Lavender hair. It has been on my bucket list for a while actually. Living at home made me repress my hair expressionism I suppose. But once I left for college, I guess I couldn't stop the hair dying experimenting process. I have gone through pretty much every color of the rainbow, and a lot of my "experiments" have not been successful but it is no matter. Because I finally have achieved the perfectly pastel shade of purple I have been dreaming of for so long.

For the past year or so I've been messing around with my hair a lot, becoming the ultimate hair DIY-er after freaking out over salon dying pricing. It all started after I cut off my hair short, and I got it all healthy again. After gaining back the health of my previous dye years, it was time for the damage to begin. And it was time to go more bold with the colors.



I started out with a nice turquoise dip dye look, spur of the moment. I was really happy with that look. I just went for the bleach, ran it through the bottom of my hair with not much precision, and the turquoise absorbed perfectly. The whole thing cost about $10. I also diluted the turquoise with conditioner before applying, which allowed me to gradually saturate the color as I pleased. I would redye every week or so, but it wasn't very necessary. The color just kept becoming more and more neon.  It was extremely satisfying to see the shock on all of my conservative family members see my hair that Thanksgiving. And eventually I let that fade out. I got a haircut and the green was pretty much gone. (Now I have to warn you, blue will usually fade to green. And honestly, green is not the best of looks.)


  It was finally my turn to go for lavender, my all time "goal" I guess you could call it. It was hard to work up to because I knew I would need to take on extra bleach for my extra dark hair. This would now be my second round of bleach after the turquoise. I went for it, all over my hair this time, and my hair became a golden blonde. I left in the lavender hair dye overnight and crossed my fingers for the best. When I rinsed, I had the faintest hint of lavender in my hair.



Now the next steps of the process aren't really documented because I consider them a big fail. I knew I had to bleach one more time before the lavender would really catch on, but I was scared about keeping my hair healthy. I waited a few weeks and I decided to buy a really light blonde box color, which had lightener in it, which I assumed would be less damaging. So I applied that and...my hair turned neon green in random parts. yaaaaaaaaay. I immediately found my good ol turquoise and slathered it on. And I ended up doing this almost everyday. I was very sick at this time in my life and dying my hair was almost soothing?

But it was a disproportionate and very neon blue at this point, and I felt very self conscious about it. It was a lot more blue on the right side than on the left- my bleach job did not account for my side parting. And so with that, I decided I was done. Time for black. Dye game over.


I chose this beautiful blue black which I actually really loved. It was like neon dark dark blue, a very vibrant black. But oddly enough, every time I rinsed my hair in the shower, a ton of black dye would go down the drain. This happened until the point that all the black was gone, and now I had a murky green tip with natural brown hair on top.

This was a sign, I told myself. Natural hair color is just not meant to be right now. So I did everything possible I could, without bleach, to try to get all the last bits of black out of my hair. I would wash it often and go swimming in the pool often. Sure enough, all the black disappeared.

So I stayed a few months with this ugly combo of dark green and brown. And all of a sudden it hit me. My hair needs professional help. I needed to get rid of this yucky color, and..and..get lavender once and for all. I called up a few stylists until I found the cheapest one, and oddly enough it just so happened to be an organic dye salon. This made me feel a lot more comfortable knowing that my hair wouldn't be damaged as much.

I wanted to maintain some roots to delay the bleaching process as much as possible. My stylist also decided to layer on different shades of purple throughout my hair. When I first saw it, I was not completely satisfied. But after a shower or two, my hair was more uniform and it was perfect. The color still didn't last too long and my hair became and almost gray color.



Fast forward a few weeks and the color was fading quickly. I found a dark purple dye, diluted it, and applied it throughout my hair. It came out a really nice color.


That was until my hair faded to neon blue. The dark purple color I used had a blue undertone to it. I was not down for neon blue again. It doesn't look so neon in the pictures, but I felt the neon within. Come on lavender.



So I continued with the blue, some people called me Marge Simpson, and so on and so forth. This was when I went to a beauty supply store that had tons of employees with colorful hair. I asked for help from this highlighter yellow haired gal, but she said that it wouldn't be possible to have lavender again unless I bleached it. BLEACH AGAIN. I was dissapointed. But then it hit me. I saw this Splat "Lusty Lavender" color on the shelf behind her. It appeared to be a sort of magenta purple. Using my recent knowledge of color theory, I thought bluish purple + pinkish purple= lavender. And so I went with it. My hair turned neon magenta. But after a few washes, it came out to this! And I am finally happy with my lavender.


So if you ever need any hair tips, I've gone through it all! Be persistent, and condition often. My hair stylist suggested a shampoo that is color safe and a conditioner with protein in it, to restrengthen your strands. Every time I added color, I would mix with lots of conditioner and leave the mix in my hair overnight to make the results as vibrant as possible.

And if you want to share your hair dying experiences, please comment below.