It all started with some blond highlights during my sophomore year of high school about eight years ago, and I’ve been hooked on dying my hair ever since.

In that same year, I dyed my hair dark brown with some red highlights, and then I discovered colors. My hairdresser is awesome, and she loves doing cool stuff with my hair, so we started by putting a pink streak on either side of my head. They were underneath so that they were hidden but if I wore my hair up, you could see them. After pink, I had purple put in, and then blue.

By this time, I was in my senior year of high school. I managed my school’s baseball team, and our school colors were blue and black, so I kind of matched the team. My dress for prom that year was green and blue, so my hairdresser designed my up-do so that you could really see the blue streaks in my hair.

I lost the funky colors in college, because my mom said it was unprofessional. I mostly just went darker with my hair, and if you didn’t really know me, you wouldn’t really notice.

And then I fell back into the color bandwagon during the fall after graduation. I was about four months into my job—the one I’m still at now—so I was like, yep back to crazy colors I go.

I had some blond put in on the ends and also the two blue streaks. It looked cool at first, but as I washed it, the blue started to turn the blond green, and it was a gross green color. So that only lasted for ~two months because it was too much to upkeep.

But I wanted to keep the blue, so the solution was to keep it but go dark, dark brown all over and get rid of the blond. I really liked this combination.

 

 

Then by spring time, I got rid of the blue and ended up with just blond on the ends, and my hair was really long. I think prior to that, my hair hadn’t been that long in a few years. So then I chopped it off in May and kept the blond.

I kept up with the blond going into last year. None of the blond was brought up to my roots, because I didn’t want to have to deal with that upkeep. It ended up in an ombre fashion, and I didn’t do anything with the brown because I wanted to grow back my natural color.

In January of this year, I decided to add purple into my hair because I wouldn’t have the same issue like I had with the blue. Purple tones blond and doesn’t “mix” like blue and blond does; if anything, the purple would tone down the brightness of the blond. I would have loved to have the blue back, but if I wanted to keep the funky color long term, purple was my best option.

It’s about a third of each color: the purple is on the underneath of my hair, then the middle layer has blond, and then the top layer is my natural brown color. If my hair is straight, you can see some of the purple but not too much; if I curl it, though, you can really see it. I also had my hairdresser cut the layers above the purple a smidge shorter so that it peaks out.

Below is my headshot for our agency website. I never had any issue professionally with the purple or that I dye my hair a lot. As long as I don’t dye my entire head purple, I think I’m good. Plus I’m in marketing and marketing tends to be a little less formal/more fun, so I’m just the weird one with purple hair.

The last two times I’ve gone to my hairdresser, I had pink added in with the purple along with the blond. I’m growing my hair out a little just because we’ve done so much to what I have now. My hairdresser strives to keep my hair healthy, and I’ve never had any issues over the last year and a half or so that I’ve been doing crazy stuff with it.

I’m getting rid of the purple and pink when I go in a few weeks for my normal six-week visit. I want to go dark brown for the fall/winter and add in some red highlights. I have to find some pictures to send to my hairdresser so we have a game plan for my appointment.

I really have to thank her for putting up with me all of these years. There are sometimes when we have a fifteen minute conversation even before the hair dye comes out. She’ll tell me what’s possible and what’s not, based on keeping my hair healthy and not ruining it. She’s da real MVP in all of this.

Do you dye your hair? If so, what colors do you dye it? Do you have any horror stories from a dye job gone bad?