Dying the Sunset

I love seeing people with vibrant hair colors. It's so fun, and I love the expression of self. My sisters and I first dyed our hair fun colors in January, and then at the end of March is was time for me to change mine up again, except that my hair color was still pretty vibrant. Today's post is about how I stripped the color and then re-dyed my hair. 

I decided to write this post, because I had a hard time finding good information about what to do. I also have curly, dry, damaged hair, which is problematic in and of itself, so adding bleach to that mix was going to have to be handled carefully. 

So I did tons of research on how to remove the dye from my hair and how to protect and condition my hair. I already know that my hair can't handle multiple shampooings a week, so I washed my hair once a week with dandruff shampoo to help strip the color. Unfortunately, the dandruff shampoo really dries out my hair, so then I'd follow up with a really intensive deep conditioning. I like HASK Argan Oil Deep Conditioning hair treatment. It's a little pricey, but so worth it, and it smells good to boot! 

So the weeks leading up to the new dye job were 2-3 deep conditioning treatments, no heat styling, and weekly shampooing with the dandruff shampoo. This faded the color a lot, but not enough, so then I had to look at other options. With my roots coming in, I figured that a soap cap would be the best bet. Since I was going to have to do the soap cap the day before the dye job because of my schedule, I needed something that I could do myself, and not take up a lot of time, because Baby Girl would still need attention. 

I found soap cap recipe on Manic Panic's UK site, and decided to go with it. See their recipe {HERE}. It worked so well! 

I still don't think I look good as a blonde, but my roots were a touch lighter, and the pink and purple were out of my hair. 

My hair also felt really nice and soft, not dry and sticky. It also didn't take long. I mixed up the concoction, per the instructions and applied. Before I was even done working the entire mixture throughout my head, the color was stripping from my hair. 

With my hair now prepped for dye, it was time to give my hubs a pep talk, because he was going to be helping me dye my hair. 

Luckily, I had found  a lot of tutorials and pictures on how to do pinwheel hair color. I took screenshots of all of them, and then the  next morning when we were starting we talked out just where each color was going to go. 

We parted my hair from ear to ear and then separated each half into 5 sections. We were going to do 3 sections of purple and orange, and then 4 sections of pink. So we had a plan. It didn't help assuage my poor husband. I added some of the HASK conditioner to each pot of Punky color. My hair really can't ever have enough conditioning. I decided to go with Flamingo Pink, Violet, and Flame Red. 

After we got all the color onto my hair, we wrapped a plastic bag around my head, and we watched some TV. I left the color on my hair for 90 minutes. With my roots still being dark, I wanted to get as an intense a color as I could. 

So after the 90 minutes, I washed the color out of my hair, and it looked like  I murdered a troll. So much color! I also did another round of conditioning while in the shower. It was an awful shower. Cool water showers are not the best thing ever, but that's a concession for these fashion colors. 

After my shower, I could immediately tell that my hair was exactly how I wanted it to be. I was over-the-moon pleased with it. 

It's been a month, and my color is still going strong. I have resumed taking warm showers, and the color is still going strong. I also am very thankful that my hubs was willing to help me. I'm going to need his help again when I decide to change up the colors.