Black and Blue

Several attempts to change my black hair to purple left me with an ugly multicolored disaster. I had a mostly black ponytail; pinkish brown, dark blue, and black splotches all over my head; a greenish streak on one side; and around my face, two small spots of purple along with my natural brown regrowth.

After 10 months, 20+ hours in the salon, and hundreds of dollars, I was DONE with this ordeal. No more catastrophic kaleidoscope on my head. I was going back to black.

Still... after so much time and money... it was hard to abandon the dream. I decided to color most of my hair black but try for purple bangs/fringe.

I bleached my bangs and a small portion of hair around my face. I was briefly tempted to leave it yellow and orange because that would have completed the entire color wheel on my head. :P

But I forged ahead with my attempt at purple. I used Splat Purple Desire mainly because it was readily available. Knowing my hair grabs pigment, I diluted the dye with about 1/3 conditioner and left it on my hair for only 30 minutes.

Instead of purple, I got a combination of pink and blue. Not entirely surprising because mixing dye with conditioner can sometimes give a patchy result.

Though the dye encounter had been diluted and brief, the color stayed on pretty well. Especially on my skin! My scalp remained blue through about five washes with tea tree shampoo. After another five or six washes, my hair had faded noticeably.

For my second attempt, I chose Manic Panic Ultra Violet. In the jar, it's essentially the same shade of purple as the Pravana violet which had twice turned my hair nearly black. But I know that Manic Panic has less pigment... so I took the risk and applied it full strength. I left it on for one hour.

Instead of purple, I got blue. Or maybe you could call it blueple. But it's a pretty color, and it's nice and even, not splotchy.

The rest of my hair is back to black. Despite the bleaching and redyeing abuse it's endured over the last few months, it's in pretty good shape except for the ends. A decent haircut should fix that.

I would have liked purple hair. But the black is easy to maintain, and maybe I will eventually find something that makes my bangs purple. For now, I'm okay with black and blue.