Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Something about a blue streak




Teenage daughter rule #1: They will do something nutty with their hair.

Bekah came home from a girl scout retreat this summer with a blue streak in her hair. One night, the group mixed up a concoction and went to town on each other's hair. Several weeks after the retreat, she still had the blue streak.

Now, this child has been asking for awhile to get a streak of color in her hair. I had looked into it: the salon method bleaches a strip of hair, then colors it. The boxes in the stores use a similar method, with the added disadvantage of no formal training. You section off  the hair wrong it's going to be wrong for a very long time.

With this DIY version, the original hair color is still present and works with the dye, so keep your color wheel in mind if you do this.It also isn't as permanent, ATHOUGH IT LASTS SEVERAL WEEKS (did you get that?) The salon method leaves you with a vibrant streak, this color is a bit more subtle (you know, as subtle as a ginger with blue in her hair can be).

The salon method (around here) is 35 bucks. This method is under a dollar.

A DOLLAR!

I let her refresh the streak the other day, and when I mentioned it to a gaggle of my friends, they were intrigued by the method. It didn't take much to convince Bekah to get another streak done for this.  Just to warn you: if you have a teenage girl at home, chances are that she knows how to do this already and you won't be telling her anything new. But little kids and other parents will think you are genius.

Supplies: Conditioner, aluminum foil,  saran wrap, comb, hair clips/elastics, towel to cover clothes, old toothbrush,plastic cup and spoon, and the special ingredient: Kool-aid. (the kind you mix the sugar in when you make the drink. You can use a kind with sugar, but it's kind of sticky)


This is about 3-4 tablespoons of conditioner, to one packet of kool-aid mixed well. Obviously the stronger the concentration, the deeper the color.




Section off (carefully) the hair you want to color. Pull the rest back out of the way with the hair clips and elastics.


Lay the aluminum foil under the hair, and paint the goo on with the toothbrush. If you were smart, you would wear gloves. I am not that smart.

Keep the foil as close to the scalp as you can





It washes off in a day. Ish.



Saturate the hair, and - just like Tabitha on Tabitha's Salon Takeover ( I love that show), fold the foil over the hair, and up to make a little packet of foil covered hair. Cover THAT packet with plastic wrap so that if any blue oozes out, it will be contained.

Cover the packet with headbands to hold it in place. This is a down side, it takes several hours. 4-8. Sleep in it, or time accordingly during the day.





There was extra goo. Guess who got conned into playing Hair Salon?




You can barely see it, on my right side. I'm ok with that.

6 comments:

  1. Where's your streak Susan? :) In high school, I dyed my hair black...like blacker than black black. Then, I shaved it all off...

    From about age four to eight, JP was nutso about hair color! He's had green spiking gel, blue spiking gel, red curls, a red streak, and so on. Now, he doesn't care so much. We used dyes that were all non-permanent and didn't require any bleaching. I forget the name of the brand though...but, yeah, like the Kool-aid stuff, the non-permanent dye lasts a long while!

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  2. It's there! On my right side, underneath...you can only see a little bit in the picture, but it's there!!

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  3. Jennifer (your cuz)August 31, 2011 at 4:06 PM

    Use heat (hairdryer) to set the Koolaid instead of waiting over night. I have used Koolaid to dye yarn and I heat set by steaming (not practical when hair is attached to a head).

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  4. Love that tip! Thanks Cuz Jen! We'll try it the next time!

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  5. I've been dying my hair since I was in fifth grade ( am now in 10th) with my hair have been dyed black for three years- I had to bleach it to get the underside of my hair neon blue- just to let you know when your daughter gets tired of koolaid ( which will inevitably happen haha ) with bleach it's not gonna kill the hair if you bleach it every two weeks. And for neon colors, don't use manic panic, it's a super super Permanet- use beyond the zone which can be bought for under five dollars at any Sally's beauty supply storeU

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