WBBE: Crazy Hair

I've been getting some questions about my hair lately, from newer readers who aren't quite so used to seeing the craziness that has been my hair ever since last October. So I thought I'd give you all a run down of the whole story after months of experience with exciting hair colors.

I'm one of those people who loves their natural hair color." Why?" You might ask, because it's a plain old dark brown, nothing exciting. I know that, but I think being brunette suits me, and I like my hair just the way it is. Don't even dare suggest some "natural" looking highlights to me, I don't want to spoil my brown hair with random pieces of blonde.
 
Therefore, I have no desire whatsoever to alter my hair to any semi-natural looking hair color. No way. I also like the fact that my hair is very healthy, so I don't plan on ever coloring my whole head. But.
 

For years, I've loved the idea of bright, extreme, crazy hair colors. I used to have colored hair spray: green and purple. And I would spray green and purple streaks in my hair and go to college like that. But it's hard to get really crazy, vibrant hair colors in your hair when your hair is naturally dark brown.

So, I waited until starting beauty school to get the colors I'd dreamed about. My qualification about where I would put my bright streaks was that they had to be underneath a layer of hair so that it wouldn't be noticeable when I wanted to grow it out and the roots started showing. (Because I've never liked the look of a couple inches of regrowth).
 
I started with fuchsia. But I didn't keep it long, partially because Angel didn't really like the look.

 

Then I switched to purple, but I didn't keep that for long, either. I didn't like this shade of purple. I was using one from the Manic Panic brand, and it wasn't vibrant enough for me. 

Then I cut my hair short, and cut off the streaks of purple that were on the back of my head, and was left with only a streak in my bangs. And I switched to blue. Blue is the color I liked best out of all of them. I loved my blue hair so much. As you can tell, I'm not really into anything subtle....

And then back to purple. Everyone except me prefers purple to blue, and I do like this shade of purple a lot better than the first shade I was using...plus I wear a lot of purple so I get to match my hair to my clothes, so I'm sticking with it!

As for the practical stuff: I bleached that section of hair in order to achieve the vibrant colors, and I bleached it again every time I switched colors so that they wouldn't muddy each other up. One time I had Angel help me bleach it, other times, my classmates have helped me. So yeah, the underneath layer of my bangs is probably fried, but it doesn't bother me, because the rest of my hair isn't.   I've used mostly Tressa Extremers for my haircolor, and I love the shades they offer. Like all semi-permanent color, they fade very quickly for me. Probably aided by the fact that I wash my hair every day. Depending on the colors you like, you could make it last longer, but I like bright colors, not pastel ones, so I re-color my bangs once a week. It's a very easy process of simply putting a little color on that section, and letting it sit for an hour while I work on blogging, before I take a shower.    Because most of the time I have either purple or blue in my hair, I really can't get lazy about re-coloring my hair regularly, because both of those colors unfortunately look gray when they have faded out. And that's not really the look I'm going for. See: Gray-ish, Blah, Yucky Color:  

  I've enjoyed my journey in colorful hair these last months, but I have now officially decided that I will allow my purple streak to grow out--I'm hoping that it grows out before our summer vacation. I decided that it's too much of a hassle that I don't want to have to pack hair dye in my suitcase and color my hair every week...and I also don't want vacation pictures to look like I'm going gray. We'll see how fast my hair grows, I already have at least two inches of roots (you can't tell, because I used that trick I mentioned of only coloring a section of hair lying underneath another section). If my purple hair doesn't completely grow out my vacation, I may just color over the last bit with some permanent black hair color, and no one will be able to tell that I ever even had purple hair!   And, like as not, I'll do it again someday. Who knows, maybe in a few years I'll be "that mom with purple hair." I wouldn't mind.