Several months ago I used Manic Panic to color my hair. Specifically, I used 1.5 tubs of Hot Hot Pink. It came out fairly well, though my tub and shower curtain were also dyed hot pink in the process. Oopsies. Since Manic Panic is a vegetable-based demi-dye, it’ll wash out within 1-2 weeks worth of normal shampooing and conditioning, so I cleverly mixed some dye with my shampoo, and a more generous amount with my conditioner, in order to prolong it.
The color was awesome, though even with the addition of dye to my shampoo and conditioner it was gone within a few weeks:
This time around, I stepped it up a notch. First and foremost, I wound up using Color Jamz in Raspberry Kamikaze instead, but that’s only because Sally’s Beauty Supply was out of every pink and red shade of Manic Panic.
Second, I made sure to rinse out my hair with vinegar (tip #1: to prevent what feels like hypothermia, warm up the vinegar by letting the bottle chill at your feet in the warm shower | tip #2: tilt your head forward or backward as much as you can to prevent vinegar from running down your body and a) stinking up your skin and b) alerting you to teensy minuscule cuts that you were previously unaware of).
Third, I have been religiously rinsing out shampoo and conditioner (both having a generous amount of dye mixed in, of course) with cold water only. Thanks to our detachable shower head, this isn’t as brutal as it sounds.
Hey Dan? I’m sorry about the pink tub!
One of these days I’ll work up the nerve to bleach my hair so that the resulting color is hot hot pink…
As I said on flickr, that hair color looks really good on you. I have some Manic Panic in my bathroom that I keep meaning to use, but I keep chickening out.
Don’t chicken out! It’s semi-permanent, and if you decide you don’t like it, a few washes with a clarifying (aka stripping) shampoo will take it right out.
@Jenn: I may try it this weekend.
It looks great :D I dyed my hair at home with permanent hair colour (bright red) but because I didn’t bleach my hair (black) first, it was only really noticeable in the sun, except for the first few months… This was back in 2008 and a lot of my hair (since I keep it long) is still dark red (in the sun, lol). I need to get the nerve to bleach and then colour =/