Hair adventure: When purple hair doesn’t go your way

In the middle of July, I made the decision that I wanted to have purple hair for my 36th birthday in August. I have never had my hair a funky color and I always wanted to do it. Since I am not in my middle 30s I am living life for myself and doing ALL the things I have always wanted to do. So this is the hair adventure I took in getting my hair purple.

A little back story to my hair

I flip-flop from blonde to burgundy to brown. There was one time I had black hair, but would NEVER do that again. I always stick to one of those colors. Blonde, Brown, Burgundy. The 3 B’s if you will… LOL When I first met Mike in 2012, I had blonde hair.

Over the next 9 years, I dyed my hair a mixture of brown and burgundy. I used to dye my hair A LOT. Not enough to damage it, but it was enough. Somewhere along the way, I stopped dying my hair as much and maybe only did it once or twice a year. Just to keep up with the roots.

In 2020, I chopped off 12 inches of my hair because I was just over it. It had no body, no movement. It always just hung there. Chopping off all of the hair took off a lot of the color I had been dying for years. I had semi virgin hair because I still had some color at the ends.

One last time, I dyed it the brown/burgundy color so it would all be one color and just left my hair to grow. I stopped using hairspray, blow dryers, straighteners. Most of the time I would just wash my hair and then put it up in a messy bun. I think I dyed my hair twice in 2020. All I know is my hair was the healthiest it had ever been.

The beginning of the hair adventure

So when 2021 rolled around and I had the bright idea of going purple. I don’t know what it was about purple I just knew I wanted it.

So in July I went to Sally’s Beauty and spoke to the sales associate who gave me the instructions to use color remover on my hair. She also said I would probably have to do it twice because of the length of my hair. She recommended bleaching it twice as well because we wanted my hair to be an orangish color. Then I could put the purple over it.

I mean I am no hairstylist but I know the color wheel… I said to her “Why orange? Purple and Orange make Brown. She replied the purple will act as a toner and would tone the orange out of my hair as it deposits the color into my hair.

I said okay, you are the professional. I trust you.

Where I started with my hair adventure

Color remover

I did the color remover twice on my hair and it got definitely lighter. If you have never done a color remove before it stinks. Just letting you know. I spent most of my time on my front porch. I couldn’t be in an enclosed space. You can tell from the above photo to the photo below that my hair was lightened.

Bleaching my hair

On August 17th after I used the color remover on my hair I did the bleach 2 times and this is what I got. Remember what the lady at Sally’s said… We want your hair to be an orange color. The purple will tone the orange and dye your hair purple.

Putting the purple hairdye in

August 18th I put purple on my hair. I used a mixture of Girls Night Out and Purple Rain by Arctic Fox. I left it on for almost 2 hours to make sure all my hair would develop. When I finally washed it out.. this is what I was surprised with.

Half lavender half BROWN hair.

Spent my birthday crying

I went to another Sally’s walked in and asked for help. The one lady there said she was not good with funky colored hair, but her co-worker had purple hair and could definitely help me. I told her everything the lady at the first Sally’s said and what to do. I did everything she said and this is where I ended up.

She gave me an ammonia-free color remover MADE FOR funky colors to help get out the purple and the brown. She then said to bleach my hair to make sure ALL the purple is out. I bought all the products she said to and headed my happy ass home to fix this monstrosity.

The color remover worked like a charm. I still had some streaks. I mixed up the bleach and put it on my head waited not even 10 minutes. Because I did not want to OVER process my hair.

I hopped in the shower and washed out the bleach looked in the mirror to GREEN! The top of my hair turned freaking GREEN!

Trying to fix my mistake

Being so upset I called Sally’s back the first lady I spoke to this second trip couldn’t understand my I turned green because according to the color wheel I shouldn’t have been there. She told me I had to come back to the store so they could help. I couldn’t go out looking like this.

I called Mike so upset balling my eyes out. He hung up with me and I started googling how to remove green from hair. I watched so many videos and read so many blogs… Mike calls me back and tells me he booked an appointment for me to get my hair fixed. The appointment for that Saturday was just for a consultation, but they could fix my hair the following weekend after that. That was probably one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me.

Finally after what seemed like FOREVER… I found a video that said to put ketchup on your hair because red cancels green and the acidity in the tomatoes helps remove the green. I put ketchup on my hair 3 times and soaked 20 minutes each time. A little green came out each time till It didn’t look like there was any more.

I don’t like Swiss Cheese!

The next day I called Sally’s and ask if it would be okay to put the purple on my hair after doing all of this and they said: “Yes since the dye is a conditioner-based dye it would condition my hair while it developed on my hair.” So I put the rest of my girl’s night out and a little bit of the purple rain. Waited for 2 hours again and when I washed my hair out it looked like this…

I labeled my header as “I don’t like swiss cheese” because that is what happened. My hair became too porous like swiss cheese to hold the color. Everything I had done just killed my once luscious hair.

Now it was time to wait

From August 20th to September 20th I waited. This hair adventure was taking a little bit longer than expected. I used hair oils to help nourish my hair and try to repair the swiss cheese consistency to my hair. What I did do was use a clarifying shampoo once a week to help remove what little purple in my hair. After using the shampoo I used a hair mask. You can see that I removed a lot of purple in the above picture. For that entire month, I did nothing to my hair to help it heal.

September 20th rolled around and I thought my hair might be good enough to dye again. Because I was determined to have purple hair. I bit the bullet and put the rest of purple rain and a shit ton of conditioner to lighten it. I didn’t want it to be such a dark purple. So adding the extra conditioner helped a lot. Again I left it in for 2 hours and when I washed my hair I braced myself for the worse…

The end results

But I was met with a beautiful purple color. I did miss a few spots on my head, but that is okay. My hair was purple. That is all I could ask for. I have gotten so many compliments on my hair. It had been a rough hair adventure… a lot of highs and a lot of lows.

If you checked out my Instagram page you can see I did not post a self for the longest time. I did not feel good with my hair and avoided posting about it. However, I did post it once because I was like “who gives a fuck what my hair looks like”?

It’s me! I do. I give a big fat flying fuck and it sucked I was that vain. My hair is and has always been my security blanket. When I messed up my hair I messed with my security blanket. I don’t like that feeling.

Let me know in the comments what the worse thing you have done to your hair? Let’s commiserate over our bad hair adventure.

Until next time, have a great day! Remember you are a badass!