Last hurrah for crazy hair?

So I’m about 18 months or so into growing my bleached hair out.

Trying to go green again has been really disappointing- I think as we bleached down to quite a white tone, there’s no yellow left in my hair so it’s going blue very quickly after only a wash or two.

I saw Directions came out with a lovely new range of colours (including some slate and Smokey grey tones that would have been handy back when I was going for silver/lilac tones). There was “ultra violet” (dark blue purple) and “deep purple” which I bought as I was getting fed up of the blue washed out alpine green and turquoise was leaving. But then I had a dilemma as I had loved teal colours when they had worked and still had 4-5 pots left. Then I wondered what about having both colours?? As highlights? On different sides? As layers?

So my lovely husband dyed the bottom underneath layer alpine green and the rest deep purple. It looks amazing in real life! Why had I waited until my hair was mostly root regrow the to try this!? I love the Galaxy peacock effect. Very tempted to start bleaching the roots again and keep crazy colour but 1) I can’t find my good shampoo any more (please let me know if you know any affordable shampoo that is kind to semi permanent colour but can deal with long thick greasy hair with dry scalp) and 2) I’m 18 months in to growing it out and almost there, it seems a waste of time to not see that through???

Blue again (despite yellow dye)

Forgot to get pics of this one….

I was getting fed up that my mix of alpine green and turquoise directions dye which had come out a lovely long lasting teal kept turning bright blue.

A colleague recommended adding some yellow next time to counteract the blue and try to bring it back towards green. So I mixed one tub of daffodil yellow with a tub of alpine green and left it in for an hour.

The result was a beautiful rich dark green. However, after only 2 washes it is right back to bright blue!!! I think it must be that all the purples, silvers and greens I’ve been using have had blue tones in them that have built up (which is weird as last time not only did the same mix make a lovely teal, it faded to green with the blue elements washing out before whereas I seem to be getting the opposite now!)

Not sure whether to try pure yellow next time or to just give in and admit defeat – I’ve got tonnes of turquoise and alpine green dye left and as my roots are growing out and the ends are being trimmed there’s less and less dye needed each time as there’s less to cover. Maybe I should just use it up and conceded that it’ll go blue not green :/

Alpine green & turquoise…has gone blue!

I was getting impatient with fading violet out so after about 6 weeks since the last top up of purple I tried to go teal.

I mixed 2 tubs of alpine green with one turquoise and you can see the results below. In real life, there was a green teal hue to it but only for a wash or two – it now looks very blue! (A shame as I’m hoping to be dark green for a Joker cosplay this Halloween)

Lock down blue hair

As always, I forgot to get a decent before pic but my violet hair had gone very patchy as it hadn’t been rested for ages (had been planning to top it up for a March comicon cosplay as Rarity from My Little Pony).

Had some directions denim blue which I mixed 2 parts to one pet midnight blue.

The end of hair dying?

So I’ve been merrily going on with purple hair – topping up about once a month with either Directions Plum, Violet or a mix of the two.

But my favourite sulphate free shampoo is becoming hard to find in shops 😦 I’ve tried a few alternatives (Tresemme’s yummy smelling equivalent in a big dark pink bottle) and L’Oréal Elvive colour protect low shampoo (in a white bottle pump). These left my hair greasy and horrid and if I use a ‘normal’ shampoo the colour will just fade too quickly to be worth the hassle.

So although I think I’ve managed to track down a few tubes of the amazing L’Oréal Colour Expertisse shampoo this might be the end of my colour journey. It’s probably just as well with all the doubt around whether we will be losing jobs at my workplace so it might not be a bad thing to work back to a natural colour in case I have to job hunt – not everywhere is on board with colourful hair!

I was hoping to go blue after Xmas and work around to turquoise for a Sailor Neptune cosplay next May and dark alpine green for Sailor Pluto the year after but wigs may be the way to go.

Fading directions plum

So it’s been about a month, maybe 5 weeks since I changed colour to plum (over a pale lilac/silver base).

The purple was a little pink and bright for me at first but did stay a rich purple colour for a few weeks (although I did top up my roots about 2 weeks in).

However by weeks 4 and 5 it was really patchy and fading to different tones in different places (I’m guessing from sunlight exposure and shampooing). I tried using some vibrant overtone purple conditioner but it seemed that plum fades to a colour very similar to Directions denim blue.

I redyed it today with 2 pots of plum and one of violet:

Directions Plum

So, despite deciding I’ll need to be turquoise again for next May’s cosplay, I thought I’d try out rich purple again while I had the pale base.

This was 2 tubs of plum.

I might try violet again as plum was a lil too pink for me whereas violet is more blue based.

Not sure how long I’ll keep purple up as I remember it fading to a gross pinky-beige very quickly before (and I had had some purple overtone conditioner last time that I don’t this time).

Comicon Amethyst and Fairygodmother

So I rested my hair with wisteria again ready for the Portsmouth Comicon.

Was pleasantly surprised how many people recognised me as I went as fairly obscure characters.

The directions wisteria colour was beautiful but washed out in less than a week despite only washing it every other day with either sulphate free or colour depositing products.

I’ve dyed it wisteria one last time:

I’ve bought directions plum as my next colour – might experiment with violet again too but pretty sure I’ll be coming back to teal tones again as thinking of cosplaying Sailor Neptune again next year.