Monday, September 12, 2011

SO YOU WANT RED HAIR?!!!!

Red hair of any shade is definitely always a show stopper. It beckons for attention and definitely captures a room when you enter it. When you see someone walking by with red hair you simply cant stop but look and pay attention to them! Even for a split second!
Red hair is definitely a fun fun color! And personally I believe its a very complimentary color on any skin tone! :o And it comes in so many different shades so you're guaranteed to find a GOOD RED on you!

BUT! BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO RUN OUT TO THE NEAREST DRUG STORE AND PICK YOURSELF UP A BOTTLE OF RED HAIR DYE. THERE ARE A FEW THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW!!
1. RED HAIR FADES THE FASTEST!!! AND IT DEF. TAKES TIME AND DEDICATION TO KEEP YOUR VIBRANT LOCKS AS FIREY AS POSSIBLE.
2. It will NOT show up on black hair unless you use a highlift color and even still, sometimes you're not garaunteed a very vibrant color. Alot of different things can go into this...hormones. hair structure. virgin vs dyed hair...etc etc etc..

I've been dying my hair red on and off for almost 10 yrs? or so?...my first ever dye job was a burgundy red my mom tried on me when I was on 2nd grade XD...needless to say it didnt fly very well since I went to an All Girls Catholic school then. Hurpderp! but it was only the back bottom side of my hair but still! LOL! I've been burgundy to the brightest fire engine red to even shades of pinkish red.

Heres a few rundown of red hair colors I've had in the pass that I am still able to dig up photos of O_O....if I find anymore, I'll definetly try and post them up?...hahaha....And all of these dye jobs were achieved many different ways and using different products. I'll try and briefly talk about each one to kind of give you an idea of the shades or how I achieve them?




the first 2 photos: this was over bleached hair. I have naturally
BLACK hair and I bleached it using vol.40 + bleach
(you can refer to my 'bleaching hair FAQs for Q&A)
and I used SLAT hair dye on the very top one
and on the 2nd photo I used MANIC PANIC Pill Box Red.

WARNING: VEGGIE BASED DYES CAN AND WILL STAIN
YOUR BATHROOM, PILLOW CASES AND ETC IF NOT WASHED OUT PROPERLY
And even when you DID wash it properly
theres still chances that it will stain some items :B...
I think this all depends on how bleached out your hair is and how much
of the dye will hold on your hair.

Always handle with gloves! And keep bleach or bathroom spray handy to spray your bath tub down!



Used L'oriel Feria in Ruby Rush + a hint of SPLAT Cherry Dye mixed
in to add the extra umf of red. Over BLEACHED hair.


This one is my most recent adventures with red.
This is with L'oriel Feria Rush Rush once again over
Blonde x Brown hair.
Only my front bangs were bleached blonde while the rest of my hair was a
medium to light brown....

I do want to stress that you cannot achieve this vibrant red color OVER BLACK HAIR without having to prelighten it to atleast a brownish shade or use a high lift color. I dont like to use high lift colors exactly over black hair (unless its virgin hair) simply because I feel that the colors arent as exact or accurate. Its better to be safe than sorry? by pre-bleaching. Haha I know hu? Double process, whats safer about that?! Well, atleast you know you're getting exactly what you're looking for! especially if you're doing this at home and are unfamiliar with High Lift colors too!

To achieve my latest hair color I used this box dye:




I wont go into detail about how the process work. LOL. its pretty simple~ that and while I was typing all that up earlier firefox decided to die on me and I don't think its really worth writing it up again when its pretty straight forward :o

Now lets talk about products and maintenance! (or mostly products and ways you can do to help maintain your vibrant fierce red hair!!!)

So its basically a no brainer that Red hair fades the fastest! But, like I said, there are ways you can do to help maintain you're red hair longer!

heres my routine for keeping my red hair 8D!

I only wash my hair (as in wet it + shampoo & condition) about only 2-3 times a week. EEK! Yes! Sometimes when I DO have to wet my hair, I use a red hair safe shampoo or color friendly shampoo.

The shampoo and conditioner I use is the John Freida Red one 8B and every so often I have a small bottle of white conditioner where in I put a spoon or two of RED dye in it to kinda just help redeposit color in as I condition my hair.

In between days when I'm not shampooing my hair, I use DRY SHAMPOO. I've heard of this before but it was only recently that I've decided to pick myself a bottle! Tresamme, Suave Professional AND Got2Be now makes Dry Shampoos and are easily accessible to the general public - your local drug store carries them in their hair care line.
How it works? You spray it in your hair in sections as close to the roots as possible and just let it sit for a few mins - see directions per bottle. And brush it away~

For brushing it away I like to use a tight bristled brush like a GROOMING BRUSH (which looks awefully close to a teasing brush! but the teasing brush is thinner. See images below) And if you do not have a tight brittle brush, you can go ahead and use a rat tail comb since its pretty tight together that it helps brush out all that oil from your hair.

grooming brush
teasing brush
which looks almost like a rat tail comb but with
bristles perfect for teasing or back comnbing your hair into
a volumized mess! HAHAHA



And the good thing about DRY SHAMPOO is, it adds volume to your hair! :D win-win situation! The one I'm currently using is the Suave Professional one. I got it since it was on sale at my CVS I was originally going to try out the Tresamme one or the Got2Be brand (since I swear by their hair spray!!!) So far so good its working out just fine for me.

Secondly, you know your hair WILL fade! I usually like to retouch my color every 2 weeks using
a deposit only VEGGIE based dye like Manic Panic or Special Effects. My go to is manic panic VAMPIRE RED. I leave it on for a few mins and rinse out - and tada! Red hair again, now this is only a deposit only color so it just refreshes your shade. Once every 2-3 months or so I like to use a box dye with peroxide to retouch my color and roots.

Roots: since my roots are BLACK, I like to do 2 mixtures. One with vol. 40 to help lift and deposit the color to my roots without having to pre-bleach my roots. If you're not too familiar with the different levels of peroxide just refer to my post on bleaching hair and peroxide levels~
And I use vol. 10-20 for the rest of my hair with the red dye of my choice.
But of course you dont NEED to use box dye or dye + developer, you can just simply keep using the veggie dyes - but keep in mind you WILL need to prelighten your hair and expect your color to fade faster when using deposit only veggie dye.

And please! Remember! Anytime you apply heat or go out in the sun you're hair is susceptible to heat damage and everytime heat is applied to your hair it opens up the hair shaft allowing color pigments to fade and go bye bye~ so please remember to use thermal spray to protect your locks. I use to go to the extreme and even go as far as using color friendly hair spray XD! But that was when I had blues and reds in my hair and was using the deposit only dyes and I was THAT paranoid in keeping my hair as fire engine red as possible. LOL

Sad to say but having high maintenance hair definitely can be costly with all the products you'll be using/needing...but all this is optional! You dont HAVE to do all this or use all this. Sometimes its just fun to throw a bit of color in your hair.

And normally when you let your red hair fade, it can go one or two ways~
it'll fade to a brown shade (if your in the ruby shades) or more of a pinkish-orange tone - strawberry blondeish if your hair is prelightened and you used a lighter shade of red~

I personally have always preferred to be in the more dynamic ranges of red from vibrant ruby reds to something as insane as traffic light red/stop sign red! HAHAHAHA

Good luck~




2 comments:

  1. I'm interested in having fire engine red hair. I currently have virgin hair but I do think I still need to bleach it first because it's a light brown and I want it to be as bright as possible. Can I dye my hair red right after bleaching or is that a bad idea? What would you recommend?

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    Replies
    1. yep, if you bleach your hair and even if its like an orange tone, but since your already a light brown you can go with a vol. 20 or 30 and throw fire engine red from manic panic right over and you good :D

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