DIY: Pastel Hair with Nymphette!

LuLu*s ! — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Pastel hair has been all the rage lately but have you ever wondered how to get luscious cotton candy colored locks on your own? The thing about pastel hair dye is it really doesn’t exist but with a couple easy steps you are on your way to the perfect hue of lilac or pale blue.

Decide what pastel shade or shades you want your hair to be. This is important because you need to purchase your color and more importantly prep your hair for coloring. Your hair will need to be a very pale yellow to almost white depending on what shade you want to go. Keep in mind the yellow in your hair will peak through since pastels are so pale. Certain colors won’t be affected by the yellow tones in your hair as much as others. For example, I have gone a pale pink while a pale yellow with no issues but if I wanted to go a pale blue it would turn a green tone. Most of us will have to bleach and tone our hair in order to get the ideal shade to ensure the perfect pastel tresses. This will also work on high quality human hair blonde extensions.

Mix your color. You are going to need conditioner, which is going to dilute your dye. Make sure the dye you purchase is a semi-permanent formula which most unnatural color dyes are. They are usually vegetable based dyes and can be diluted with regular hair conditioner. I am using Special Effects Sonic Green. Keep in mind that although these dyes are semi-permanent, they may stain your hair.

The conditioner you use doesn’t really matter but I do like to make sure it is white. It helps you gauge the color a lot easier than a colored conditioner. I also like to start with a generous amount of conditioner and add dye to it instead of the other way around. I feel I have more control of the color this way. You want to mix more color than you think you’ll need to avoid running out of color and remixing more color which might not match exactly.

Start by adding a little bit of dye to your conditioner and mix it thoroughly with a tint brush. You can pick this up very easily at Sally’s Beauty Supply or any other beauty supply.

You want to keep adding until you get to about 1 or 2 shades darker than your desired shade. I went about 3 shades darker because I have some yellow tones that need to be covered up.

Apply haircolor. Start applying your color to your hair. I like using my bare hands because the dye is so diluted now that it won’t stain my hands. I really like to get in there and massage the color into the hair. Apply liberally until your hair is saturated. I put on a disposable shower cap that I purchase for really cheap at the beauty supply to keep my hair out of the way while I wait for the color to process. The beautiful thing about using a vegetable dye is that it isn’t damaging and there is no maximum amount of time that you can leave it in your hair. In fact, I say the longer the better especially with the conditioner. I have found the longer I’ve let my color stay on, the longer it lasts. I keep the dye in my hair for as long as I have time for (or can tolerate) but I try to aim for at least 2 hours.

Wash haircolor out. I always wash my hair with cold water when my hair is an unnatural color. This prevents excess bleeding. I find pastels bleed way less than full strength bright colors so washing with cold water isn’t as important here but it’s up to you. I don’t usually shampoo after washing out the color. I like to give the color a couple days to penetrate my hair.

And here’s how my hair turned out!

I love contrasting my pastel hair with something bright or neon just like I do with my clothing. Sometimes it’s a bright lipstick and other times it’s a neon statement shoe or blazer. Here I am wearing the Notchy or Nice Chartreuse Blazer from Lulu’s.

I love the pastel hair trend and I hope you guys will rock this look now too!

Love this blog? Check out more of radness over at Nymphette’s blog!

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DIY: Pastel Hair with Nymphette!