It’s been a big few weeks hasn’t it? Intense. I think I need to break up the intensity a bit. I do actually have a life outside of this blog and the work I do with fat activism, believe it or not. I have a great job that I love (well, most of the time!) and I surround myself with great friends. So when this intense stuff happens, it can kind of impact on my regular life – particularly if the topics are triggering or upsetting in any way.
It’s those times I need to sit back and focus on some self care. Self care for me usually means spending time doing things that enrich my soul, rather than the things I have to put bits of my soul into. One of those is playing around with my hair colour, just for some fun. Particularly now that my hair is short, and I can chop and change it every few weeks.
I dyed my hair purple this morning. I’m not actually all that happy with it, it’s kind of bland. I was aiming for a bright magenta colour, but it all washed out to a kind of mid-purple. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get that bright magenta, please let me know.
So how did I do it? Well, I started by bleaching the crap out of my hair last night. My hair is naturally a very dark brown (with quite a few greys now), so it takes bleaching to be able to get bright crayon colours in my hair. I’m lucky though, my hair bleaches quickly and right back to yellow, so I don’t do too much damage to it.
Then I took these:
And then you need these:
Then you put a little of this in here:
Squirt in a little of this:
Now mix it together like this:
Once you have them all mixed up evenly, slap it all over your hair. Get it in all evenly, spread over all of your hair. Then stick a $1 bathing cap on your head (make sure you clean it off any bits of skin it schmeared to) and go do something else for an hour. I chose to play Animal Crossing on my Wii.
An hour later, go have a shower. Rinse all that purpley colour out of your hair, run it all off until the water runs clear. Then dry off with a good fluffy towel, and VOILA! You have:
Oh God it’s so fluffy!! I usually use some texturising product in it, this is pretty much fresh after drying. See the colour isn’t quite as bold as I would have liked it.
I think I might just use the rest of the blue dye and turn it all blue.
Fat Heffalump 
Hmm, it does look a little dark. It looks more burgendy in the picture above. I’ve dyed my hair Purple Haze by fudge was really pleased with it. It’s a medium purple that fades to a lilac. I think it suits you, then again, I loved the pink. You seem to be able to pull off most colours!
It’s not burgundy though. That’s just the light of the photo. It’s actually fairly light too. Maybe a mid-purple. It’s actually too light.
i’d like to see the blue- this looks a little too close to just regular auburn hair dye. I dyed mine back brown so it can regain some health without constant bleaching and dying… it makes me sad though. do me a favor and be extra bright so I can live vicariously through your hair 😛
Oh God no, it’s nowhere near Auburn! It’s purple. My boss walked in and saw me this morning and said “Hey purple!”
I am really lucky, I seem to be able to mis-treat my hair like you would not believe and it never sustains much damage.
Maybe it’s just my screen settings, but that looks like an awesome magenta to me! *sets world to my screen settings*
Turn your screen settings on my hair!
I love the colour and the idea. One day I hope I’ll be brave enough to die my hair that colour. 🙂
The red and blue mixes always do the same thing to me. Manic Panic (idk if you can get to it) has an ultra-violet shade that really shows up…violet. But the blue dye is one of my favorites.
It’s still a great color! I love it and am totally jealous of your ability to have brightly-colored hair. 🙂
I like the color but maybe adding some blue and flamingo highlights into it would make it less bland.
I haven’t got enough hair to add highlights, it’s only 1cm long!
looks like a little too much red was added??? idk.. i went to a salon and got purple streaks in my hair and they are bright! lol.
Actually I think the mistake was using a pink base, rather than a red one. I might buy a tube of a true red colour and try adding the blue to that.
Fudge is crap! You need SPexial Effects, Manic Panic or Affinage. I personally love Pure Purple from Affinage. They last longer than Fudge. 🙂
Fudge is all that’s available to me. I can’t find any other brands in stores here in Brisbane. And Fudge only has two stockists, both of whom often don’t have many colours. So you can see my dilemma.
If you can give me a link to stockists of those brands who I can buy from here in Australia, I’ll gladly give them a try.
You can buy Manic Panic dye at Cadillac Barbie in West End!
Toots, let’s go there!
*Special Effects. I can spell good 😉
I LOVE IT!! Okay, so it’s not the purple you were after, and your hair is fluffy because you just washed it, but you know what?! It looks freaking amazing!!!
I so should have done that when I had no hair! You rock!!!!
Thanks Renee.
To all of you saying you want to be brave and colour your hair… do it! I figure if I can run around completely bald, I can colour what bit of hair I have!
Purple FTW! I’ve gotta get a picture of my mum for you- she teaches at a local high school, and has been dying her curly hair purple since it started to go grey- its the best!
Awesome. I have discovered a veritable plethora of purple haired librarians.
Hi! I’ve been reading your blog for a while, and I’ve been looking forward to being able to comment on something.
Mixing 2 colors of dye doesn’t often work like mixing two colors of paint. Most dyes aren’t “true” red or “true” blue- the have a lot of other colors mixed in to give them that single vibrancy when light hits it. I would recommended Splat dye (sold in US, but maybe you can find it online?), which has the most amazing purple, and it lasts forever.
If you can’t access a true purple, I would recommend heating your hair under the shower cap or in ti foil. The heat will “lock in” a more vibrant color,a s well as making the color last longer. Hope this helps!
Thanks for the information.
I did get it purple using Manic Panic dye, leaving it on for a LONG time and keeping it hot under a shower cap, but it hasn’t lasted and wasn’t the shade I really wanted. I think I might move on to turquoise next time!