my hair journey: preview - I see trees and greens - enchanted forest by Manic Panic

So it’s been a very long time since I dyed my hair the last time – I went from pitch black to dark red, then to bright poppy red and then I got bored and dyed it to a honey caramel tone. December 2013 I dyed it back to black and cut off 10 cm, since then I didn’t do anything with my hair. The black dye faded over weeks/months and it turned out quite nice, overall it was a dark brown with lighter ends. Got myself an unintentional ombre look – win! Since I didn’t put any dye on my hair since Dec 2013, I have about 17 cm of natural dark brown regrowth – my hair is now about 52 cm long whoop whoop!!

read about how I started going black to red: black to dark red
read about how I corrected patchy spots: correcting patchy spots
read about how I brightened the red: going bright red
read about how I stripped the color to go honey caramel: red to light brown
read about how I went from red to honey caramel step 2: red to light brown step 2

btw here you see how I went from red to honey

The hair journey goes on!

I was going back and forth if I should go for a lavender lilac or if I should dive into totally unknown territory and try a blueish green tone! Yes, green. After hours of research and skipping through thousands of pics I decided to go with green as my next hair color. Considering my current hair condition and color, I believe that it’s possible to pull off a nice vibrant green. It’s not that green little kids color vomit with.. it’s more like a pine green with a blueish undertone. I think it’s absolutely gorgeous!

btw these are not my pics!

After seeing Manic Panic’s “Enchanted Forest” on some nice gals on google I knew I had to order it. You can use this vegan hair dye on virgin hair but it will fade quicker than you can say “quidditch” – unprocessed hair has a smoother surface and that’s why the dye won’t stick as good as on already processed hair. That’s another reason why I also ordered Directions bleaching kit 30 vol. – with a 30 vol developer it lifts your hair color by 3 levels (+-) – so I’ll get a brighter result + it will last longer. I wouldn’t recommend using a 40 vol developer since this is already pretty harsh – as all chemicals I know – but 30 vol. is just the right thing to use if you don’t want to fry your hair.

I learned a lot from my last experience with bleach and since my hair has natural red undertones I added Directions “White” toner to my order. My hair won’t turn bright blonde after bleaching it, it will have a brassy tone and to correct that you need a toner that will help you pull out the brassiness as much as possible. The toner doesn’t damage your hair at all. It can happen that it will leave a slight purple touch to your hair if you leave it on for too long but that will fade away quickly.

When I remember my vibrant red, washing my hair head over the bathtub with cold water and stained towels, pillows and sheets come to my mind again. This won’t be any different now because I’m using semi-permanent hair dye again. And honestly I would never use anything else. Of course the hair gets somehow damaged while bleaching but still it’s better to only damage it once than damaging it twice in a row. Let me list some pros & cons of using vegan hair dye by Manic Panic

Pros

•  Not tested on animals
• No harsh chemicals that damage your hair
• You can mix colors to get your very own special tone
• You can easily pour some of the left over dye into your conditioner, that way you touch up the color with each wash
• The longer you leave on the dye the more vibrant it will turn out (depends on how light your hair was before)
•  It moisturizes your hair
• Looks frikkin awesome and comes in all kinds of colors
• Not that expensive

Cons

• If you don’t know how to properly take care of your new hair color it will fade very fast
• Stains on the skin and hands are something you should get used to -> use Vaseline and gloves while putting on dye to avoid that
• Stains on the sheets, towels etc
• To maintain a vibrant color you have to touch up quite often (I touched up my red every 3 to 4 weeks, well red is one color to fade away the quickest anyway)

Well, I’m very excited and I can’t wait for my order to arrive :) stay tuned

#dyehard

my hair journey: red hair - 2nd touch up

touched up my lengths nd roots last time in march while i was correcting some patchy spots - see my older post

finally my hairdyes arrived whoop whooooop - lifted my roots nd lengths yesterday with l'oreal hicolor in red, i used both tubes. first i applied it to the lengths and let it sit there for about 30 mins - after that i applied it to my roots and went for another 15 mins - taddaaaa! i applied it to the lengths this time cuz it was quite uneven - only way to correct it, is going all over it again or to work with bleach.

before - 8 weeks without touching up

window light / after touching up with hicolor "red"

bathroom light / no hot roots but nice red roots :D  WIN

so today's plan - mixing manic panic with directions hair dye and work it all over to give it a more vibrant and significant red tone.

p r o d u c t s   u s e d

• l'oreal hicolor in red 2x
• cream developer 30% - 140 ml

• manic panic vegan hair dye "rock n' roll red" 1x & "vampire red" 1/2 of the tube
• directions vegan hair dye "poppy red" 1x

u s e f u l l   t h i n g s

• vaseline - apply it to your entire hair/headline to avoid stain on your skin
• gloves
• container for the dye and application brush
• medium hair clip
• hair tie

2nd pic - dyes left to right:  rock n' roll red / poppy red / vampire red

leftovers - what a yummi red

i filled up the poppy red container with leftovers! don't throw it away - i keep it for now and then touch ups in between until i repeat the whole process in 2 months. don't forget to wear gloves when mixing it with your conditioner!!

l: final result after 2nd touch up
r: before, last touch up 8 weeks ago

well, honestly it turned out darker than i wanted it to - guess it's because of the "rock n roll red" by manic panic - should have picked a brighter red. it is brighter than before - but i wanted it like bright bright red. however, my roots are red, my lengths are more even and i'm good with it. but i'm already flirting with another color.. oh well that's how i am.

#makeup 101 - bold lips

p r o d u c t s    u s e d

blue nivea creme (tin)

mac studio fix fluid - NC30

bobbi brown sheer finish loose powder - 05 soft sand

essence lipliner - cute pink

l'oreal intense color riche lipstick - 288 intense fuchsia

no name lipgloss - clear

bold lips are sexy, great to look at and def an eye catcher - wether you are blessed with a great bright smile or not. do yourself a favor and get those bities bleached, seriously. when you compare older pics of yourself to your bright smile now, then you'll be shocked how yellowish they were.

h o w    t o

• exfoliate your lips before doing your makeup and nurture them with nivea creme (ca 10 mins before)
• wipe off excess creme and apply a little of your foundation to your lips
• blot your lips with a little(!) loose powder to set the foundation
• contour your lips with a sharpened lipliner, starting in the middle working your way out - from the outer corners you work inwards
• fill in your lips with the liner
• blend in the contours and filled in areas with a lip brush
• apply your lipstick with a lip brush, beginning in the middle, work your way out - at the corners work your way inwards
• repeat putting lipstick on your lips and make sure you work it evenly with your brush
• let it set for a few seconds and apply clear lipgloss generously with a brush

n o   no 

• avoid yellowish, orangy tones if you have yellowish teeth, they will look even more yellowish.. trust me, not nice
• carry your lipstick, liner and gloss with you when you have a night out etc, although this method is longlasting you surely want to touch up after a few hrs, so it stays shiny shiny
• make use of the finger sucker move - please! last thing you want is lipstick on your teeth 
• if you don't have nice bright teeth then just avoid focusing on your lips - seriously - instead try to pull focus on your eyes. keep your lips nude or give them a slight touch of color with gloss
• if your teeth are just slightly yellow then pick lipsticks with blue undertones, those will make your bities look brighter

examples:

seriously? what's up with their makeup artists?

ok wether blue based tones or not - if you have such yellow teeth get them bleached or don't wear bold lipstick!!! even with a paler lipstick as seen on drew berrymore, it looks bad.

to avoid this one you simply have to stick your index finger in your mouth, and pull it out while you suck on it - lipstick which sticks to your finger would have been on your teeth sooner or later ;)