How-to/DIY: Tie-Dye Hair

Now that it's music festival season, I've been thinking a lot about fun outfits. Sometimes the best accessory is your own hair! I fell in love with this old pic of Lauren Conrad's tie-dye tips, and wanted to try coloring my own for spring break. Hence the following saga...

Phase 1: Hair Chalk

I found hair chalking tutorials on the internet and liked the idea for its short lifespan on your hair. Chalk brushes or rinses out in one wash. I wasn't patient enough to look for actual branded "hair chalk," so I just bought a cheap set of soft pastels at the craft store. I figured if it didn't work out, at least I'd be left with some art supplies.

As instructed by internet tutorials, I applied the chalk to 1" sections at the end of my dry hair. I used a vibrant pink and it showed up instantly, very bright. But the dust was also all over my fingers, the counter, and the floor. You can't just aim for the dust to all fall into your hair, unfortunately. I set it with a curling iron and went out for sorbet and a round of darts with a friend. It looked cool at first but a mirror check during the evening revealed that it was almost impossible to see. By the time I got home it was only visible if I strained my eyes. Hence, no "after" pic.
Pros: Cheap, easy
Cons: Very temporary, messy, and will come off on clothes if you have it down or get it wet. Also, this is important, ***I noticed that soft pastels now come with a warning about causing cancer! These are a definite no for me!

Phase 2: Hair Dye

That tiny window of time where I saw the color in my hair convinced me that it was cool enough to try something semi-permanant. I bought 3 dyes at the store in hot pink, dark purple, and teal. I applied the pink first and learned the following:
-Any hair that touched the dyed sections also absorbed dye. If you don't want certain parts of your hair to be dyed, it's a good idea to coat them in conditioner and cover them up with something like foil.

Before rinsing

-Any hair color besides very light blond will not take the dye well. By morning I could see it was hardly visible. So off to the beauty supply store I went again, to get (eck!) some bleach.

Next day- very slighty pinkish hair :(

Phase 3: Bleach

I painted most of my ends with bleach, and left a few strands natural. You could stop here if you just want the dark roots to light ends ombre effect. I actually really liked how it looked.

*Note: the bleach pulled out any remaining pink dye from my first attempt.
**I wrapped the ends in tinfoil while it processed, to protect myself from touching the bleach with my skin while I waited.
***You will want to wear old t-shirts for all of these phases! Notice how many I went through. This is all very messy business!

Phase 4: Hair Dye on Bleached Ends

Once I had washed and fully dried my bleached hair, I started going to town on the ends. I put tinfoil under each section and brushed a generous heap of dye onto each one, alternating colors.

I also seperated chunks that I didn't want dyed, coated them in conditioner to protect them from dye, and wrapped them in tinfoil for good measure.

I don't recommend wrapping your hair the way I did here. It made it really time-consuming to uncrinkle the foil in the shower later. A simple fold or two would have been much easier!
Anyway, here are the end results!:

After rinsing and applying a special color-seal conditioner

I can tell it will look cool in braids and pony-tails

After blow-drying, before styling

Heat seals the color and smooths the hair shaft, which makes this kind of dye job look much better

Close-up on finished hair

The finished effect, ready to meet my friends for a colorful night out!

I'll post an update when the color starts washing out as to how long it lasts and what it looks like a few days/weeks in. I love it, and think I'll like it even more when it fades a bit.