It’s a Colorful Life Part 2: It’s a Process

Hair again.  My hair is pink  rainbow right now.  Here’s the process (ha ha, pun).

How to make your hair pink:

Start with bleach.  I prefer to have a friend or my mother or Some Guy bleach my roots.  Natural color is Silas’ light brown.  My hair goes pretty light in one bleach (I use 40% developer and a couple of packs of that blue bleach powder, found at CVS) and I do my roots every month or so, depending on how long I feel like growing them out. I like roots because it looks more punk to me, like Charlotte Free or Audrey Kitching, pink hair style icons.  And recently Joan Rivers!

 

Charlotte Free, model, how adorable is she?

Audrey Kitching, style editor.

Joan Rivers with pink streaks!  Any age can rock pink.  This means you, Flora.  Barbara would LOVE it.  (Yes, Beth, I just shouted out both you mother AND your grandmother who are fabulous.)

Then I let my hair dry.  It’s brittle and yucky feeling, but that goes away after I put on the color.  Next, dye pink.  Easy.  I do it just like I apply shampoo but on dry hair because I think it saturates better.  I buy Prevana when I can access the license only shops, or you can pick up Special Effects or Manic Panic from Hot Topic (or as my mother calls it “The Devil’s Store!”).  I buy the hottest pink they have and then cut it with tons of conditioner to make it the pale pink shade I like.  I’m in love with pastel pink, reminds me of peonies.  I leave the dye on often until it dries, sometimes I sleep with it on with a plastic bag over my head because I’m super sexy.  It deposits color so it acts like a deep conditioning treatment.

Getting pink.

That’s my base color. 

When I had really long hair I occasionally put in extensions to boost the color of my pink hair and just for fun. 

Long pink hair before I cut it, no extensions here.

I buy real human Remi hair, the kind that’s been offered as sacrifices at Tonsure ceremonies in India.  You can buy it in Oakland or anywhere where lots of people use extensions.  Feel the texture to make sure it feels like healthy good hair.  Sometimes I buy them in tracks, some times I buy them in pieces that are attached with locks – beads that you crimp down over your hair and the wax tips.  Once my lovely friend Jody taught me how to do these and where to place them (crown, temples) I taught my mom and Some Guy.  They are both expert extension putter-inners.  All you need is a needle, thread, pliers, beads and hair.  Here’s instructions, though he does them too big.  Copy the below pattern.  Oh, and buy the beads with silicone liners inside because they don’t slip as much.

 

I keep my locking extensions in about a month or so.  But the best way to do extensions I’ve found is the braiding way.  Basically, someone french braids your hair and then sews the track extensions onto the braids.  It’s impossible to do by yourself.   At long last I finally found a great weavologist – Tiffany!

First row of tracks for sewing.  Tiffany is a pin addict.

Hair.

I buy white blonde and then I do an art project with them: dying them the fabulous colors I love!

Art project at the park.

Mimi and Jude love helping dye the hair.

 

With the color on.  Mimi and Jude picked these colors.

Drying out.

 

All done and ready to get sewn to my melon.

Tiffany’s working tray. 

Because my hair is bleached it doesn’t hold as much grease.  I can go a few days without washing the whole thing.  The tracks obviously take a long time to dry so it’s kind of a three or four day thing: wash, let dry all the way before I sleep on my hair, style my hair the next day, wear it messy from the style from yesterday (my favorite hair day), pony tail the last day.  And my ever so helpful sisters always tell me when my hair is getting nasty.  Thanks!

I’m kind of in love with my extensions.  It’s a hair experience not a ton of white girls understand or engage in, but it’s getting more popular and less controversial.  If you have short hair that’s bugging you or hair that’s too thin or you just don’t feel like you look like you could walk a red carpet, that’s totally fixable and not half as expensive as you think it is.  And if I can teach Some Guy to do them, you could easily learn to do them with your friends or family.  It’s a fun hobby for me.

Some fun websites for colorful hair:

We Love Pastel Hair

Simply a Dye Hard

F-yeah Hair

Hair all done: