Thursday, June 26, 2014

/Hair/ An Adventure in Color

If you follow me on Twitter (I don't think many people do, but you should check me out on there), I made a few tweets regarding things going on with my hair. Here's the whole story: A few months ago when I was set to color my hair again, I vowed that I would bleach it the next time I had to do my hair. I finally got the guts to buy a Manic Panic bleach kit ($12.99).


this was purchased by me

I was excited to try this even though I had no idea how it would turn out. I kind of didn't care so long as my hair got lighter. Here's a list of the things that the kit was supposed to have.


This is what was inside:


I was a little upset because I didn't think this package had included the gloves and shower cap, but I checked again later and found them (wrapped around the bleach powder).


Manic Panic is cruelty-free which surprised and pleased me. I'm glad this company doesn't hurt animals. Here's the list of ingredients for the powder and the developer.


After having the box for a few weeks I finally decided to try it on my hair last Wednesday. This is my hair before the bleaching. The lat time I dyed my hair I used the L'Oreal Sun Kissed Caramels Hi-Lift color in Ash Brown:


natural light


with flash

To begin with, my hair is mostly brown and my roots had just started to show. So I mixed the bleach powder and developer in the little plastic tub provided in the Manic Panic box, put it on my hair (it smelled terrible, yet didn't irritate my scalp very much), and I left it in there for about one hour. During that time I could see how my hair was being lightened; it was fascinating and terrifying because my hair had never gotten that light before. I have to day that there wasn't enough bleach powder and developer in this kit to coat all my hair. I wished that I had purchased another box or had just bought separate bleach with developer because I'd probably have enough then.
This is what it looked like after an hour had passed and I'd rinsed my hair out.


natural light


flash


close-up in natural light

I was really excited then that it turned out that way, even though my hair looked like a fire on the top of my head. To tone down all the orange and yellow in my hair, I wanted to used an ash color over it. I had bought this L'Oreal Medium Ash Blonde dye ($7.99) a while ago so I decided to used it for toning.


comes with pre-color serum, toner, developer, conditioner

This is the color chart:



Ingredients:




I applied this dye to my hair and left it in about 30 minutes. I was glad to see the my hair getting darker and less orange. I rinsed it out and conditioned it. This is the result:


natural light


flash

I was aghast. My hair was still super orange. For a while I was like, "OK, maybe this isn't too awful...", but I eventually broke down in tears because I really, really messed up my hair. I totally cried in front of my boyfriend about it....So I devised a plan to fix it by making it darker again. I didn't want to use a permanent dye again so I picked up a box of Clairol Natural Instincts ($7). I knew that this was going to make by hair darker and eventually fade because I used it before. This was also a less damaging option as it tinted the hair.


comes with colorant, developer, conditioner, instructions, and gloves

Ingredients:




I chose the 24 Medium Cool Brown (Clove) to put on my hair. I left it on for a little over 20 minutes (the maximum recommended time) and this is the end result after this crazy hair coloring fiasco.


natural light


flash

It looks better, much more normal. It was shocking to see how dark my hair was, though, since I've been keeping it a light brown for such a long time. I have to say that one box was not enough to cover all of my medium-longish hair and right now the color is really, really uneven. You can see how bad it is in the second picture...anyway, I plan to get a second box to make sure everything looks good.

I had a pretty bad experience with this home bleaching adventure. A lot of times when you see someone blog about their awesome self hair dye tutorials you think "Gee, it's that easy! I want to try." But then it turns out bad. Soooo bad. I'm so grateful for these non-permanent dyes to color my hair and hide my embarrassment for a while. At least until I decide to use a permeant dye again.

Overview:

Manic Panic Bleach Flash Lightening Bleach Kit


L'Oreal Excellence in Medium Ash Blonde Creme


Clairol Natural Instincts in Medium Cool Brown

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