Sometimes, things that should be good ideas end up being bad ones.
Emily, Maire and I are going to see the new Harry Potter at the midnight showing. Of course, this requires costumes. Emily decided to go as Luna Lovegood, a decision I’m a little jealous of. In order to do this, she decided to bleach her hair blonde.
 |
| Ideal situation. |
We were very excited. I am a Pro at dying hair, so it was left up to me to decide what type of bleach we should get, and I was the one who did the actual dying. I thought I warned her that there was no way of knowing what it would look like, especially since she has dyed her hair before, but there is some debate about the level of disclaimer. But we did it, and I was super excited and Emily was alternately excited and terrified. Here are some pictures of the process:
 |
| Pre-dye. |
 |
| Application. |
 |
| Excited. |
 |
| Letting it sit. |
I went to dinner while the bleach was still on because I was starving, and when I came back an hour later, this is what I was greeted with:
 |
| :( |
“We are going to buy brown hair dye and fixing this NOW because I am not going to dinner with my hair looking like this.” Emily was blow drying her hair and looking at it wistfully in her webcam. When asked if she was okay emotionally, she replied, “I am disappointed, but I am okay.” After further probing, we determined it’s the blonde bit at the top she hated, and not as much the strawberry blonde part at the bottom. Bleach does that sometimes; it can come out anywhere from platinum to grungy orange to fluorescent yellow.
Brown hair dye was purchased, and applied. I’m sure my worry didn’t even begin to compare with hers, but by this time I felt entirely responsible for the state of her hair and thusly the state of her happiness. This is Emily looking nervous:
 |
| Nervous-hopeful? |
When she came out of the shower, her hair was too wet to properly determine the color. But she informed us that the strands that fell out and dried really quickly were a “thumbs up”. This is what her hair looks like wrapped up:
 |
| Mile-high towel. |
She was blow drying it in the bathroom so she could use a mirror, and suddenly I heard a terrified shriek: “It’s black!!!! Why would this happen to me??!?!?” She came in a few minutes later and apparently I had misheard; it wasn’t black, it was blue. This is quite possibly the strangest thing that has ever happened to me in the history of dying hair, and I have quite a history with it. Parts of it are brown and parts are black, though I can’t see any blue. I haven’t the slightest idea how this happened; it certainly hasn’t been an issue in the past. For future reference, apparently this dye does really, really weird things. Be warned.
 |
| Arrested Development makes everything better. |
Emily has decided to go as Cho Chang, and be the most beautiful Cho that there ever was ever, proving that she is Resilient and also needs to talk about her dead ex-boyfriends over coffee.
p.s. I do all my own drawings and take all of my own photographs unless I say otherwise. This would be indicated by a link in the caption, such as in the Mono picture, or the picture of Jimmy in Degrassi. I even have a fancy Drawings page! This will hopefully be updated on a fairly regular basis.
I feel badly for Emily, but dying hair is always an iffy process, even when done professionally. I'm glad Emily understands, and I'm sure she'll get it all fixed and nice over Winter Break. Meanwhile, it's better than the story my boss told me long ago when she had to do jury duty at a very busy time and was a bit miffed because the case she was jurying was a woman suing her hairdresser for emotional damages due to an unexpected dye job. My feeling for the defendant (not for Emily!) was get a life. She had very long hair that she considered a major part of her identity. Then why risk dying it??!! Anyhow neither you nor Emily is at fault, which you both seem to understand.
ReplyDeleteand you're going as...?
ReplyDeleteYeah! You have to gauge, for blond: the undertone of the hair, the porosity at each stage of length, the level of current base color applied. For example if I want bright orange hair I really only have to bleach and leave it for 20 minutes, but my friend's hair when bleached is ash blonde. And most people's hair is significantly more porous closer to the root so you have to start at the tips. One thing that is great for after bleaching is clairol colorgloss which you can get at Sally Beauty Supply and which gives you a translucent all-over color that can just tweak the shade you bleached to. And it's super hydrating, but not permanent. For that matter, clairol professional has some good coloring info on their site, you might enjoy it since you're a hair changeling like me. - Yat!
ReplyDeleteI remember the one time I tried dying my hair blue the end result was some parts brown, some parts blonde, some parts black, and some parts blue. It seems like that's just the default for messed up dying.
ReplyDelete