Hair Murder 101 (it’s a doozy)

My hair extensions are so grown out, but I’m riding these bad boys out for as long as possible. Plus, they still don’t look half bad. We’re currently red (Wrath + Poison by Arctic Fox) and have been since the middle of February. IT’S APRIL! That’s a long time for me to have one colour…I’ve contemplated adding black tips…but no. I have FAR too many bottles and jars of dye (open and unopen) to be buying more.

But in shorter news, I’m pleased to say my natural hair is finally showing some growth. Sad, really, because I need to be blonde by September, so……if you direct your attention to the title: Hair Murder 101 (it’s a doozy) (strictly because there’s at LEAST 800 pictures), because I am GOD AWFUL to my hair. It shocks me every day that I’m not bald *knocks on wood*

So come with me on this journey as we learn What Not To Do 🙂

The very first colour I did was red (on my natural dark brown) in 2006. Please enjoy this BABY picture of me.

Then I believe I dyed it black? Maybe black first, then red? Either way, I didn’t first bleach it until 2007, more specifically for my Grade 8 graduation. I bleached it, bleached it, dyed it blue, straightened it, then went to grad.
Off to a good start, no?

Then it started fading to this beautiful aqua.

Theeen it started to fade to this yucky swamp colour. But never once did I not like it. I was so happy to have different hair and to be able to express myself at such a young age.

Although there were definitely some downfalls to being a 13-year-old with green hair. Parents saw me as a BaD iNfLuEnCe.

Dyed Hair = Does Drugs + Crime.

It’s funny because when I look back at pictures, the moment I bleached and dyed my hair, I gave myself a side part. I have the same side part today. It’s like, the moment I dyed my hair, I instantly found that puzzle piece of myself. I kinda lucked out finding that puzzle piece early on.

We’re walking 2007! It’s 2022 and I’m still up to the same reckless hair shenanigans! The only people in my life who have seen my natural hair colour are my family, and that’s hilarious to me.
(And although my roots grow in dark brown, and my EYEBROWS are dark brown, I’ve had people ask me what my natural hair colour is. I tell them it’s blue.)

Come 2008, my debut into high school, I bleached out the swamp (as best to my ability) and dyed it green. This became my first nickname in the halls. “Green”. I was okay with it. I was also the only person with a whole-ass head dyed a weird colour. Plus GREEN! I feel like that’s a blunt start, haha!

(I’m so obviously cropping other people out of some pictures, please bear with me)

The addiction was there, and I was dyeing my hair all the time. I’d get bored and add colour or bleach it out entirely to do a completely different colour. But for the most part, I stuck with the cold tones. I had found my love for blue come 2009.

 
Come 2010, I stepped into the warmer tones.

Then I had to BLEND IN LIKE EVERYONE ELSE TO GET A JOB! GAG!

Thankfully, it faded to a light enough colour that I could bleach it to blonde, and come the summer, I asked my boss if I could dye it pink and blue.
She thought I was joking.

This went on to be Very Important Hair because I got on stage at Green Day with it, and people were referring to me as the girl with cotton candy hair.
(That picture is actually taken in the line up for that exact concert)

The rest of the year was hard on my hair. We went all over the place, and it was around this time in early 2010 that I was starting to notice the damage.

Did that stop me? NOPE!
 
Grade 12 birthed the split pink and orange, which I think next to Nils Blue (which comes later) is my favourite. By this point, we were DEAD.
Short, sad, fried, split end galore…

This was the shortest point for my hair (up until recently). I didn’t have a care for the damage I was causing (lowkey still don’t) and I was constantly adding and changing and straightening. Do as I say, not as I do.

More blondes. More pinks. More pink/orange. I did half yellow and half orange come the summer after graduation, but then Brian and I went to a pool party, and I lost it after the first swim.

2012 was back to cool tones with lots of purples and blues…

2013, I couldn’t tell you why, but there was some growth, it wasn’t like I was doing anything different. Maybe my hair had just accepted it’s fate and decided to power through.

I had some pretty ombre shit going on at the beginning of the year…then I just absolutely butchered it.
Pink/orange, blonde, highlighter green, yellow, back to blonde, then I added pink tips, then dyed it all pink, added some blue, then ended the year strong with dark…turquoise? Dark green?
This was the same year I peer pressured Brian into letting me bleach his hair >:)

WANT MORE PICS? OKAY!
 

The dark turquoise/green colour faded to a lighter green, so I dyed it blue…theeeen bleached the shit out of it to go BACK to pink and orange. I think this was my fourth time? And still, my hair was growing??

It’s wild looking back, because you can see when my hair is happy and when it’s not…sometimes there’s shine aaanndd sometimes no. I stopped getting trims because I was tired of getting lectured—plus, my split ends give me all the trimming I need (I make jokes because I’m SAD! My hair truly hates me).

It seemed that after trying so many colours, pink and blue were my two favourites. I’d have pink for a bit, bleach it back to blonde and go blue. Be blue for a bit, bleach it back to blonde and go pink. I stayed pink for a while near the end of 2014.

Brian and I were planning to go to New Zealand and I didn’t want to stand out like a beacon in a foreign country for three months, so I allowed the pink/orange to fade to blonde. It faded to a nice strawberry blonde.
Although it was short lived, because once in NZ, I saw blue dye for sale, and while we couldn’t afford it, I bought a jar and dyed my hair that night in our hostel. Everyone loved it!

Blue is 100% my go to colour. When I’m not sure what colour to do next, I go blue. I think right now, even though I’ve been red for a month and a half, I have like…five different blue dyes, some open, all different brands…JUST IN CASE, Y’KNOW?

So I stayed around blues and purples, very dark…my roots atrocious—AND THEN BLEACHED IT PLATINUM!

(I should’ve documented my hair journey from day one. I could have so many brand deals right now. Hashtag sponsor me.)

But this time, Manic Panic (because that’s who I’ve been using this entire time) came out with a new colour called Siren’s Song.
I was OBSESSED! I’m still in love with it. It’s one of my favourite colours to date, but shit fades quick. Although, in the dyes defense, when I first used it, Brian and I went to Wasaga a few days after and…y’know. But the dye held onto my roots and faded at the ends, so I had this cool accidental ombre from blue to white.

Honestly, sometimes the fade is just as good as a fresh dye.

The end of 2015, I was pretty mean again. I had lost interest in the pink and blue switchbacks and wanted to try something else. But y’know, instead of buying dye, I decided to mix what I had at home and make? My own? Colour?
(I did not mix these ALL)
So. You called it.
BLEACH! And honestly, it could have been worse. This blurple combo I made was kinda nice.

But it’s okay, because it GOT worse. One might say that pastels are pretty…
Yeah. They are. On clean, healthy, shiny hair! Look how lifeless my hair is! (You can laugh. I am.) I’m a poster child for split ends.

So, Brian and I were heading to Destin, Florida to see Hollywood Undead, and my blurple experiment had faded to puke.
So. You know the drill.
Only this time, I wanted RED! But the bleach job didn’t get totally platinum like I had intended, and I still had a faint green hue. I don’t know if you know, but red + green = gross.

This is the only picture I have, ft. eyelash extensionsAWFUL!
I remember wearing a hoodie all day at work…AND THEN BUYING BLEACH!!
I bleached it as soon as I got home and it turned this awful tennis ball colour.
Don’t ask me how I did it, but I got purple and pink to cover my tennis ball head BEAUTIFULLY!

People always want to touch my hair, assuming it’ll feel differently because it’s a fun colour… and yeah. It does. It feels like dehydrated strawy. No touchy.

Spring of 2017, I got my first hair cut in…a very long time. That when I met wonderful Mel!
While I saw her for a very overdue trim, she gave my hair the best treatment of its life—after bleaching it and dyeing it, hahaha!
We were going for a smoky blue, and she NAILED IT using all Joico colours.

Then it faded to GREY with BLUE ROOTS and makes #3 on my list of favourites.Buuutttt nothing can last forever and BAM! Back to my natural root of ’08. Only this time around, I tried “Argan Oil Perfect Intensity”. I’m not sure why. I think I went to Sally’s Beauty and grabbed whoever had the best green to offer. Plus, argan oil AND hair dye? Yes please.“Mullet Phase” has entered the chat. This kind of…uhm…style? Seems to be where my hair has plateaued. Most likely because if it’s not down and straight, it’s up and in a bun.

I added some blue and that was fun. I don’t appreciate this colour combo enough…

For the first time…ever, I let my hair have a “break” (it’s like “THANK GOD!”) and allowed the blue and green to fade and wash out on its own. No bleach involved.
It did some weird shit, but at least my growth was happy.*pause for effect*

AND THEN WE WENT PLATINUM!

Some more pinks, oranges, reds, purples…and then my hair was so sad and short and dead— but I REFUSE to go to my natural colour— so I dyed it black.
First time in a long time and TRULY ALWAYS a bad idea. Especially when you’re like me and get bored easily and need to switch it up every now and then.
But! This was a purpose of Dye Black and Leave Alone. And truth be told, I love black hair. Always have, always will.

While there was definitely an attempt to allow my new black hair to grow, I dyed it November 2018 and was already on Operation No Black by the end of January 2019.
Before you freak, no, I didn’t just try to bleach the black out, but the thought had crossed my mind. I bought “colour removal” and gave that a good honest try.
The purple underneath snuck through and while my hair was still very black, it looked wicked in the sunlight.

ENTER MEL!
I shouldn’t brag about this, honestly. But I will brag on her behalf.
You’re not supposed to go from black to blonde. You shouldn’t, anyways. However…and Mel was very specific while explaining that what we were doing was awful for my hair…but y’know what? I had a road trip to California underway, and I needed to be blonde to get hair extensions, to later dye blue.

(I’m a psycho. Maybe I should title this “Why Aren’t I Bald?”)

The jokes have always been there…

And while we didn’t go blonde, we did the next best thing!

I got a healthy trim aaaand she did 8 million treatments.
Mel is a hair MAGICIAN! Xoxo

It faded to peach, then to blonde (hair science) then I went back to her for the final touch. We could’ve left it blonde, but I opted for blue toning since I’d be dyeing my whole head blue shortly anyways.

That same say, I sped downtown to Love’s In The Hair where I sat for 4.5 hours getting fusion bond extensions installed.

ENTER EXTENSIONS!

New obsession unlocked.
The stylist didn’t take any pictures since my hair was toned blue and the extensions were not, but I didn’t care. I was on CLOUD 9.

I had to wait like…3 days or something before dyeing the extensions, but once allowed to do so, I bought 4 jars of Manic Panic’s Siren’s Song, and voila! Nils!

This takes the cake.
This is #1 for me.

I redyed it while we stayed in LA, and it’s funny…if I’m TRYING REALLY HARD not to make a mess in my own bathroom, impossible. But ANYWHERE else and I don’t leave a drop.
I added some purple later on in the summer, and just as I’m doing now, rode the hair extension ride for as long as possible.

The blue faded to blonde over time…I removed the extensions and went RED! That faded to pink, which I then later bleached because it had ALMOST (8 months) been a year since I last did that.Because hear me out…while my short lil nubby hair had been denied all growth progress…ENTER ARCTIC FOX HAIR COLOUR!
LOOK AT THIS COLUOR!
IT’S CALLED ELECTRIC PARADISE!

The dye itself looks like highlights orange, and then to slap it on your head and as it sits, you watch it change to highlighter pink. That picture doesn’t really do it justice with HOW NEON IT IS!

(You’ve made it this far. It would be silly not to continue ‘till the end…)

2020! Everyone’s favourite year!

I rode the Electric Paradise for a while. I added blue tips, added purple tips, then said fuck it and dyed the whole thing purple. Then my hair did…this:

Which NATURALLY lead to THIS:

So I could do this:

HATED IT. Hated it. Tried to fix it – no. Sooo BLUE IT IS! Which ended up being such a win, because with the fade, I got GREY ROOTS and BLUE HAIR!

I ended 2020 as a blonde and by February 2021, I had Electric Paradise roots that faded into purple then blue then a green colour 🙂
Another successful experiment, using dyes I already had.
Jump to turquoise:Darker jump to blue and purple:Jump all purple:JUMP PLATINUM – THANKS MEL!ENTER EXTENSINOS, EPISODE 2

These were in preparation for our LA/LV trip in December, so I got this set in November to have a little fun with them before the trip.
Then BOOM baby! Pink and orange get a glow up!

I allowed one redye:

Then once it faded a second time, I dyed it the current red and my Little Mermaid obsession is still SCREAMING.

I’ve actually thoroughly enjoyed going down my hair memory land. I fucking love my hair, even though I abuse the absolute shit out of it. It’s a trooper.

I’ll probably get these extensions removed soon, let my little nub hair have a break…beeeeefore I bleach it.
Brian and I are going to Hawaaii (and LA and LV) this September and I want a fresh batch of extensions before then, and I’mma go back to Nils Blue!