Pretty In Pink: if at first you succeed try, try again

Color Jamz "Bubble Head Pink" after about a little more than 2 weeks (washing with cold water, color safe shampoo and 3-4 days between washing.)

So its been about a month since I started the pprocess of having pink hair.  I had this idea in my ead that it would be like the samples, dark and pretty. 

A month later and I have learned that NOTHING is ever like the sample, its about trial and error, and a good deep conditioner is a must.

After the first batch of dye I realized that I was probably going to have to mix my own color to avoid having a friend buy me professional color. 

I have tried Manic Panic (a long time ago and I remember not liking it.  It dried out my hair really bad and didn't hold for crap.), Ion Brilliance (way to bright, way to neon, didn't hold at all, faded to a gross color) and Color Jamz (was still too bright but not as neon, held about 2 weeks which is normal and faded to a prettyish shade.) In trying to keep with a low budget I haven't tried the Special Effects or the Pravana.

So With that being said:

It was time to do my roots and I decided that maybe another how too was in order. 

I've never done my roots before, normally when coloring my hair I would just put fresh color on everything. Being pink is totally new to me. 

I live in an area unfortunately that has VERY hard water (water with a high iron count) so it tends to turn everything a funny color (yes my whites have to be washed with bleach or they come out slightly yellow).  

The first time I bleached it came out VERY golden, and some spots were pretty dark gold.  When coloring pink over that, most of it had a brassy color and it was weird.

There really isn't a lot of information on how to do roots, if I ever figure out a way to do them I'll let you know! 

I used all the same products as before, same bleach and developer.

My hair is shorter in the back tan it is in the front, so the front went up in its own clip.  Then the back half into three sections.  

I used my brush to apply a heavy lair of bleach to the roots.  

(The first time I bleached I used my bleach sparingly and ended up with dark spots, I didnt make that mistake twice.)

I did find though that in my haste, and uneducatedness I was getting bleach REALLY far into my pink. I had extra bleach so I gave up and just bleached all my hair.

I took this when I was pretty much done processing. I got a little exciting thinking I'd rock the blonde roots with bubble gum pink hair! Booooy was I wrong!

Here we are after processing for a total of about 15 minutes AFTER it was applied to the entire head.

I think the second round of bleaching the entire head really helped take out the brassy color from the first time I bleached.  It really seemed like it helped to get everything that was pink one color.  I got everything covered pretty well and only ended up with some spots in the front right by my roots, but c'mon with pink hair who's going to notice a few spots?! Leaving my roots blonde was actually something I considered until I dried it...

I was a little worried of the spots that seemed to come out blonde besides my roots.  I feared ending up with neon color again. If you look in the first picture you can see where the brassy color from before is pretty much gone. I haven't decided if I will bleach once a month or next time try to get just my roots.

For the color this time I used the same brand but I mixed two colors together in the hopes I would get a dark pink that wasnt so shockingly bright!

I mixed the bubble head pink and candy apple red.  There really isn't a solid recipe for this (yet!) but I used my mixing bowl and used about 4-5 oz of the pink and about 2 oz of the candy apple.  Once it was mixed I pourd the mixed color into an empty color jamz bottle I saved (each bottle is 4.2 oz and I filled one bottle and had a little left over in a bowl).

As you can see it went one VERY bright so of course now I was flipping shit. This was the last thing I wanted but it was too late to go back now!! I let it sit in my hair for about an hour and a half, normally I would've left it on for longer but by this point it was so late and I feared falling asleep!

The final product?!

Pure Awesome!

The final color is still not as dark as I would like, however that awful wig neon pink is finally gone and it has a nice red to it. So in two weeks when its time for a touch up I think I am going to switch the recipe, using 4-5 oz of red and 2 oz of pink.

Pink: A Process

Finally I feel like I'm getting somewhere with my color! I'll post a how too blog as to how I came to this color, but this is the best it's been so far.  It's still the pretty pink but without the neon color! More pictures and info to come!!

The Day You Slipped Away

I wrote this for my friend Christina (Catching Fireflies) when her son Nathan passed away last week:

"Strength does not come from physical capacity, it comes from indomitable will."

1:05 pm - Its my lunch break here at work, I've felt a little sick to my stomach all morning and its only now, as I write, that I even remember bringing food at all.  While I sit here staring at a blank screen for the second time in my life, the unthinkable is happening.  Services for Nathan have began and my over active imagination can paint a picture in my mind of what’s going on.  I block it out.  I've never been one to deal with too much excitement very well be it from immense joy or great sadness.  I think too much, always wanting to know "Why?"  Why do bad things happen to good people?  Why Nathan?  Why Christina and her family?  Christina has never intentionally done anything ugly towards anyone in her life, Why Christina?  Why her son?

To the Earle Family:

We may never be able to make sense of the great sadness we feel in saying good-bye to Nathan today but we can find some peace in knowing that we are not saying good bye to a little boy who has been lost or so greedily taken from us; instead we say "See you later!”  Nothing in this life is final, while there is some finality in knowing you will never be able to feel the weight of Nathan in your arms, you will see him again.  Today I celebrate your son’s life and remember the joy I felt in sharing with you his great triumphs over his illness.  Like in the video when he grasps a toy and shakes it with a smile on his face or in the moment when Christina said she saw his smile after months of being ill.  I celebrate the strength Nathan shared with all of us, over coming obstacles that surprised even the doctors.   I do not cry today because I selfishly wish that he could have had more time with us, I cry because I envy Nathan!  I envy his courage, I envy his strength, and I envy him for having moved on to a better place.  I know that these words seem so empty and hollow because it is so easy to feel the sorrow of the loss but it is true.  Gone are the days that he cries in frustration, gone are the days of hospitals, and gone are the days filled with medication.   We can never comprehend the struggle he felt every day, we are simply outsiders looking in.  However, find comfort in the unknown.  Take joy in knowing he walks among angels, he sits at the thrown of God, and he smiles down on you every day.   Do not hold yourself to any fault, it will not change anything and it will only eat you up.   While the pain of losing your son will never go away take comfort in knowing Nathan finished what he was put on this earth to do.  While he was so little and we are too blinded by our grief to see what it is Nathan was put on this earth for, one day when the sting doesn’t sting so bad we will be able to find reason.  Maybe his reason here was to teach all of us just how strong we are, maybe we just needed a reminder of how easy we really have it, how we need to appreciate every day we have, and to remind us to love one another.  Maybe Nathan was here to inspire all of us to change or put change into motion.  Maybe it was Nathan who touched me the other morning and asked me to reach out to Build A Bear about creating a special bear.

Nathan will always be yours; this changes nothing in the eyes of God.  You were chosen to be his family and to care for him.   However brief the time may have been, that time was meant for you.  You were entrusted by God to care for this important angel while he carried out his mission.

Thank you for sharing this time with not only myself, but also those around you.  Thank you for allowing us to be a part of his life, and thank you for allowing us to share his story with the world.

Lorelei Rose

Lorelei Rose 

10/30/12

5lbs (I forgot how many ounces!)

Little Lorelei is the smallest baby I think I have ever seen in person!! 

Yes Aunt Tiana teared up the first time I held her!

Yes I watched the election with her in my arms for like...2 hours! 

She looks JUST like her daddy and I am already sure that she will have her mommy's personality!

I couldn't help but laugh because she always looks so concerned while she sleeps!!

<3

How To: Follow up!

So in my attempt to catch up with my blogs I thought posting a follow up would be nice.

This way you could see how the color faded and hear of my adventure to date.

Ion Brillance

This stuff is junk and I do not recommend it. 

At first I thought it was user error, due to my mixing it with conditioner.

The next day I went back to Sally's and purchased 3 more tubes.  In total I used 6 tubes of color and spent a total of $35 plus tax JUST ON COLOR.

While the second time had a better pay out, it still was not as dark as I liked and the fade out was AWFUL. 

This was taken with my phone the first night I did it. As you can see the color came out VERY light.

This was also taken on a phone the next day after dying it a second time.  The second time I used the dye WITHOUT mixing it and let it process for about 45 minutes. While it came out darker this time, it was still very neon and had a reddish/brown tint in some spots.  The color also semi stained my hands every time I did anything.  While flat ironing I had to stop often to rinse my hand with rubbing alcohol to take the pink off my skin. 

This was taken on my phone with no filter (I know right?!) about a week and a half after dying.  While it looks cute I assure you it was not.  It was very neon/highlighter pink in the spots that had been previously highlighted, then this weird, brown orange gross thing the resembled a color everywhere else.  My roots had also started to show. Was NOT a cute look.  Due to the super quick fading I do NOT recommend the Ion Color.

This is the start of my two week dying.  I used the "Color Jamz Bubble Gum Pink". 

This was the end result after 2 hours of processing, and high heat the last 20 minutes of processing. MUCH better!

I still had brighter/neon ends in some spots but the over all color was much better than the Ion and I would recommend the Color Jamz product.  It certainly looks darker in the photograph but it is still not the shade I was hoping for but DEFINITELY closer!!

Here is about the two week mark, taken with my phone and untouched.  The fade out is definitely holding better as I reach my three week point but my roots are starting to show pretty bad.  This week is nail week so I am going to push it one more week before bleaching the roots and trying the Pravana Magenta.

**All of these results are based off of washing my hair every 3-4 days in cold water with color safe shampoo.  Results may vary depending on how often you wash your hair, type of water you have, temperature of water, and shampoo.

How To: Safely Bleach Your Hair

Okay, I know I've been slacking.

I've got about 4 blogs to write & I am going to try to keep them from bleeding together.

So here is my first.

How To: Safely Bleach Your Hair

When I decided to take on the joy of pink hair, I knew I would need to bleach my naturally dark hair.

My natural hair!

As you can imagine, bleaching on my own for the first time was pretty scary!  While I am not new to coloring or bleach, I had always had it done in a salon.  I did LOTS of research, for weeks.  I read about different products, read about what the best way was to do it, and conditioning treatments after.  I also did A LOT of research about the product I was going to use for the pink!  While doing my research I was very frustrated to find tutorials that, to me, seemed lacking.  Either no pictures, or poor descriptions for the sake of keeping it short. So I will do my best to give full detail and pictures of each step and what I did to achieve my new awesome hair!

Product

1. I decided on Quick Blue because the reviews were really good.  A lot of people said they had dark hair and the product worked wonderfully without frying their hair.  I also read that the blue bleaches, like Quick Blue, work as a bleach and a toner so it helps take out that red/orange color a lot of people get when bleaching. (Keep in mind, quality of water WILL make a difference!)
2. Salon Care 30 volume developer:  In reading up on my developers I found that the purpose of the developer is to activate the ingredients in the bleach.  Developers with 40 and 50 volume are way strong and will most definitely fry your beautiful hair.  30 volume is, from my understanding, the strongest you SHOULD go however if you MUST use stronger do so with caution!!
3. Ion Color Brillance Brights, Magenta: This color got RAVE reviews for anyone wanting to color their hair and have something a little longer lasting. 

Bleaching

I typically have healthy hair, using deep conditioners frequently to tame my wild curls.  I definitely recommend using your favorite deep treatment for at least a week or two prior to the harsh chemicals.  I also bleached on dirty hair so as not to strip natural oils away before bleaching.

I bought 3 packages of bleach figuring I'd make a mess.  I only ended up using 2 but I think using 3 would've been best (I missed some spots!).  Follow directions on the package for mixing, and also use the biggest mixing bowl you can find!! Mine was 4 oz and almost wasn't enough!! 

Mix together well!!! You should come out with a smooth consistency with no lumps or dry powder bombs as I like to call them.  The bleach should be between paste and runny, when you pull your mixing utensil from the bowl the product shouldn't be runny should kind of "glop" from the brush back to the bowl. I ended up pouring all of the developer I needed and then slowly mixing in the powder, careful not to sling it all over.  Surprisingly this bleach had almost no oder!! The smell was a little strong while mixing but once it was mixed there was virtually no harsh oder.  I did use a very small fan just in case.

GLOP!

There really is no good way to put this stuff in your hair.  The recommended steps are to start from about mid-shaft, bleaching the roots last.  The heat from your head will cause the roots to process faster, and the rest of the hair needs a good head start.  However, I could not manage to find a good way to follow this process.  I finally gave in and treated the bleach like hair color (shhh don't tell my stylist!!!).  I started with my roots and made sure to coat each, small section, with lots of bleach.  I made sure to make sure it was all REALLY wet, just like I would with hair color.  I left my head uncovered to make watching it easier.  I also made sure to check my hair every 10 minutes so that I wouldn't over process it. Make sure that each time you check it, you make a mental note of what color your hair is.  If you reach a point where you feel like its not turning anymore its probably a good idea to wash it out.  I also did not let it sit on my hair for more then 45 minutes once all my hair was covered!

This is at the first 10 minute mark, after having it totally applied.  As you can see I did a wonderful job making an epic mess! You'll also notice that my roots are still pretty dark.

This is at the 20 minute mark.  My roots still looked pretty dark and I started to get a little nervous that they wouldn't be light enough!!

This is the 45 minute mark! As you can see it did a pretty decent job bleaching my hair!! My roots still looked pretty dark but I had hope!! Through the entire process I did not experience any burning, itching, or discomfort.  This is why it is VERY important to watch the clock and check!! If you are afraid you might experience burning, my stylist told me that mixing some sweet and low in the bleach will take care of that!!

Here is what the final product looked like.  At the time I thought it was perfect, but thanks to my crappy water, its a lot brassier than I think is needed.  In the first picture you can see where some of my roots didnt lighten properly, I have feeling this is my fault.  REALLY saturate your hair with the bleach to avoid this!! In the second picture the middle is that brass color and the bottom where its a bright gold, the bright gold is ideal.  Keep in mind previously highlighted ares will be lighter than everything else, something I forgot! 

PINK!!

I learned a lot during this stage!! I read in reviews where the product I choose was REALLY thick, people wrote that they mixed the product with conditioner or developer and it was fine.

THIS IS A BAD IDEA!!!

The first round of color I mixed it with my conditioner because yes, this product is VERY thick!! However mixing it with a white product made the dye significantly lighter, BAD.IDEA.

I purchased 3 boxes of the dye and this is the turn out after the conditioner.  Still a lot thicker than normal hair dye, a lot thicker than anything I've ever used but a lot easier to work with.  It was easier to apply with it being thinner (it helped that thinning it out gave me more to work with too.).  Like the bleach, I applied this with my fingers from root to end. Once the product was in my hair, this sat for an hour before washing out.  I did wear gloves during the washing out process for fear of dying my hands. When using fun colors, like pink it is recommended to always wash your hair in cool/cold water with a color safe shampoo.  A LOT of the dye washed out, so much so I was actually worried. I also recommend using a towel you don't care about, your hair will bleed.

This is the final outcome!! It photographed better than it actually was, but was still okay for the day.  The color was VERY brassy, very light and about 3 different shades. I was NOT happy with it...even if I'm sort of smiling about it.

 Here you can see the side, as you can see the roots are a sweet, bubble gum pink while the middle is a brownish/reddish/pink...thing.

My bangs were a decent shade and were a single shade but was lighter than I wanted.

Here I was trying to show the brightness of my ends.  I had my hair highlighted pink this same time last year, my ends still had highlighted pieces and bleached out REALLY light.  These pieces were "highlighter pink" and worked well since they were all over the ends. 

Overall

• The brush thing normally used in salons was useless because I had NO idea what I was doing. With time I WILL learn how to use this.
• The Ion color I used was junk.  See follow up blog
• I would recommend the bleach
• Definitely cover your counter and floor with something you don't mind getting bleach and color on
• Wear gloves
• Use a deep conditioner after bleaching and coloring
• Keep a constant eye while bleaching
• Heat can be used to help speed up the process
• Do not use more than 30 volume developer or risk over processing
• Do not mix your hair color with conditioner or developer