I love watching Jenna Marbles "fuck herself up" on a weekly basis on her channel. I too have an urge to change my appearance frequently. When I was 13-15 I dyed my hair 13 times in 18 months. I had all the natural colours. Black, brown, bleach blonde, Auburn. But never anything unnatural more than pink highlights a bit darker than cotton candy.
I had no idea what the hell I was doing back then. I wanted platinum hair and thought if I left the bleach in for long enough I'd get it. I had no idea about toner or the dangers of bleach so needless today I fried my hair and ended up with hair the colour and texture of straw.
I had to cut it into a pixie cut because it was so dry and knotted up to the point of no return. I had professionally dyed brown. Number 11 at this point. Then I dyed it 2 more times. I started dying it auburn after all the bad hair had grown out and could be cut off.
I kept up with it for a while but now my hair hasn't been dyed in about 3 years and I have all the old colour bits cut off. So other than heat from my hairdryer my hair is virgin hair. I've learned a lot since that whole ordeal and I've done a lot more research on dying hair and know a lot more than I did when I was younger.
However, I am not a pro. I have learned a lot from pros who make videos and write blog posts but I am going into this as someone who has not had any training. I'm just here to have a good time and fuck up my hair.
So before I died my hair I wanted to cut it. I had some super long princess hair. It was hot, thick and the dead and split ends are ridiculous. As I've been inspired by Jenna I really wanted to attempt cutting my hair like she did. Now she only did her bangs but I fully committed and cut all of it.
Before we get started I want to say sorry for the potato quality and vertical photos. I was so excited and swept up in the fun of the process I took all the photos on my InstaStory. Anyway...
I said goodbye to the thick, long princess hair that always made me overheated. After 10 months I finally made the cut and it felt really good. It really speaks to my current mental space that I cut my hair. I'd been putting it off for so long. I cut off like 6-8 inches. It felt great! And it was so fun! I was smiling and making jokes the whole time.
I absolutely love the cut! It can't believe it didn't end up chunky and terrible. I haven't had a haircut, pro or otherwise, since March 2016! It was the last time I set foot in a salon. I got it cut to my collar bones and I really loved it. I decided to go pretty close to that again and really like it. I can't believe I did it myself! Who needs a professional? Am I right ladies, and men and non-binary friends? (I picked up that phrase from Jenna and love it so much!)
So on to the colour! I've wanted to do crazy colours since I was a young teen. The farthest my mom let me go was some cotton candy pink highlights. I realized last year I'm an adult and I can do whatever I want. So my first instinct was to fuck up my hair. I originally wanted to do all blue. Maybe with some purple highlights. But recently I've seen so many pretty purple with blue highlights and fell for it.
So to dye my hair vibrant blue and purple I have to bleach it. I'm used N'Rage 40 Volume bleach with toner kit. It is the strongest available and requires extremely close monitoring. If you've never done anything with bleach try the 20 or 30 volumes. Never leave it on for longer than the box suggests for your hair range. That's how I fried my hair. It said 60 minutes for dark brown to black hair. I have dirty blonde to light brown but I was like "It says you can leave it for 60. I want my hair to be platinum. I bet if I leave it for an hour it will turn white." I'm insanely lucky my hair didn't fall out. It ended up the colour of melted butter and the texture of straw.
I used 3 boxes of N'Rage White Out Bleach & Toner Kit, 40 Volume. My hair is really thick so I bought 4. After cutting my hair I decided to only mix 3 boxes. I kept the bleach on for about 18 minutes. I probably could have done it for a little longer. Some locks were lighter than others. I also missed a couple of spots. Get a friend to help you to check for coverage.
I used the shampoo method to kind of toss it in there and it wasn't that great an idea. I also "cured" it at room temp. The box said room temp, the directions said heat and the description on Amazon said room temp. So I went with it. Here is my before and after.
Then it was toner time. I ended up toning 3 times. The first time I didn't really leave it on long enough, the second time I didn't wet down or shampoo my hair beforehand so my hair wasn't open enough for it to take. The 3rd time was a last attempt to get a little lighter. My shampooing bleach method didn't get it all in there too well so I was hoping the toner would help a bit. And it did some.
So now the fun part! The colour! So I was going for a purple with blue and brighter purple-pink highlights. I also wanted to attempt some ombre in my fringe. Here was my inspo.
So to prep the hair I shampooed my hair to help open it up. Arctic Fox dye doesn't have any chemicals so shampooing to open the hair will really help. It took 2 hours to put on the colour. I alternated between each colour and it took ages. My arms are still aching. But it was so fun! When I was done I gently put my hair into a shower cap so I wouldn't get it everywhere. Since Arctic Fox dye is basically conditioner with colour in it I could leave it on as long as I want. I decided to go for 4 hours.
The bottle says you can heat treat it for up to 15 minutes. So I ended my process by blow-drying the hair still in the shower cap for as long as I could handle. My blow dryer gets really hot so all I could handle was 10 minutes. The bottle says that processing it with heat will make the colours more vibrant.
The colours I used were Arctic Fox Hair Colour in Posiden (Dark Blue), Arctic Fox Hair Colour in Violet Dream (Bright Purple), and Arctic Fox Hair Colour in Purple Rain (Dark Purple).
So dying your own hair alone when you make messes like an Aries it get a little crazy. I've got some dye spots. And by some I mean lots. Oops.
Anyway. Time to rinse. I stood in the shower saturating my hair for about 20 minutes making sure the water was running off clear. I was so surprised that the colour didn't stain my tub. I rinsed in water as cold as I could stand. The colour water will help close the hair follicle and keep more colour in.
This was my first reaction to seeing it.
And here is the final look! I'm so in love with it! It's more magical than I could have hoped for.
I'm so happy with how it turned out! I can't wait to have fun with purple brows and match my eyeshadow to my hair! The process was so fun! Highly recommend doing it! If it messes up it is just hair. You can cover it or it will just grow out.
If you were to dye your hair a crazy colour which would you choose? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks so much for reading this post! I hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a like if you did, it's much appreciated!
Photo Credit: Photo taken by me with a Canon EOS Rebel T5 with an 18-55mm lens and edited by me in Photoshop. **This post was not sponsored**
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