About 19 months ago, my hair was completely fried by the amount of bleaching I had done to it. I am still growing out the damage today. After that fiasco, bleaching my hair was no longer an option. I went to brown for a few months, but I just got so bored with having “normal” hair. I decided to try using crazy semi-permanent colors over my unbleached hair. Here are my experiences.
Note: I retouched my roots with a permanent auburn dye in between each semi-permanent coloring, because the color did not stick to my virgin, dark brown roots.
The first time I went on one of these expeditions, my hair started out as a dark-ish medium brown color, which can be seen below in this crappy ipod photo with my boyfriend.
The first color I tried over this hair color was Manic Panic Vampire Red. It came out a deep crimson color. It was not quite as bright as every other red I used, and it was insanely messy. I do not recommend it. Excuse the crappy ipad photos.
The next color I used on this streak of red was Nuclear Red by Special Effects. It was super bright and I personally loved it. It’s a great color for using on unbleached hair. Again, excuse the crappy ipad photos.
After these two colors, I went back to my normal brown for a while. This was around my 20th birthday in 2014. After becoming bored with that I again, I went back to the red.
The brown I started with was quite light.
The first color I used on this journey was Poppy Red by Jerome Russell Punky Color (probably my favorite brand of semi-perms). It came out kind of dark. I used one full tub on my hair. For the price, I would recommend this color.
*Update: I had forgotten that I used Crazy Color Fire between this dye job and Pravana. I liked the color and it was fairly bright. It was almost the same as the Punky Color. The poor quality picture below may or may not be my hair with Fire over it.
The next color I used was Pravana Red. I applied it directly over the old dye which was still only about 3/4ths faded. The Pravana came out a darker Red color. I found the color to be kind of dull. I wouldn’t recommend it for unbleached hair.
The next brand I tried was one I have never heard of, which is apparently a salon brand. The dye is Rusk Deep Shine Direct in Red. I found it on ebay for cheap. Excuse the angry-looking photo.
The next color I tried was One N’ Only Argan Oil Perfect Intensity from Sally Beauty. The color was quite frankly pretty dull and it barely showed up over the other dyes I already had built up in my hair. The brand is normally good, but this color didn’t do it for me.
The next color I used was Ion Brilliance Brights in Red. I liked this dye a lot. It stained my fingers the first three times I washed my hair, but it wasn’t too bad about messiness other than that. I think the color was really bright and I liked it a lot. Sorry for the bad photo.
After 6 whole months of doing the same color, I got bored and wanted to change it up. I wanted to do pink. So, first, I did Vitamin C fading treatments to lighten the build up of red in my hair. I did 4 and this was the resulting color:
It was almost a natural hair color. After that, I applied a mix of 3/4ths Manic Panic Fuchsia Shock and 1/4th Manic Panic Hot Hot Pink. My hair was a very dark cranberry color and it still looks nice after 8 washes (this is my current color as of January 2nd, 2016). Let me say, though… I will NEVER recommend Fuchsia Shock. It is the messiest dye I have ever used. 8 washes later, my fingers, my neck, and my ears get re-stained every time I wash my hair. I plan on fading this color out because I am tired of the mess. I have used Hot Hot Pink three times, so I know it is not responsible for the mess. The first picture is day one, and the second picture is 6 washes (with sulfate-y shampoo and warm water) faded. It is hard to capture the pink in photos, so my hair is about 2 times pinker than it appears.
After fading out that mess, I applied Special Effects Virgin Rose to my hair. The dye itself was a raspberry color. It came out quite dark on my hair, just like the last pink did at first. I am waiting for it to fade a little to see the true color. This lovely picture with my boyfriend is one shampoo in.
I Would Rather Dye 