I think the pastel hair color trend has been going around for quite some time now and it's definitely a super fun way to bring a little novelty into your life. It's nothing complicated if you were lucky enough to be born with platinum blonde hair; putting those pretty, magical looking colors would be as simple as one, two, three. Just dilute the color with conditioner, put it in your hair for less than an hour and voila! Beautiful, pastel hair is achieved. However, for those of us who weren't as fortunate, especially those of us with dark, stubborn, Asian hair, getting a pastel shade in your hair is almost impossible(more like asking for death -_-). I was hesitant and unsure at first, but with a little experimentation, I think got the basic steps to how to achieve a pastel shade for dark, Asian hair.
In the past summer I had gone to the hair salon hoping to get a light ash blonde color to celebrate the warm weather. However, to my disappointment, the shade came out more golden/ yellow than ashy. So I went ahead and took this serious business into my own hands and decided it's time for an amateur to rise above and shine. With my basic knowledge of the color wheel, I figured purple and blue would counteract orange and yellow, so using the little bit of
Color Jamz semi permanent hair color in "not so shy violet", I painted the concentrated dye onto the more brassy bits of my hair. To my surprise, the end result was an ashy, blue based, blonde color that I had always dreamed of! This was a nice color to keep until my little curious mind decided to try and step a little farther.
It had been quite some time that I've been utterly intrigued by the dreamy, magical colors of the rainbow that all the fashion divas have been rocking in their hairs and I just couldn't put it off any more. I decided it was time for me to journey down that magical path as well and attempt to have pastel hair on my stubborn, Asian locks. At this point my hair was a medium ash blonde starting to fade into that nasty, brassy, orange mess again and I was not going to let the non-sense continue any longer. With much researching from Google and Youtube I decided that I was ready. I purchased
Punky Color semi-permanent hair color in Violet and mixed it along with the Color Jams plus some white conditioner to achieve a purple that I was satisfied with. Then, I applied this mixture all over my head, of course first concentrating on the more brassy bits of my hair. Left it in my hair for about 45 minutes, and behold! Beautiful, soft, MAGICAL, pastel hair that resembled the hairs of characters from my little pony. I was instantly floating in the heaven of satisfactory. I love rocking my new lavender hair and being a new member of the magical haired species of fashion divas (I wish). Nevertheless, I was proud enough of myself for many days after my success and I love the color so much that I now believe I was born to have light purple hair in my head...forever.
Below are detailed steps/ recipe that I've concluded after experimentation (all materials can be bought that Sally beauty supply) You can also watch my tutorial on youtube (insert video here):
part 1: BLEACHING
materials:
- quick blue bleaching powder
- 30% developer
- gloves
- mixing bowl
- brush
mix bleach powder and developer in a 1:2 ratio (twice the amount of developer than bleach powder), apply mixture to entire head, tips first, then roots (roots develop faster since it's closer to your scalp and it's warmer there). Develop for no more than one hour, checking periodically to see the level of color that's been lifted. Wash out when a light yellow color is achieved.
part 2: COLORING
materials:
- temporary hair color (in the color that you want to achieve but concentrated)
- white conditioner
- optional: (white lady or silver lady toner (T14/T18) with 10% developer) *** only do this if you feel like your hair is super patchy and needs to be toned to even out the color first
- gloves
- mixing bowl
- brush
dilute the hair dye with white conditioner (take the brush, dip it in the dye, and then swirl it in a bowl of conditioner, I find this the easiest). Apply to hair concentrating on the more brassy bits. (if your hair is not light enough make this mixture a bit darker than you would on lighter hair) Saturate all of your hair and let it "process" (not really processing since it's just basically colored conditioner) for a good 30 - 60 minutes. Wash out, and voila! Enjoy your new, magical, pastel hair. :)
***If you bleach your hair and it does not look even or the color is still very orange, tone first with white lady or silver lady with cooling violet additive. Then put in the color that you want using the conditioner method.
A trick: If you want more of a gray tone, use the cooling violet additive with a 10% developer and leave that in your hair to process, the end result will be gray! :D
Any way hope you guys enjoyed this long, tragically poor written essay about my experience with pastel hair. And hope it was helpful!
Before -> After
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| before: black hair |
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| before: black hair |
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| after salon: golden blonde? |
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| After self toning: ash blonde |
...
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| Final product after putting color: lavender/ pastel purple |
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Pastel purple/ lavender hair
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