My Hair Story

In this post I will tell you a story about my hair coloring: how I was a brunette, redhead, I bleached my hair and got pink. And I’ll describe hair dyes that I’ve used and I’ll share with you my experience.

Warning: I did photos in daylight and in the light of normal lamps, so the colors may be distorted.
So the history of hair coloring began in may 2016 before my prom. As a child I said to myself I’m not gonna dye hair while I will not have gray hair. And voila – at the end of the 11th grade, I really found 4 grey hairs in my 18 years old.
Here’s what I looked like with my natural hair (my natural base 5.0):

At that moment I realized that the time has come, especially because I really wanted to change and become a little different. So I had to find a different beauty salons because I wanted the good quality of hair coloring, but I haven’t found anything suitable at a price. Then mom advised me one master and in the end I colored in the salon.

Here’s what happened after dyeing:

Yes, I didn’t quite understand the color schemes and technique of applying hair dyes, so I chose the wrong color, that eventually wanted. Hair color came out almost indistinguishable from my natural base, only with a warm undertone. I celebrated my prom with this color.
Next, I still wanted to achieve the perfect shade. This time, I have already found another salon, where the price was good and examples of their work were really nice. I chose the shade in the palette, but again without knowing the numbers, I took not quite the right decision.

In the end I’m left with obvious red undertone:

Actually initially I wanted brown with a warm tint (kinda ginger) – medium copper color. But, selecting on the color palette, accent of which was called “intense copper”, I got redness on the head. Fortunately it eventually disappeared.
Next, I was inspired by Lana Del Rey and I decided to try to achieve that color.

I went to this salon again just to a different master. The desired color was copper, she told me in detail about this shade. And here I got the perfect color that I wanted to achieve:

Then I wanted to be even rustier, not in terms of red/orange, and make hair color light copper with a golden hue. I decided to dye myself and then I started to dig into the internet and read about hair dyes, shades and care for colored hair. I settled on the brand Estel because they have a huge amount of colors and shades, as well as available, inexpensive and good.
I chose Estel DeLuxe (it’s ammonium resistant dye) in shade then if I’m not mistaken 8/43. In the end, I got such a nice milk chocolate color with a little golden tone:

Then I wanted more gold in hair glimpse, so I took the same Estel DeLuxe only in 9/34 and got a light ginger color with gold in the sun:

So I became a redhead. The ginger shades need care cause copper pigment is quickly washed away and the color becomes faded, I bought the perfect toning hair mask from Lakme “Teknia Ultra Copper Treatment” and “Teknia Ultra Gold Treatment”. I bought mask for “gold’s”, because I was aware that the “copper” will make the hair red, and I needed copper+gold. I mixed these two masks in the proportions 1:1 and put on hair, here’s what happened: the colors become deeper, but somehow brightened reddish, apparently, the copper mask for hair is very pigmented.

After some time, I dramatically decided I wanted pink hair color. And so began the story of my bleaching.
The Internet helps me again because all information is in the network. I read that the copper pigment is very hard to remove from the hair, it sits on the hair very tight and clean it out only by washes of pigment from the hair. It is very expensive and harmful for the hair because they suffer greatly and become like a sponge. In general, I didn’t come this method, besides I don’t want to use a blonding powder. I decided I will bleach gradually by dint of dyeing hair in very light color.
So as soon as my roots are growing back, I bought the dye Estel DeLuxe 10.0 + half 9.0 with oxidants 9%. Result: long red hair became even lighter and more goldish, my roots have acquired a golden hue. This result didn’t satisfy me, but I knew l need to be patient.

The bleaching process went further: Estel DeLuxe High Blond 161 + 165 with oxidants 9% and 6%. The result is almost the same: golden roots and ginger length, but not so intense.

Then I tired to dye like that, so I decided to be blonde faster. I bought 3 powder 35 g Londa Blondoran Blonding Powder with oxidant 4% Londa + toning (after bleaching definitely need to toned hair) Estel DeLuxe High Blond 161 (2 pieces) with oxidants 3%. I toned with ammonia hair dye, although it was possible to dye using color without ammonia but the hair didn’t become terrible, because the bleaching occurred on the oxidants with a small percentage.

I became such a chick:

 And I got blond after toning:

The result came out very good, ginger shade has gone, but the transition is still visible (from very bright roots to the darker length).

Since my goal was to reach pink hair color, then I needed the very blond color base for the hair. That’s why I have to bleach hair.

So I had blond hair, which eventually turned into ugly yellow tint and after a month I bleached hair again.

In the final stage I bought: 4 powder 35 g Londa Blondoran Blonding Powder with oxidants 4% Londa + dye without ammonia for toning Estel DeLuxe Sense 10/66 (2 pieces) with oxidants 3%.

After bleaching I looked like chick:

And after toning this kind of blonde: unfortunately, in roots dye gave a purple pigment, but it washed out, so that’s okay.

Q: “Why purple tint?”

A: After bleaching to make a cold blond, you need the opposite of yellow color tone - is purple.

Now only remained to dye in pink: Estel DeLuxe Pastel P/005 (2 pieces) with oxidants 3%. In General that’s how I got the desired shade of pink color, which I have long liked.

Now I will tell about my mistakes:

• initially it was necessary to take the ginger shade on a natural base, as I wanted copper-brown color, but it came out with almost no changing color;
• no need to spend money at salon, because you can do it at home, everything is now very accessible, and mom or your friend can help you to dye hair;
• when I came up with idea to be a blonde, just had to use blonding powder, because it’s the most effective and fast way of bleaching hair;
• after bleaching is better to tint hair with dye that hasn’t got ammonia, as it doesn’t spoil hair so much, and by the way, it isn’t still smells of ammonia;

Thanks to hair coloring at home. I got for myself a lot of experience in this field, now I know about dyes, shades and brands. Thanks to the internet, cause all information is available and understandable, I wouldn’t have learned and understand all the variety of hair dyes without it.