I Dyed my Hair

I have been on the fence about adding some colour to my hair for quite some time, and when I say add some colour, I mean slap on some bleach and bright dye and have really vibrant hair!

First of all I have used hair bleach before, I must have been around 13 maybe 14 and my cousin and her friends wanted to do it so I thought why not. At the time I thought they knew what they we're doing... quite frankly they did not! I had a big circle of my natural colour poking through on one side of my head, and it was right on the top few layers of hair so very visible! Embarrassing!!

I am not at all suggesting that you should do this, it's very damaging to your hair especially when using box kits instead of visiting a qualified hair dresser. This is the hair I started with.

Since I was to be using bleach there were some factors I needed to consider before actually committing. It was gonna damage my hair, possibly snapping off, going mushy (I don't even know what this means) or not lifting enough colour. Also it's not going to ever be the same as it was without bleaching, it's gotta grow out.
I only applied it to the hair parted from the ears down. I was too scared to put it on the top of my hair in case it came out all funky looking. I seriously regret this now, the final colour would have been ten times brighter if I did use the bleach all over. HEY, I'll learn from my mistake! I used this one (although this is not what I paid, I suggest you have a look in your local Bodycare).

Toning was needed a little as I didn't leave the bleach on long enough and there were a few brassy tones. Also I'm an idiot and forgot to apply the bleach on the hair around my left ear :( I used this toner as it was to eliminate those nasty brassy tones and, to be quite honest, it was cheap, just 99p in Bodycare! I personally feel it worked well, I would have been happy to keep the blonde but I set out for colour and I wasn't prepared to stop just yet. This is the toner I used.

I'm so bummed this is the only picture I got after toner, I didn't realise I saved it from Snapchat with that giant black box going across it! I thought I'd still include it though.

Putting colour on top of the bleach should be left for a couple weeks as the bleach really dries out the hair... but I'm far too lazy to wait, I did it the next day :P Plus the texture of my hair was a lot better than I had expected from the chemicals. I chose Carnation Pink for the lower section closest to my neck, then Turquoise for the middle section so when parted from ear to ear, and finished the top section with a mixture of Tangerine and Poppy Red (do remember I but these on top of a light brown hair colour as I didn't use the bleach all over)
I began by sectioning off the three sections and decided very early on the it was going to be difficult to do alone as you need to be able to see the back of your head, so I propose you get a friend to help.
The hardest task whilst doing this whole process was applying the colour to the areas where the colours separated in my hair, trying to make sure the sections weren't mixed at all. I started at the bottom and worked my way up, covering the roots before I work on the length. I did this with all three colours.

Excuse my weird face in this, also, can you tell I like Snapchat yet?

 

Turns out I didn't take as many pictures of the actual process as I had thought but here is the final result. The pink isn't half as bright as I wanted it to be but next time I plan on going full on pink! I'll take you through that too if you like? The main problem with these colours is that they fade pretty fast, which SUUUUUCKS!! But on the upside it means I can do the pink sooner providing I don't wimp out on the bleaching.

This is after about three or four washes. Pretty tame now!! The pink is only visible at the roots and it's my favourite bit!

Anyhow, we'll see how it goes next time :)
See you soon
xx