Monday, November 26, 2012

Have hair questions? Created a FAQ section on my tumblr

I've been getting a lot of questions over on my tumblr about hair dying/bleaching/cutting/etc. I thought it would be useful to go back through my archives and tag them all!

Below are some of the 'highlights' if you will. All the hair related questions I've received this past year and my answers can be found HERE.

creamtangerines asked: how much does it cost a year to maintain your hair?

Answer:
Hmm let me see… Earlier this year I bought a big tub of bleach and bottle of developer for under $10 that usually lasts me several months. I needed more developer, but that’s $2 or so with a coupon. I have a bunch of backstocked hairdye since I don’t use all the colors every time I dye, but I would say I’ve used… 2 jars of manic panic, 3 tubes of Ion, and various bits of old Special Effects this year. So about $20 for the dye? I cut the dyes with conditioner so that extends their lives. If you include conditioner, that’d add about $20? I would say $50 so far this year :3 It doesn’t cost very much since I’m only really redying the roots at this point~

goodbysweethat asked: Hi! sooo I absolutely LOVE your hair and I was wondering if you experienced any thinning of your hair since you bleached it because I want to dye my hair soooo bad but I'm scared it might fall off. I have thick hair btw and I have never bleached or dyed it before.

Answer:
Hmmm well my hair has not noticeably thinned since i started dying it. I also have pretty thick hair though! As long as you are careful and give your hair time to rest between colorings/bleachings, it shouldnt ever fall out. At the most, some breakage can occur, but if you trim regularly it shouldnt be too bad :3 i would advise getting separate bleach powder and developer from a beauty store rather than a box kit. Good luck!

gemstonesdiary asked: How often do you dye your hair?

Answer:
Usually every 3-4 weeks :D

Anonymous asked: what your natural hair color

Answer:
Light red-brown with blonde streaks. I think there is a picture on my tumblr’s “myhair” tag

Have any questions for me regarding hair (or anything else) ? Feel free to leave a comment here or send me a Tumblr Ask.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Hair Timeline!

Put together a hair timeline! Proof that you can dye your hair unnatural colors while still growing it out!

A lot of the early hair experimentations were lost on old cellphones or poor quality. So just chose a few of them.



Had a short pixie cut with varying bang length for about 2-3 years in my natural redbrownblonde color. It was below shoulder length for about 5 years before that. Dyed black and white for the first time Fall 2009. Had white hair all Summer of 2010 though only found a few pictures.

Made the conscious decision to let it grow out from the pixie/short cut Fall 2010. Would consider it long hair by the end of Summer 2011 :D Chopped a good amount off after the really yellow dyejob :3 It grew back quickly and now it’s about 2 inches above “waist length” hair :O

To be continued!

Friday, October 19, 2012

Hair bleaching/dying tutorials

A while back I did 2 tutorials on how to bleach and dye hair on my tumblr. I'm going to repost them here, but you can click below for the originals.
Click here for Part 1
Click here for Part 2
Click here for hair dye FAQ


Bleaching:










How to Dye Hair Bright Colors
Part 1: Bleach

Materials:
Vol 40 developer, Bleach Powder, Mixing Bowl, Gloves

I’ll only be doing my roots for this tutorial since the rest of my hair is already light enough from being bleached white previously. Mix vol 40 developer with bleach powder. This combination will be very powerful and quick compared to supermarket box bleaches so be careful and watch how it develops. I don’t need to leave mine in any more than… 30 minutes or so from when I start applying it.

I start with the most visible areas: my center part, bangs, and nape of the neck (I wear my hair in a high pony often). I try not to get bleach on parts of my hair that have already been bleached, but my bangs grow out too quickly for them to get damaged. A hairdryer once the bleach is all applied will speed up the development. Try to go as light as you can since that will lead to brighter colors once you dye it. To get rid of a brassy or yellow town if you rinse the bleach out too early, try a toner or a bit of purple shampoo in conditioner.

Wash the bleach out of your hair without using conditioner and let it dry. You are now ready to add dye!


Dying:








How to Dye Hair Bright Colors
Part 2: Color

Materials:
Dye (Ion, Special Effects, Manic Panic), Conditioner (Aussie Moist), Gloves

I start by mixing up my dyes with Conditioner. I use Aussie Moist. For typical, bright colors, I will use a 50/50 mixture. This will not dilute the dye too much, but really stretches the life of your dye and helps it soak into your hair. To lighten the color a little bit but not quite a pastel, I would use a 1/3 ratio. For pastels, I would greatly dilute the dye, maybe 1/5. The only color I do not personally dilute is Yellow.

The colors I am using in this round of dye:
Light Blue (Ion Aqua and Special Effect’s Blue Haired Freak + varying amounts of conditioner)
Blue (SE Blue haired Freak and Manic Panic purple haze + conditioner)
Green (mix of Ion Teal and MP’s Electric Banana + conditioner)
Yellow (MP’s Electric Banana)

I typically apply my colors in order from light to dark and in a similar order to where I applied the bleach. For ombre type bangs, I will usually apply the darker color, maybe without being diluted, and then dilute it with more and more conditioner as I approach my roots. Once everything is dyed, I will use a hairdryer to speed up the absorption. There’s no real set time I wash the dye out. Normally I will test to see if my hair has absorbed all the color by rubbing a chunk of my hair. If white or pastel conditioner comes off on my hand, I’ll know my hair’s ready to wash out. This method lasts me about 4 weeks of bright bright hair, 3 weeks of somewhat lighter colors, and pastel hair for over a month after that! I usually end up redoing my roots every 5 weeks so my hair rarely gets to the pastel stage. Hope this answered some questions!

Long time no see!

I've mostly been using my tumblr lately since it requires a lot less writing, just picture uploading/reblogging. But I've decided that I'll use my blogspot for more personal posts that wouldn't really fit into my tumblr. (Cat pics, music I like, my juice/food recipes, workout/sewing/gaming stuff, etc) My drawings/doodles will now also be posted to my art tumblr: Click here to see em! Also have been posting a lot of looks to lookbook/chictopia, as you can see in the sidebar :D

Friday, April 20, 2012

Chictopia Reward + kitty

A while back I redeemed a Chictopia reward with my points :D It was a 'cold shoulder' top from Dress Kill :D It's so comfy!





Can't wait to earn more rewards :D


She's so cute :3 My hair looks kind of poisonous, don't you think?

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Green hair! + watermark time

Sooo I've seen a few pictures that I've not posted to tumblr floating around tumblr... One specifically that I've put on just this blog. It's not a big deal, really, just weird to see other people claiming my photos etc :P So I'm going to start putting my tumblr name on the photos. :/ Sowwy.

I put some green and blue in my hair!



All done:





The back: