Improvision; The Joys of

I lack a few pictures of this dye process, sadly, as I was on an artistic high halfway through it. But I will show you some of the joys of improving when you dye your hair. Whenever I do mine, I usually have no clue what I'm actually doing. I'm a work-as-you-go kind of girl. Sometimes it doesn't end very well, but other times I end up with something so beautiful. Friday night was one of those times.
I divided up my hair, planning on simply doing a little pink in the back, and then doing the rest in green. Sexy, I know. I need to go out an buy plastic clips so I can kick my little rubber band habit. I use the back of my tinting brush to divide.

Yep, the station I has set up in the last entry. And the completion of applying the pink dye to the back section of hair. I put it in a little rubber hair band (hahaha) to keep it out of the way while I did the rest. You can see that I didn't get it fully to the roots. When doing a full head of hair in multiple colors, you only need to touch the roots where they'll be showing. If your steadier with a tint brush than I am you can attempt it, but I prefer to stay away from that as usually end up getting the other section colored as well. Bad at-home dyer, bad.

As I continued, I washed off my gloves with shampoo (to not spread the color by accident. You can also just change gloves if you have multiple pairs) I took down one side of my hair, and removed any pins that were holding it in place. I divided it in half and began to dye the frontal area/fringe green while holding the back up in a rubber hair band. When I was finished with the front from tips to roots I tied it up with a rubber hair band and let down the middle section. Since this section is thicker than the front, you'll divide it in halve horizontally and pin up the top half. to keep it out of the way.

This is where my artistic high started. I notice at this point that my hair looked REALLY nice with the chunk of blond hair in the middle, and decided to divide the other side of my head with the same method, leaving the blond as is. At the time I had wished I hadn't dyed the lower middle section yet, but it turned out to give it a nice layered effect later on.

Manic Panic Green Envy and Manic Panic New Rose

Tada.

Rinse and wash separately as needed to prevent color blending.

Happy Dying
XoXo,
S

Recycling

The Phunk-N-Ink convention is going on this weekend. I went yesterday and it was fabulous. My hair was faded and I probably had an inch of new growth, so I was planning all week to dye my hair green for the convention. I'm a procrastinator, so I didn't end up getting around to til fairly late on Friday. Luckily, I seem to work well under stress and got

Manic Panic Green Envy; Manic Panic New Rose

This entry is a guide to NOT turning your bathroom the same color as your hair while RECYCLING, and well as the pros and cons of improvising.

As an at-home hair dyer I know what it's like to accidentally turn your bathroom sink blue, and even though there are ways to get it out (mostly over a long period of time) it's best if you just avoid a situation like that all together, right? I'm renting my apartment right now, so a big green splatter on the wall is something to cause a panic seeing how I can't just paint over it.

All you need is:
-Plastic shopping bags
-scissors
-tape
-your trusty hair dying towel (don't have one, get one. Use it and only it when you dye or bleach your hair so you avoid any mishaps with nicer or more expensive towels.)

It's really simple to start. I cut up 3 wal-mart bags (split the handles and cut until I reached the seam at the bottom, and did the same to the other side) and draped them over my work area. My bathroom mirror is flat, and I prefer working with the three way, so I chose to only use the front area of the sink and use the mirror to hold the bags in place. If you intend to use the whole sink, make sure to cover it and tape everything in place. It IS important to cover the frontal area as well, just in case you drip some dye.

I prefer to keep my hair dying towel on the floor until I'm rinsing, especially because I don't want to accidentally bleach the carpet. If your whole bathroom floor is tile or linoleum you COULD just tape down more bags. I think the towel is also easier to walk and move around on, but it's personal preference.

Since I'm not using the full sink, I keep my supplies on the toilet cover. Since you'll be working with dye stained gloves, it's important to put the bag over this as well. I also have anything I'll need laying out, such as little rubber bands and bobby pins. I also put a cut up bag between the toilet and the towel in case of any drops or drips while moving between there and my work area.
Half of a bag over the door knob. Silly? NOT AT ALL. This is VERY IMPORTANT. While you dye your hair, if you drip on your skin it's important to get it off asap (especially if your using black dye; that shit stains nearly on contact) and this bag allows you something in easy reach that you can use to turn the knobs on the bathtub or sink without getting dye all over them. It's and area that sucks to clean, so it's much easier to not get any dye on them to begin with. It's also useful if you need to leave the bathroom (say, someone has to pee) and you don't want to take your gloves off and try to put them back on. Just do it. You'll find a use.

Want to let your unnatural dyes sit for longer periods of time without getting everywhere or drying (which will essentially make leaving it in your hair pointless) the pin it down with some bobby pins so that it will stay in it's respected places, pull a bag over your hair and take a little rubber hairband over the back to hold it tight. (Note: if you're using a normal hair dye, bought in a box straight off the shelf, do NOT under any circumstances use metal clips or pins while using the dye. It will cause a chemical reaction and will damage your hair. In general, I don't recommend the bag-over-the-head method with any store bought dying kits, as I'm not familiar with them or how they'll react to a lack of air.)

Yes, I know I must have a shit-load of plastic bags floating around my apartment, I really do. My brother and I never throw them out, so we shove them all in our cabinet to use in our small trashcans. We buy a lot, so we have a lot. If your living with your parents just ask them if you can keep their bags every time they go shopping. They don't take up much space.

Keep dying
XoXo,
S

(This whole entry looks like an ad to Wal-Mart)

Green Envy

I think it's been a long enough time of experiencing my Manic Panic dye that I can give you a product review. :) My first one for this blog.

Manic Panic Green Envy:
Just like any other fun dye, I applied it on blond (pre-bleached) hair and let it sit for about an hour, applied a little heat, and rinsed out. The bleach job was a little old, but it didn't harm my dye job as badly as I thought it would. This pleases me.

(this is my super sexy hair bleaching shirt. I ALWAYS wear it when I do my hair)

After my first shampoo, even though it ran a little it stayed pretty bright. almost 2 weeks later and it doesn't even run very much anymore when it's being washed. It's faded slightly, but mostly just it's depth. I do swear there's a hint of a blue sometimes in bad florescent lighting (as if the color is a little teal.)

Overall, a dye job that's lasted a full 3 weeks and regular shampooing with such minimal fading gets my stamp of approval.

I'll be dying my whole head this color after the 23rd (so it'll be nice and fresh for Phunk N' Ink) and since I'll be putting it over a full head of RECENTLY bleached hair, the longevity may be a bit better. If it can keep that deep shine the fresh unnatural colors have then I'll be one happy ass camper.

(My current state. The amount of new growth you can see just hints at how long it's been since my last root touch up. This was just taken a few seconds ago.)

I suppose if anything severe happens to the color I'll keep you updated. I'm using my oil treatments again, which may effect the colors. I'll let ya know.


Happy Dyings
XOXO
S