Wanting a change, I decided to try for purple. I opted to go to a professional because I did not want to ruin my hair. Unfortunately, the attempt to change my hair color from black to purple went profoundly wrong.
The sad tale began in July. The stylist bleached the bottom part of my hair, and the process went well; my hair lightened up nicely with minimal damage.
The stylist then applied the purple (Pravana ChromaSilk Violet)... and my hair turned out essentially black. How is it possible to apply bright purple dye onto bleached hair and have the hair look black? I can only speculate.
Four months later, the hair had faded to a brownish color.
I returned to the stylist for round two. She applied the bleach... but this time, there was an extreme reaction. Within three or four minutes, the foils in the back of my hair got very warm. The stylist immediately pulled them out and rinsed out the bleach, but the damage was done. My hair was pale yellow and... I don't even know how to describe it. It's like my hair melted. It felt like soggy, stretchy spaghetti noodles.
The stylist said the damage was only on the very bottom part of the back of my hair, and that a trim should take care of it. So we went ahead with the purple dye.
The result was horrible. The purple was very uneven. When I got home, I could see that far more of my hair was damaged than the stylist had said. The back of my hair didn't even feel like hair. I could barely get a comb through it, and it broke off in little pieces like crumbles of steel wool.
There was no salvaging the situation. I had the severely damaged hair cut off, then put on black dye to cover the uneven remnants of purple.
Of course, I wanted to find out what had happened during that second visit. Online research provided a lot of conflicting information. None of the likely explanations, such as metallic buildup in the hair, seemed to apply to me.
Whatever the cause, the kind of extreme reaction my hair had is apparently pretty rare. Some hair stylists have never seen it, and some say they've seen it once or twice in their careers.
That does not surprise me. I have mutant hair.
Sorry about hearing the issues with you hair it sound really crap. I hope you not to dishearted by the situation. Glad to your back blogging
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm disappointed, and I hate that I wasted time and money only to have to cut off several inches of hair. But it's done now... so I'm moving on.
DeleteThank goodness it didn't destroy ALL of your hair! And I think the end result looks very good, even though it's not what you wanted.
ReplyDeleteI didn't want to risk all my hair, so I had the stylist work on only the bottom half.
DeleteThanks. Luckily I could use black dye to even out the color all over.
Luckily, only your ends got fried. Maybe you should think about getting a purple wig instead.
ReplyDeleteWigs don't work well for me. My hair is very thick, so it's hard to stuff it all under a wig without my head looking lumpy. Though it'd be a bit easier now that my hair is shorter. :/
DeleteBut the bigger problem is that I get overheated easily. Covering one's head generally makes one feel warmer... and I'm already too hot most of the time.
Oh jeez. that sucks. I know getting black out hair can be difficult but I managed to bleach a few strands and dye them funky colours a couple of years ago. I am so sorry you had such a difficult time with your hair. Although you did cut off the fried ends, if you want to add a little bit of moisture for your hair (just in case) I suggest Morrocan oil. You have really nice hair either way
ReplyDeleteI successfully bleached a couple of streaks several years ago, and the bleaching in July went okay. I don't know why it went so horribly wrong this time. Thanks for the tip about the oil.
DeleteI'm so sorry about your hair. I had black hair for years too and it took forever to get it lightened. It felt awful too and even now when I bleach my hair feels like straw. The way I combat that and kind of nurse my hair back to health, is using a hydrating conditioner and then a keratin leave in conditioner that I wash half out. Some people use Moroccan oil or argon oils. *hugs*
ReplyDeleteThanks. Hydrating conditioner is my hair's best friend. :) Even when it's undamaged, my hair is naturally very dry and coarse, and I use ridiculous amounts of conditioner.
DeleteDamn, another purple hair horror story :( I wanted to do the same thing but I think I'll look for streak extensions instead. The main problem would be finding them in a sufficient length (over-the-butt long). I hope your hair recovers soon and meanwhile enjoy your cute short hairdo.
ReplyDeleteThank you. My hair is not so heavy now, which is some consolation, I suppose.
DeletePoor hair and poor you :( I tried bleaching blue streaks into my black hair ages ago and had a similar situation - excessive damage and the hair snapped off after growing about an inch. After a few years of doing crush ring extensions I went back to dyed streaks but only bleaching the regrowth. It took about three or four years for them to 'grow in' to the full length but they are healthy. Might be an option if you're up for that sort of commitment :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I may go for that option. Black makes less sense as I get more gray hairs, so at some point, I'm going to want to grow out the black anyway. Might as well try it now while my hair is short. :)
DeleteMy hair used to be super dry, and not really frizzy but definitely big. I too have a lot of it. When I started dying it black, it got better, but it's been super soft since I started drinking a ton of water. I use herbal essences conditioners, and from what you've said, I'd gather I have 3/4 as much hair as you so I hope that helps. Sorry about the disaster, I know that pain.
ReplyDeleteThat's great that your hair got softer with more water. I need to be more aware of my water intake. It's easy to get dehydrated where I live because the altitude is high and the humidity is low.
DeleteOh no! How horrible that the hair stylist fried up your hair! I hope that you got your money back and a big sorry from them!
ReplyDeleteShe reacted more like it was a science experiment. Like, "Oh, look, your hair melted. That's interesting." She was not apologetic. I was extremely surprised and disappointed in her reaction. I will not be going back to her.
DeleteOh dear! That is a very strange reaction! I have never heard of something like that happening.
ReplyDeleteNor had I. And apparently many stylists are unaware of it as well.
DeleteHi -- As an update, did you ever end up getting your ferritin levels up from when they were extremely low? And did your hair seem to return to normal because of that?
ReplyDeleteI did. My ferritin was 52 (up from 11) when last checked several months ago. I think my hair is just starting to grow in thicker.
Deleteoh damn O_O I mean, this of course can happening when trying to bleach your hair yourself but a professional should know how to do it i think. or at least apologize i mean WTF O_O
ReplyDeleteYeah. I was just disgusted with the whole fiasco.
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