process above until you have your desired amount of streaks
• Allow the bleach to sit into your hair for twenty minutes or so, peeking at the first section you bleached for progress
• Wash out bleach with shampoo, and you're done!

Ok, so here are some more tips for the process above. Sometimes selecting your sections and putting the bleach on takes longer than you'd like, thus the first section you did is a lot farther along than the last when you're ready to wash out. Because of this, I may wash out half of the sections and leave the other ones to bleach for just a bit longer to ensure an even color. Another super important thing is to make sure you shampoo the bleach out really well. You may even want to shampoo twice just to make sure. If you have any bleach left on your hair, that's a bad thing and the color you'll add later won't stick. Another tip is that you may have to bleach your hair more than once if you have dark hair like I do. The bleach only works 'til a certain point, and it's definitely not a good thing to leave it on for a long time as that will damage your hair quite a bit. As mentioned above, I'm not a professional so I'm not totally sure how long is too long to leave bleach on. But, I start to get concerned after about twenty minutes and thus start to wash it out around then.

So, now you have beautiful bleached hair! Sometimes you can look a little wacky at this point (at least I do)! I think it's a good thing to leave your hair at this stage for a day or two just to give it a break. However, I'm not at all fond of the way my hair looks bleached, so I am bad and usually head right into adding color. Now, here's where the process can change depending on your natural hair color. I used to resection my hair in the way that I bleach, using aluminum foil to separate the sections as I add color. However, I tried plopping the color on the entire front section of my hair once and found that my brown hair took on 0% of the color and was left looking the same as it did before. So, if you dye your hair a lot and don't want to deal with the process, you could try doing that. But, if you have blonde hair or would rather section it off, just follow the same steps as I mentioned in the bleaching segment. Once the dye is in, you simply let it wait to take to the hair.

This is the color I used this time around: Jerome Russell Punky Colour in Purple

Something awesome about the Jerome Russell dye (and many others like it) is that they don't damage your hair. At least I haven't noticed any damage and believe this to be true. So, I leave my dye on for quite a while. Sometimes I let it sit for a couple of hours if I have nothing to go and do, but sometimes I leave it in for about forty minutes. Once I've reached the desired amount of time, I head off to rinse it out.

You always look really nice while dyeing your hair!

But, beware! In doing so, you may accidentally paint your bathroom, shower, or sink the color of your hair. I like to wash it out in the kitchen sink since I can control the stream more. An important step here is that you only rinse out the dye...do not shampoo! You want to rinse until the water runs clear, taking your time. Once the color is out, I usually wait for 24-48 hours before shampooing so that it has time to set. Then, you are free to wash your hair and have gorgeous color!

Because this post is getting incredibly long, I'm going to cut myself off here. But, I do plan on following this up with another post full of more tips, tricks, and useful things I've learned from dyeing my hair. Once that's up, I will link it here!

Oh, and here's my finished product!

Definitely more pink than I expected, and I may let it stay this color for a bit or may just go ahead and mix some things up for the color I was hoping for.

Happy dyeing,

Liz :)

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 :)