Review (5/5): Atomic Pink, Great for Pastel Pink/Candy Colored Hair
Ok, first off: a review of the seller. Then, a small tutorial on how to achieve pastel pink/candy colored hair!
Review:
You are probably not going to find Special Effects dyes cheaper from any other seller on amazon. This place is great, I got standard shipping and my dye got here within about 3-4 days. The packaging was great, my dye was bubble-wrapped and in a BOX not an envelope, so it wasn't roughed up from shipping at all. Inside the box, was their cute business card and for some reason....a Swedish fish candy...I don't know why they gave me a Swedish fish, but that was a cute/odd touch. So overall:
Shipping 5/5
Packaging 5/5
Price 10/5 (Atomic Pink for $11? Crazy cheap!)
Now, here's how I dye my hair:
Disclaimer: I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL. However, I bleach and dye my own hair at home on a budget! These are all tips and tricks that I learned through trial and error and what I have found through hours upon hours of research. Until just a few weeks ago, the thought of bleaching my hair terrified me, too. But I spent a LOT of time realing posts from the LiveJournal Community PinkHair (go check it out, it will save your hair the first time you dye) and now I'm fully confident in dying my own hair and getting it exactly the way I want.
First of all, I want to say that if you have light brown hair at your roots that you haven't dyed, this dye WILL soak into them and give them a pink tint. Aside from that, YOU NEED TO BLEACH YOUR HAIR. If you want to get the color in the bottle exactly, you will have to bleach your hair, there's no way around that, your hair needs to be WHITE. The only reason to skip bleaching is if your natural hair color is very light blone (almost white) or you just want to tint your hair.
Trust me, if you do it slowly (over the course of 2-3 weeks) bleach is not scary and should NOT burn. It may be slightly itchy, but it should NOT ever burn or hurt! Ideally you should not wash your hair the day before or the day of bleaching. This builds up enough natural oils on your scalp to protect it from the bleach and keep it from hurting. Yes it may be gross and oily until you bleach it, but when you come out without hurting your scalp, it will be well worth it.
Now, the reason why bleach is because you want the color to be exact to what is in the bottle, or close to it. Think of it like this: take a white sheet of paper. On one side, color with a brown/black/red crayon (this is your natural hair color)...now take a light pink crayon and try to color over that brown/black/red. At best it turns into a nasty mud color, at worst, the pink doesn't show up at all, does it? Now color with the pink directly onto the white paper...the color is vibrant and true to the crayon, isn't it? The white paper is like bleached hair.
If you're looking to get a pastel pink/light candy pink out of atomic pink...you will need to dilute it, and that's because the color IS STRONG. The best way to dilute special effects dyes are with really thick conditioners or deep conditioning hair masks (think pantene, or those conditioners that come in jars, just avoid anything with dimethicone in it, as it separates the color from your hair).
If your hair is already bleached, then mix tiny amounts of Atomic Pink with your conditioner to get the exact color you want. Don't make it darker, because your hair will turn the EXACT color your conditioner/dye mix is. Then, just put it all over your head like you would with normal conditioner, and let it sit in your hair as long as humanly possible! I mean at least half an hour if not more! 15 minutes will only give you a tint, it won't dye your hair correctly. And don't worry, with all that conditioner, plus the natural ingrediants in the dye, your hair will be baby soft by the time you wash it out. =)
And then just dry your hair and you're done! If you're like me and went for a lighter candy pink, then this bottle will last you a LONG TIME. My hair is very thick, curly and down to my waist, and I only used about a teaspoon of Atomic Pink and about 2-3 cups of conditioner.
Have fun,
Wulufii