For a while now, I’ve wanted to dye my hair purple. I got the idea from a close pal, who also got me enrolled in a gym. I’d always known that if I had caucasian hair, I’d wear it spiky and tinted, but I’d never seriously thought of colouring my dreads.
Once I settled on the idea, I had to find the right shade. Most shops have brown, black, Burgundy, blonde, and – believe it or not – grey. I did manage to find ulraviolet-black, blue-black, and something called aubergine.
At first, I thought I could go ultra-violet with highlights of aubergine. The latter looks like a maroon shade of purple. But the salonist said if you shampoo between colours, the second colour is nullified.
I started out with ultraviolet and planned to add the aubergine two weeks later. But by day 2 I was impatient and decided to try it anyway. The ultra-black was just, well, black! I wanted something more … colourful.
Sunday morning, after almost an hour with purple on my head, we rinsed it off and saw … black. The colour didn’t catch! At least, it didn’t catch the hair. But for the next one week, everything my head touched turned to purple. I had towels, windows and gym mats in that hue. Stress!
After a week of un-purple misery, I tried aubergine again. It caught on great, but my head was too bright, and closer to maroon. On a shop assistant’s advice, I added some food colouring.
Here’s the thing. The food colour comes in a plastic box of powder, and every box carries a slightly different shade, even though they’re all labelled purple. We decided to test them on paper, and one turned out blue. The other was safely violet.
Except once they’d been in the sink, the blue tinted purple, and the purple … well, it just tinted. Creepy. We took a chance and added the blue-looking purple to my now maroon head. The end result? Black.
So today, after three sets of colouring, my hair is still … black. How annoying. next week, I’m retrying aubergine, undiluted. I don’ care if it ends up maroon – it’s better than three doses of black. Wish me luck!
PS: It didn’t work **irritable frown** The hair’s still black … but my scalp has turned the strangest shade of maroon. Go figure. Oh well. I give up for now, but better luck to me next time.
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Crystal Ading' is a professional author, editor, rock lover and mother. Her work is available through threeceebee.com.