Back in February of this year, I made the decision to go bold and bright with my hair. I’ve had practically every hair color you can think of except for these bright colors of the rainbow. Since I’m a huge purple lover, my initial instinct was that I wanted lavender hair. I currently have blue hair and have had it for a few months now. I absolutely love it and it is most definitely the most “me” in terms of my personality as well as what is flattering on me.

Since I can’t go out in public anymore without receiving at least a few “I LOVE YOUR HAIR” compliments or questions on how I did it, I’m going to walk you through my hair journey to get here.

 

 

STEP ONE: You have to absolutely positively get your hair as light as you possibly can so that the color is as true as it shows in the container. Dark hair will simply not take semi-permanent, deposit only hair color. You may be able to notice a slight difference with darker hair, but it typically does not show up at all. I started off with dark, fiery red auburn hair (which I also loved!). I went to my hairstylist and she worked on my hair for 7 hours, using Olaplex. We highlighted, toned, and did everything we possibly could. 3 weeks later, I came back for another several hour long appointment and above is what I ended up with. It’s a gorgeous color, don’t get me wrong. It’s just not what I wanted and it was still way too red, dark, and rosy for me. This was much more subtle and I wanted My Little Pony lavender. Since my hairstylist got me about 70% of the way, I decided to take matters into my own hands. My hairstylist was very concerned about not frying my hair or having it break off, and I don’t blame her. No one wants to be that hairstylist that completely fried off someone’s long hair.

I figured I was going to have to be the one responsible for any damage I did to my hair, so I went for it. I used lightener and 20 volume developer over my entire head. This is extremely risky, so please, do this at your own risk. Just know that you can absolutely kill your hair doing this on your own. One of the reasons I felt comfortable doing it myself is that I’ve lightened my hair myself in the past and I know my hair can typically take it and rehabilitate with deep conditioning. I know what I’m doing and I knew that I needed to check my hair every 5 minutes to see how light it was getting. Instead of over-processing my hair with the lightener, I was conservative and decided to rinse it out after 20 minutes. I used an ultra light, platinum toner in my hair to take any leftover brassy, red tones down. The lightener and the toner took my hair to a platinum blonde, similar to the color of the inside of a banana. I knew it was then platinum enough for me to move forward with whatever color I wanted.

 

STEP TWO: Apply your semi-permanent, deposit-only hair color. During the initial month and a half, I played around with various lavender tones. I used Manic Panic Cotton Candy Pink, Ultraviolet, Purple Haze, Mystic Heather, and Virgin Snow. The lavender would look absolutely gorgeous and different every time I mixed various colors together, but it would not last. I would say that the average time my hair would stay looking fully lavender purple was around a week and a half, while washing my hair every other day. Though Manic Panic is deposit only hair color, meaning it won’t damage your hair whatsoever, it was high maintenance having to reapply the lavender dye every two weeks. I decided one day to just go for the turquoise I had being eyeing.

The initial color I used was Manic Panic’s Amplified Formula in “Atomic Turquoise.” It’s a gorgeous bright teal shade that is very true to color.

Blue is a very, very staining color. If you’ve ever used blue nail polish you’ll know what I mean. It tends to stick around and stain whatever it touches, whether that is nails, skin, or hair. I was extremely happy because I finally found a color that lasts! I was washing my hair every single day again like I did before the lavender and the blue color was barely washing out each time.

 

I was able to get a solid two months out of this hair color before I needed to touch up my roots badly. For my roots, I simply mix a batch of powder lightener with 20 volume developer, separate my hair and touch up ONLY the roots of my hair. It usually needs less than 20 minutes to develop and turn ultra light since my natural hair color is a dirty blonde. At that point, I go back over my hair with whatever semi-permanent blue color I want.

 

Sometime about 6 weeks ago, I decided to go over the turquoise, which had faded slightly into a pastel minty-turquoise shade. I saw these gorgeous shades at Sally Beauty and knew I wanted to try a more grey-blue shade. I used Ion Color Brilliance Brights in Cyan, Azure, and Shark Blue. I was super attracted to that Shark Blue shade because it’s such a gorgeous muted blue.

The formula on the Ion Color Brilliance Brights is much different than the Manic Panic shades. It is thicker, much thicker, and has the consistency of a thick conditioner or cake frosting. I actually prefer a thicker formula because it makes application far less messy. It does, however, require you to purchase more than one tube if your hair is thick or long. Unless you have a bob haircut, expect to use 2-3 tubes on your hair.

I apply the semi-permanent hair color by mixing the 3 shades together in a bowl and using a hair dye brush to apply it all over. I take my gloved hands and massage it well into my roots and all over my entire head. I wrap my hair in a disposable shower cap to keep everything clean and wait anywhere between 45 minutes to 2 hours. Since these shades are 100% non-damaging, semi-permanent, and deposit only, you could literally sleep with the color in overnight if you wanted to. I find the Ion Color Brilliance works so well that only a short amount of time is needed.

 

The result from mixing Azure, Cyan, and Shark Blue is this one. It’s full of dimension, which is exactly what I like in pastel and bright shades. If your hair is too one-dimensional with an unnatural hair color, it can end up looking like a wig. You can see that the Shark Blue has added some deeper, grey-blue tones to my hair, especially along the ends…

 

The Cyan and Azure really add that bright pop of blue to my hair. This shade is a very true blue, with little turquoise, teal, or mint undertones in it.

 

I currently shampoo my hair daily, sometimes even twice daily if I worked out. I don’t feel paranoid about the color washing out of my hair easily. Blue stays put really well and you’ll notice only a tiny amount of blue washing out of your hair each time you shampoo.

However, what is nice about using semi-permanent hair color is that it won’t last forever. If you have hair ADD like I do, and need to switch it up constantly, this is the way to go. I know that I love having my hair blue, but I can easily switch the tones and types of blue shades that I do.

 

My current hair color is one that I really love. It’s bright but it’s also loaded with muted grey-blue tones in it. When it fades out, it tends to look even more like a baby blue shade, and it’s gorgeous. The best part? If I get tired of it and want to switch it up, all I need to do is go back with Manic Panic Amplified “Atomic Turquoise” again. Switching your hair up when you have a platinum blonde base is easy as pie.

 

I love having mermaid hair!

 

If you have any additional questions about my hair journey or color, please feel free to leave them below! I am happy to answer them.

 

 

 

 

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