Hair Update: Platinum + Pastel Pink

I needed a change. Badly.

I'm turning 20 soon (May 10th) and have had 6 different colors in my bangs over the course of last year. Only once was it an all-over, two-color combination. I don't do my whole head merely because I would need a stylist at a salon to do the back/part of the sides or a friend and maybe three packets of bleach to do my whole head at home. Anyway, I'm also trying to clear out my medicine cabinet and have been pretty into pastel hair as well as wanting something "natural," meaning platinum blonde bangs.
I have three bottles of near-empty Special Effects hair dye. The colors are Nuclear Red, Atomic Pink and Blue Mayhem. I have loved them all, especially since the red and pink glow under black light, which was amazing. I had Atomic Pink bangs for most of last year, from about June to January of this year when I put Jerome Russell Punky Colours in Plum over it. With my birthday coming, I wanted something I could manage and change easily, so the first thing to come to mind was platinum bangs. It's been a couple of years since I just left my bangs platinum. I actually like it, though I'm not sure I could do all-over platinum (we're talking Marilyn Monroe here!).

I also madly love light pink/pastel pink and actually have a wig that's light pink. I love it so much ~ It gets a lot of use! I've wanted to do a pastel color and have thought about it before but I never had a "recipe" to follow. I know how its done: mix your desired color with conditioner to lighten and apply, let sit then rinse. I never knew how much conditioner to use though! I also didn't know if it had to be a specific color, because we buy cheap conditioner haha.

I finally found a "recipe" to follow from blogger Kelsi who has done pastel hair. What she did was pour a little of the desired color in a mixing bowl and add white conditioner, mix while wiping a little on a foil to see the outcome. You can come out with a lot of product though! She also suggests instead of adding the desired color to the white conditioner, which is what I might do instead and wipe it off my tint brush to see how it's going.

I'll be doing Atomic Pink, making it pastel. It's one of my two favorite "in your face" pinks, the other being Jerome Russell Punky Colours in Flamingo Pink. I know Special Effects makes a color called Cupcake Pink that's a more pastel version of Atomic Pink but I don't want to buy more when I already have some Atomic Pink left over to work with.

Hair currently, including Ion Color Brilliance Brights Teal

On to the process of doing this! As I said before, my hair is currently Plum over Atomic Pink. Atomic Pink doesn't fade. Ever. Plum has faded to be this magenta-Atomic Pink-Plum ombré like thing. Before I can actually go platinum, I have to lift out those colors. Color Oops won't work on these dyes and neither will the millions of supposed "DIY color removers" because they only work on super fresh color, not old color. Instead, I do what I did on another birthday: a bleach cap, also known as a soap cap. It's purely to lift away the prior colors to make way for my new colors. When I first did this, it was to remove faded Flamingo Pink to do Turquoise (also by Jerome Russell).

 

The recipe is simple: 1 oz of bleach (developer + powder) and 2 oz of your favorite shampoo mixed together. (Thanks to KimmiKillZombie). You do need to wet your hair, then towel dry so it isn't dripping. I just put it under the bath tub faucet then towel-dried. By the way, I used 40 Vol developer because my hair is so near black and sorry, no pictures of the mix. I just mixed it in a foam cup. You can't mix bleach & developer in a metallic container.

During the bleach cap. I put a little plastic wrap . That pink? That's pretty much ALL Atomic Pink!

Plastic wrap removed. I have golden roots now! Haha

I left this for 30 minutes, using a a little bleach powder from a boxed bleach. This mixture really reeked. I washed it out after and here's my hair after, still wet:

What I can only describe as Popsicle Pink.

And dry hair the next day:

The pink is actually much lighter than I expected!

I have to wait two weeks before I finish my hair, even though my hair feels fine. (I really have to fight the urge to go grab the box and bleach my hair! You have no idea how tempting this is.)

SPOOKEHDOOM