Let's talk for a minute about red hair. I have no idea what sparked my interest, but for the past couple years, I've been lusting over this little mermaid hair trend. Every time I see rich red locks, I'm just so so so envious! So why don't I have red hair? Well, two reasons.

One: I'm a pansy. I have near virgin hair so anything dye-related pretty much scares the shit out of me. I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm afraid of ruining my mediocre locks. Plus, what if it doesn't suit me?

Two: UPKEEP. One Youtuber equated the upkeep of red hair to having a  child - I think that says a lot! Once you perm dye your hair, your roots are always going to grow in different so you're going to have to keep dying fo eva unless you dig regrowth. On top of that, red hair is an absolute bitch to maintain. It fades so quickly. Not only is it a hassle (+ expensive!) to keep the color vibrant, but it could also be damaging depending on what method you go about.



But despite these things, I actually think I'm ready to commit to red hair. Not even trying is something I know I'd regret it later in life. Plus, I mean it is just hair, so I don't know why I'm making such a big deal out of all of this. I will say that I have tried a semi perm and I actually was pretty happy with the physical outcome! I used Manic Panic, Vampire Red to be specific, and it bleeds really terribly (my bathroom looked like a murder scene), but the color was quite nice. I was able to use that, without pre-lightening or bleaching, and go from this -->





<-- to this!
Not bad for a semi perm dye, right? Good news is that MP is a vegetable dye, so it does virtually no damage to your hair (some even say it conditions it.) Also, it washes/fades out, so there's no need to worry about re-dyeing unless you want to. Bad news is that the color, like any other red, fades pretty quickly and again, the color bleeds. This was in like, August, yet it's still washing slightly pink in the shower..wtf..
but overall, not bad! I do recommend semi-permanent dyes, but I might look into Special Effects or Punky Colors next time to see if there's any improvement.



So even though I liked the way the MP turned out, I'm not sure that I'm satisfied. I'm thinking my next move will be to dye with L'Oreal HiColor in Magenta + 20 Vol Developer, and then maintain color vibrancy with a vegetable dye for damage control on my hair's health (including adding some to my conditioner). I DON'T KNOW! Again, I'm super inexperienced when it comes to all of this, so I'm rambling and basically pulling feathers out of a hat here. What do you guys think about all of this! Should I do it? Do you have any tips? Let me know! :)

Labels: beauty, dye, hair, random