Adventures in Hair Color: Trials, Tribulations & Hot Pink

I love changing my hair coloring.  I’ve been dyeing my hair since I was thirteen and have tried just about every shade imaginable.  Black, blue, purple, red, and lots of different blondes.  My natural shade has changed over the year from a rich golden blonde to a muddy, darkish brown – not a color I find particularly appealing.

Changing your hair color is such an easy way to become, just a little bit, a different person.  Often when I change my hair color, I’m reacting to an event in my life – moving, getting a new job, making some new personal realizations.  Occasionally, it’s out of boredom.  Changing your hair color isn’t much more difficult than switching up your makeup – hair regrows, after all, and there’s always bleach (or in extreme cases, an emergency trip to the salon).

I’ve had my dyeing missteps.  Once, a hair dresser and “color specialist” in an incredibly posh salon brought me to tears when he revealed my new look.  “Aged leopard” as the phrase that came to mind – I was sporting a murky brown with bits of red and SPOTS of blonde.  After several hours in another stylists chair, where “color correction” was supposed to be happening, I was presented the best they could do:  a florescent orange.  And a $150 bill.

Mostly, I’ve had great experiences with changing my hair color…  Opportunities to try on different personas, mix up my makeup colors, experiment with new clothing styles.  I rocked a Monroe-esque blonde and red lips for an entire summer and reveled in every minute of it.  I entered high school with a fire truck red, spiky ‘do that got quite a bit of attention in my conservative private school (my rockin’ mom wrote me a note saying that it was a stylist accident and my hair was too fragile to redye for a month).

Recently, I tried something new – all-over pink.  I’ve never had more than pink highlights, but this Rainbow Brite-esque styling was a lot more fun.  The dye I used was actually called “Wine Red,” and cotton candy was not really what that name implied.  But hey, it worked.  Of course, pink’s one of the fastest colors to fade, so the look was short lived.

(A note about the pink:  The brand of dye I used was “Punky Colour” and I absolutely would NOT recommend it.  Besides the obvious expectation of dark red and getting hot pink, it was just a disaster.  This dye stained everything it came into contact with…  Beyond normal dye staining clothing and skin during the actual coloring process.  Nope, this dye stained my shower.  My entire shower.  I had to scrub the shower stall with bleach several times over to prevent it from looking like a comic book murder scene.  And the “extra” didn’t all wash out the first time – no, for about a week, the dye rubbed off on anything my hair touched…  clothing, hats, pillow cases, and my mom’s cream colored leather couch.)

Today I’m sporting a hue not much darker than strawberry blonde, which was, once again, not the shade I was aiming for.  I don’t really understand why the color is so much lighter than what was pictured on the box; the dye I used is pictured at left.  It’s Garnier 100% Color Vitamin-Enriched Gel Creme Color in Intense Auburn (#660) – does that look like a light strawberry to you?  Of course, the dye didn’t stain the entire planet, so I can’t outright hate it.

Tonight, I picked up a box of Feria by L’Oreal in Deep Burgundy.  It’s a more reddish purple than the photo implies, and I’m hoping that’s the way it turns out in reality.  I’ve very fair skinned and when reds have a very orange base, all the imperfections in my skin stand out more.  Purple/blue based dyes don’t cause this issue, nor do they conflict with my love of pink lipstick.

I’ll admit that when I was selecting shades (Garnier’s Black Cherry was another contender), the addition of a free can of Elnett Hair Spray, which is a product I’ve been dying (no pun intended) to try.

I’ll be posting about Spring hair color trends soon, so keep an eye out.  If you’ve been thinking about changing your hair color, now’s a great time.  If you’ve got a hair color saga to share, feel free to share it…  I love hearing about the beauty experiments of all you pretty gals!