Killing My Hair!

I dye my hair frequently. It's one of the few things I indulge in with my hair. I don't "do" my hair up every day, I don't use hair products, I rarely use a curling iron or blow dryer. But, I do like color, and I use it often. When I was 14, I really wanted red hair. I asked my step-mom if I could, and she freaked.

She's not a hair dyer. In fact, I don't think she has ever died her hair. Instead of telling me I could, she talked to the hair salon we went to, and when I went in for a cut, they had me look at a color wheel to show them what color I wanted. In theory, they were supposed to tell me how horrible red would look on me.

I was a fair skinned, blue eyed, pale blond girl. Red is a color that looks atrocious on most people who dye it that color. My step mom looked at how pale my coloring was, and figured it would look bad. The stylist, however, saw the shade I wanted (which was more of an orangish red, than a RED RED), and looked at me, and then had other stylists come over. They all agreed that with that shade, it would look great on me.

I waited until I was 16 to take the plunge, though, and I have to say- that first time I dyed my hair, it came out almost the exact same shade it was before. I didn't want to go too much different, and didn't realize how close my hair already was. My parents never even noticed.

After that, I went red, the orangish red I always wanted. I loved it!

When I was 19, I met Nick. One weekend, it was time- time to meet the mom. Nick's mom is a hair stylist. Now, when people walk down the street, there are some "obvious" people who dye their hair. Most stylists can pick out some of the non-obvious ones as well. I had dyed my hair the night before meeting her, back to a slightly darker orangish red.

Nick's mom told me later that she thought I was a natural red-head, because the color blended so seamlessly with my skin tone and eyes.

It's been a few years since I've had any drastic changes. One year, my sister-in-law died my hair red for me, using a color called Paprika. MAN, now THAT was red. I'm talking fire-engine red. Ok, maybe with more brown undertones, but it was RED. While it in no way looked natural (that's a color that is NOT natural on people, but it wasn't like stop-sign red, it was a brown base with a LOT of red to it), I got more compliments from random people on that color than just about anything else I'd ever done to my hair.

It's the type of shade where it can look natural on a person, even when you KNOW it isn't natural.

SO, back to the point of this. I woke up today, and decided it was time to kill my hair once more. I saw that just about every time I dye it- that I'm killing my hair. Today was the first time it actually looked like I had killed my hair.

I bought Feria, which is a dye I've never used. I should have known when I read the instructions what I was in for. This is the ONLY dye in my extensive use of dyes, that provided both SHAMPOO and Conditioner. The instructions stated clearly:

"Wash hair THOROUGHLY twice with the shampoo provided when rinsing the dye from your hair. The dye will stain clothing and linens if not washed twice."

.... Ooooookay.

So I got started. The dye pack had more bottles than any kits I've ever used, and that includes bleach/color kits. There was the mix, and the dye, plus a scent pack, a color boost pack, a tube of shampoo, and a tube of conditioner. Obviously the shampoo & conditioner are not added to the mix, but the rest of it was. I opened the little color boost pack, and it was like red food dye.

If you've ever dyed your hair, you know that rarely is the dye mix the same color as what it turns your hair in the end. I've had some doozies in color- I once dyed my hair pale blonde with an almost green colored dye. Yep, I was a bit worried.

Today's dye was blood red. I mean, not that hour old blood, but fresh from the wound bright red blood. It was red. When I first started applying it, and pulled my hand back, it looked like I had been performing surgery! It didn't help that the kit provided nice latex gloves, instead of the crappy plastic ones. Blood, blood, blood. Dripping at my hair line, on my arms, all over the place.

Once I was done killing my hair (and boy, did it look like I had just been through a massacre), it took a lot of baby wipes (insider secret- baby wipes get hair dye off skin GREAT without leaving a stain IF you do it as soon as you finish- the longer it sets, the more likely it is to stain your skin) to clean up. My trash bin looks like it belongs in a triage, not a bathroom.

I have a few minutes left, and I'll take some after shots when it's done being thoroughly washed twice, and conditioned, and then dried. It will probably be late this afternoon before there are photos available for your viewing pleasure. ;)

Oh, the color I went with? Ruby Red- a "Power Red" color.