Hair Misadventures: We're Getting Better At This?

Hi guys! In my never ending quest for fabulous hair, I have another product to share with you.  After my brief stint with black hair, I decided to go for cotton candy pink! This was a mighty feat as the light pink needed a pretty light base to go over. But before we get into that, a review of the black dye I finally found that didn't turn my hair green!

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The above brand receives four out of five bats from me. On the plus side, it is reasonably priced and since you mix it with toner, you get a rather lot of dye for your money. As someone who has LONG THICK hair and usually dyes her whole head, I know it can be expensive to buy enough dye so the head is evenly covered without breaking the bank. I believe I bought two tubes of dye for twelve dollars total, and this mixed with the toner (which was four dollars for a fairly large bottle) gave me enough to coat all my hair with a massive amount left over (around two and a half cups). So for $16 I was able to dye my whole head! This compared with a four ounce pot of Manic Panic for $13.95 plus shipping was certainly a satisfying deal. I was also happy to find that their color "Noir" is a real and true black with a purple base as opposed to a blue one, so it won't dye very light hair green. (If you're interested, red + blue = purple, so we get the red to counteract the "yellow" of blonde hair, this keeps the dye from going green, and the blue to make our eye see a darker hue so in a burst of magic black sparkles, we get a black dye!)

I love her undercut!
I've been thinking about getting mine a little more styled.
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Wella does have a few problems though, the first being that it is a little difficult to find. It is considered a Professional Grade Dye so it can only be found in specialty beauty stores such as Sally's Beauty Supply or Ulta Beauty. (These are what we have in Colorado, sorry I'm not sure they exist elsewhere!) Wella also leaves the hair feeling a little dry. After washing and conditioning my hair, I went to brush it and the hair was rather...scratchy. This feeling goes away after a few washes. Wella is also not entierly cruelty free from what I could find, they don't test on animals, but the company that owns them does. Overall, it lasted me through around 30 washes, some with plain hot shower water, and was still fairly black before I got sick of it. It was actually fading a bit, but was mostly black with nice chestnut undertones so it didn't do any of that fading to green or grey business. There we have it!

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A few notes on dying your hair black in general:
From my personal experience it looks rather fake in a way that bright colors (which are obviously fake) don't seem to. While a dark color right next to your face will certainly make you look gloriously vampire-like, goths wear a lot of black. My long hair tended to fade into my outfits rather than Wednesday-Addams-ify me. In short, I thought it was rather boring. Which is the reason for the switch. And in order go pastel, I had to get the black out of my hair!

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A few weeks prior to my D-Day (dye-day? See what I did there?) I started washing my hair in hot water again (which we all know is a big no-no if we want to KEEP the color yes?) and it helped to fade it a little. But I still needed a strong bleach! I also wanted something I could mix up in smaller batches because my undercut requires a tiny bit of bleach as it grows out and I have to re-shave and re-dye it. So, as per the recommendation of the lovely KillNatalie I went over to my trusty Sally's again and purchased:

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Prism Lites comes in Blue and Violet. The Blue is a stronger lightener, so that's the one I went for. It is powder that is tinted so you can see where you put it on, and you mix it with a toner, choose from 20-40 depending on the strength of the lift desired (gee, I should sell this stuff shouldn't I? :D). I already had some 20 volume but it was a little diminished from the last round of dyeing, so I also picked up some 30 volume. Overall, 4.5 bats! A container of Prism Lites is a little expensive, I think the tub was $20, plus the toner made for $24 dollars for my hair project. But its enough for several entire head jobs, and its easy to store and measure out (it comes with a nifty little scoop!). Its also only available through specialty beauty shops. But its well worth it! Prism Lites with 20 volume toner lightened my blackest black hair to light brown in 40 minutes, and another round with the 30 volume toner brought everything up to a lemon yellow with some streaks of auburn (these were from when my friend put highlights of pure pigment colors in my hair). 

Can we be friends please? :)
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Washing your hair after bleaching with Prism Lites leaves it feeling surprisingly like you just got a deep conditioning treatment, but that silky almost slimy feel you're experiencing is probably the basic compounds doing their work (if you spill a base on your skin it'll feel slimy, this is because your skin cells are being dissolved. :P) After drying, my hair was a little straw-like, but not too terrible, and most of the damage probably came from the fact that my current length of hair has been through four color changes and three bleaching rounds in the past year. I'm abusive, I know...Anyway, by far the BEST feature of Prism Lites is that IT DOESN'T DO THAT ITCHY BURNING HORRIBLE THING that box bleaches like Manic Panic and Splat do. The only think I noticed was my head getting a little hot under the 30 volume toner, but it wasn't nearly as annoying as other bleaches I've tried and I had it right down to the scalp and along the hairline. If I ever feel like entertaining you I'll post a video of me trying not to rip my head off while itchy bleach sits...its embarrassing. :)

I'm currently typing this with my hair all pulled up and sitting under a shower cap while I let my pink dye sit for a few hours so I'll post some pictures once I know how it turned out! I guess while it's setting I'll listen to the Song of the Day: