Hair coloring: self-attempt
Hair coloring
I honestly love my super-dark-brown, black looking hair, except for the fact, that no other color will stick without having to bleach it first. And out of fear of the damage this can cause, I only recently tried going purple.
From do-it-yourself to letting the pros do.
But something went very wrong: the purple dip dye wasn’t noticeable. You see, when my best friend (and photographer/hairstylist) bleached my hair (very professionally, may I say) it turned orange. And in my aim to make the purple intense I chose a dark tone and left it in over night. And turns out orange plus dark purple equals very dark brown. You can see – or not see – the results on my gorgeous new job-application photos:
Pics by (Kiki’s BFF): Claudia Muñoz
As the color slowly washed out it started to show a little, but before anyone else could notice, the ends turned blue and green and the middle parts went back to orange. The million dollar question being: Why green?! Well, confession time: I had used henna to give my brown mane a red shine some months before. I had read the warnings on the Internet, but thought incredulously: how could a purely plant-based semi-permanent hair-dye penetrate its structure?
What happened.
Last week, over a month after the dying, the hairdresser also had to ask twice if I really hadn’t put any green color on and after my negative, we both assumed it’s the henna reacting with the bleach. Well yes, after seeing my hair four different colors I gave up on DIY and ran to the real pros to ask for a new bleaching – not to mention a haircut, for my ends were badly split, as I had feared. After this second bleaching my hair turned light green. It just wouldn’t come out. But with the new mix of the old purple with some lighter pink, it finally shows some more.
My story is not meant to discourage you from playing stylist at home with your own hair, but to warn you to really know your limits when doing so. And also trust the expertise of professional hairdressers, when you see you’ve made a mistake or can’t fix something on your own. It may be expensive sometimes, but hell, that scalp massage included in the hair wash is amazing and the service often worth it. For that, of course, you have to find a good salon with a nice staff.
My advise:
But most importantly: look carefully at what products you put on your head! I swore off of chemicals in my cosmetics by the end of 2012, turning to organic and natural beauty products. And even throughout this whole coloring process I used only products that were not tested on animals and are as environmentally friendly as possible. I even took my natural shampoo, conditioner and styling products with me to the salon and asked the hairdresser to use those.
That’s my unwanted advice to you all: be conscious of what exactly you put on your head. As much as I love the smell and feel of natural henna, I will never use it again if I want to be able to play with colors other than red and green. And had I known that the only way to get rid of it is growing it out, I probably would’ve kept my hands off it. Or not, I mean, some mistakes are just worth it.