After much thinking and soul searching, I decided to finally take the leap and dye my hair pink! I originally was thinking a pale pink would be gorgeous, but my hair is far too dark to transform that quickly, so with the help from Kaylah from The Dainty Squid’s Hair Master Post (who recommended the hair therapy session mask, placenta leave-in conditioner, and boar brush), I picked out the perfect hair items to achieve my raspberry locks.

It took me about a week to prepare my hair for the bleaching process. My natural hair is curly and a dark brown. I have never entirely bleached my hair and the past experience I have with it, I let a friend ruin the ends of my long hair because she had no idea what she was doing. I almost always go to a stylist recently since I know I am not an expert, but I used to color my hair reds and browns and blacks myself because my hair does not hold color well at all, so I knew I would have to bleach to see any results at all.

I used Eva•NYC Therapy Session Hair Mask every night and let it sit 3-5 minutes after shampooing.

The Therapy Session Hair Mask is a deep conditioning treatment that repairs and strengthens dry and damaged hair. Hair is left hydrated, smooth and manageable. KERAVIS PROTEIN – Clinically proven 3X stronger hair. ARGAN OIL – Feeds hair with Vitamins A & E, Omegas 3, 6, 9

I then rinsed with cold water only and pat dry my hair lightly. Afterwards I sprayed Hask Placenta Super Leave-In Conditioning Treatment (which smells amazing, just shake well) all over my hair and let it sit for three minutes before brushing with my Spornette DeVille 100% Boar Bristle Oval Cushion Brush, which is great for distributing oils throughout your entire head and smoothes hair.

The Hask Placenta Super Leave-in Conditioning Treatment restores life & lustre to bleached, tinted, damaged & relaxed hair. Instant Hair Conditioning Treatment is excellent for all types of hair that has been abused by the heat of blow dryers, Curling irons, tinting, bleaching, relaxing, frequent shampooing & overexposure to the sun. Works Instantly to restore life & lustre to dry brittle hair. This product is not tested on animals.

Making sure you have time to really give your natural hair some TLC before you bleach is extremely important to prevent major damage and hair breakage, that will just leave you traumatized and your hair beyond repair.

Here are products I recommend you should also acquire for maintaining healthy hair. I use As I Am Naturally Leave-in Conditioner as well to add some extra moisture to my hair and also promote hair growth. I like this product because it doesn’t weight down my hair and make it feel greasy, so I usually put this on after the placenta leave-in, but either way would work.

Here’s my natural dark hair after conditioning treatment, placenta leave-in, and brushing with the boar brush.

 As I Am Naturally Leave-in Conditioner, a great leave-in is a vital first step in styling. Smooth it on after cleansing and conditioning. Your finished style will be softer shinier and more manageable. This natural wonder keeps tangles away and provides a great foundation for natural styling. It contains an organic strengthening agent, plus natural ingredients that promote hair growth.

Another great product to try, if you don’t want to use the Eva•NYC Hair Mask, is Davine’s Nounou Nourishing Hair Mask for Dry Hair or Nounou Nourishing Repairing Mask for Dry and Brittle Hair that I use here. They both smell amazing and were recommended to me by a stylist I visited in Austin during a lightening treatment several years back.

Nonou Nourishing Hair Mask for Dry Hair – Nourishing and repairing mask for damaged or very dry hair. ideal for bleached hair, with highlights, perm or relaxed. Its formula is designed to deeply nourish treated hair, it also makes it soft and silky, giving it body. it does not weigh down the hair.

I did one oil treatment and am planning on doing weekly treatments that stimulate hair growth that I discovered from this infographic on pinterest (source unknown). I have read that it is also healthy to massage your scalp with the oil on as well.

Down to the bleaching process. Some people have recommended using the bleach over an oil of some sort to further protect your hair, but I decided not to go with this option. I used Radical Bleach Kit from Beyond the Zone from Sally Beauty as recommended by Kaylah. (They also have a Color Remover if you absolutely HATE your results). On Thursday night I did the test strip. I wanted to give myself plenty of time to complete the full process, so spread the process out over two days. The test strip test tells you how long you need to leave on your bleaching mix without destroying your hair. Although it gives you estimates on the package as you what time is needed for hair colors, check your color every ten minutes, by having a spray bottle of water near by and spraying the bleach off and rubbing with a damp paper towel.

I ended up having to leave mine on for two hours for my test strip as I have very DARK hair, but on the day of bleaching (Friday) I quickly learned that roots are much different than other hair and lightened at a much more rapid pace than expected. I had to remove the bleach from my roots with a spray bottle and paper towel way earlier than expected. So, I recommend your test strip starts from root to tip!

Tips: Avoid getting the bleach on your skin because it will burn. If you use foil, make sure you get BOTH sides of the strands of hair. Use a buddy if at all possible. If you are alone and like it that way, a couple of mirrors might be able to do the trick, but be ready to do touch ups over the next few days. Also, this hair cap look can terrify your dogs, so don’t take it personally. They still love you and your transformation, your hat just is alarming.

Purple Shampoo – purple shampoo is know to take out unwanted yellow and orange tones from bleached hair, although obviously my cheapo ways didn’t help as I tried to borrow some from work for dogs. I am not sure what works the best, but I have heard good things about this brand. Here’s an alternative, I have found, and here is what I used (you can laugh). Smelled good regardless and I knew I was coloring soon, so it didn’t bother me too much. I of course used my hair mask and left it on a bit longer than usual (about 10 minutes) and rinsed well with cold water. It is important to use cold water to rinse your hair, now that it will be bleached and colored to maintain the bright color you desire.

I slept in my newly blonde mixture overnight, to give about twelve hours of relaxing between. I then started my coloring!

Colors: This is totally up to you! Reds? Blues? Greens? You choose! You can get some inspiration from my hairstyle board if you choose to. I don’t recommend Manic Panic as it just does NOT stick to my hair at all and just washes all out, and the cheaper the price, usually the cheaper the quality. I personally chose Punky Colours by Jerome Russell in Flamingo Pink, as recommended by Kaylah as well, to start my color transition. I’ve heard great things about oVertone Haircare products being wonderful, but they are on the more pricy side. I ended up buying the pale pink set, but I returned it, after deciding I may not want to have colored hair for very long as my situation has made an 180º turn around.

I dyed my hair accordingly to the Punky Colour (available at Ulta and Amazon) instructions (15-30 minutes) leaving it on for about 20-25 minutes. The smell was wonderful (like raspberries) and I tried my best to fill in every single hair spot, although I had to go back the next day and re-bleach and re-color a few stranglers. I did however have a not so good “reaction” to the Punky Colour dye. I began feeling sick automatically after applying. I had my epipen near by to make sure my airway would not close up, as I have severe allergies to some spices and certain unknown things. I felt sick to my stomach the entire time it was on my head and I washed it off at 20 minutes after forming a headache. I suffered from a headache the entire day after that, but I don’t know if it would be related to the possible chemicals in the dye or not.

In the end, I loved my outcome! I later bleached my eye brows and dyed them to match my flamingo pink hair, but after some deep consideration, I plan on dyeing them back to my natural hair color because it just is a bit too much for me believe it or not. I have gotten so many compliments on how much my hair is amazing. I work at hair color acceptance place (although surprise!, my two weeks was submitted yesterday, later more to come on this) and absolutely love showing off my unique hairstyles! Also, I have to say I take WAY better care of my hair now then I ever did when it was natural.

Much Love,

Cass