dear kitty cat blonde...

So on a whim (and since my roots were growing out), I decided to go back to blonde. Now I'm sure all my fellow hair color addicted friends (especially all you asian girls!) out there can agree that bleaching your hair at home and trying to get a cool shade of ash blonde is something to NEVER, EVER do at home.

No matter how and what, especially for asian hair, the amount of toner required to offset the bright banana yellow, orange, and red sunset tones that arise from stripping your hair of its color is generally not present in a box dye, but since I had purchased a box of Palty hair coloring from Japan, I thought I would try my luck...

Take a look...

***WARNING: I am by no means instructing you how to kill your hair at home, I am simply writing about my personal ordeal, so if you attempt this and don't get my results, don't kill me ok? Hahaha ok, then begin.

 

Step 1: 

I picked up a bleach from Shoppers Drug Mart - the one I picked actually sold the developer and bleach powder seperately. The developer was a 40 volume strenght peroxide (this is the same strength used to go platinum blonde in hair salons! Most box bleaches are only 20-30 volume), while the bleach powder seemed to be fairly typical. I mixed 25g of bleach powder with 100mL of the developer, which gave a pretty good consistency, similar to yogurt.

*Key point: Since bleach works faster when heated, apply to ends first before doing the roots, since the heat from your head will cause the bleach to lighten your roots faster.

Since I had previously colored my hair twice, I placed tinfoil on my ends in order to help the bleach work faster (retains heat, keeps the bleach isolated).

Step 2:

After doing all the ends, we removed the tin foil and proceeded to bleach the roots. To prevent the bleach from drying out (which renders it useless) and help retain heat to help the bleach work faster, we wrapped everything up in saran wrap. There is no gain without pain, this stuff BURNS! (Yea, that's me crying!)

Step 3:
I left the bleach in until my roots and ends were quite yellow, similar to a light banana skin since I was wanted the final color to be a dark ash blonde as opposed to a platinum blonde.

*Key point: If you have fine hair or hair that is easily damaged, you MUST do a strand test. Many girls have hair that cannot handle long periods of bleaching as it's pretty damaging, so if you don't double check, you risk completely frying your hair (I'm not kidding, it will look like toasted curly pubes) or having your hair fall out...


Step 4:
I then used the Palty Milk Tea Brown hair dye.

Following the instructions, I was also instructed to do ends before roots. I have to say, compared to regular North American box dyes, the Japanese ones have much less dye. Am I the only one who finds it incredibly deceptive that the models on box dyes almost always have really long hair?!

(Photo courtesy: ichibankanusa.com)

Oh, we also did face masks in the process, because you know, you can never be too girly...
The final color was quite similar to the color shown on the model in the box. Too bad it looked AWFUL on me!!! T_T


Step 5:

So, the next day I decided to pick up a light ash blonde from L'Oreal Excellence or Preference (I forget the line). I stupidly thought I might be able to add extra blue stain to the hair dye to offset the orange tones in my hair. BAD IDEA. The dye turned a strange shade of forest green, to my dismay. When I finally washed it out, I thought adding blue stain to my conditioner would help to offset any residual orange. ANOTHER BAD IDEA! I added way too much, and my hair ended up looking like a rocketpop!!! To the dye's fault, my roots were still orange (even though I dyed my roots first!), however, the parts of my hair that were bleached light enough were a beautiful light ash blonde. If I ever use this dye again, I will keep that in mind...

Oh, I also wrapped my head in foil to help the dye work faster.

Step 6: 
Since I had an interview today at a medical office, I needed to get rid of the blue stain. Normally, a few washes with a dish soap or a strong dandruff shampoo will do the trick, but not this time! I really went overboard with the blue, so I had to pick up another box of dye! I have had really good experiences with Clairol's Perfect 10 line, so I chose the Medium Ash Blonde 7.5A.

(Photo courtesy: superdrug.com)

Following instructions, I applied where the problem spots were (they were refering to greys, I was thinking about my blue and orange patches, no biggie haha). The results were awesome! Most of the orange is gone, there is a tiny bit of blue left from the stain that turned very slightly green, only visible in fluorescent light, which I decided to cut off anyway when I cut my hair afterwards.

Here's the final color! (Hhahahah taken with my Gloomy X Hello Kitty as M is naked and fresh out of the shower...)

I'm quiet happy with the way it turned out, but I'm sure that if my hair weren't as resilient as I know it to be, I would definitely be bald right now! I have a few chemical burns on my scalp from over processing, but nothing that won't heal up in a few days.

OH, and then when I got to the interview, I found out that they had hired someone prior to my two interviews and that if they had seen my interview earlier, they would have hired me instead. GTFO. Assholes... but at least my hair is beautiful ^^V

So that's that, color me happy!