Thursday Tutorial: DIY Red Ombre Hair

So I have to admit that I've felt like a pretty bad blogger the past few weeks. Not that my heart's not in it anymore, because it is. I've just felt completely swamped by life. Part of this feeling led me to believe that I needed a new or at least updated hair do. Naturally, I'm a girl and that's what we gals do when we feel like something needs to change, we change our hair. There you go fellas, Ladies 101. 

Anyway, when trying to figure out what to do with my mess of hair without spending a ton of money, I decided the biggest change would be in getting both a cut and a color. Picking out a color for my hair was the hardest part, but I finally settled on red, even though I know how quickly red fades and what a pain in the butt upkeep is on it. This is why, if you saw yesterday's outfit post, you will see that I have since given up on red hair and gone back to something dark. BUT if you have the patience to re-dye your hair every month and not wash it often, here is a tutorial for how I got my Red Ombre Hair! 

A few things before I start this red ombre hair tutorial:

a.) Bleach is very corrosive. It will burn. Try to keep it off your skin as much as possible and always wear gloves when applying. 

b.) My hair had a LOT of layers of dye before I started so I knew I would have to leave the bleach on for longer periods of time to get it as light as I wanted it. If you don't dye your hair often, this will take less time. Try bleaching a little test piece first. 

c.) This is kind of a LONG process. Expect it to take at least a few hours.

DIY Red Ombre Hair Tutorial

This photo is from an outfit post a few weeks ago.

Materials:

Hair bleach

Red hair dye

Developer cream (you only need this if you're buying your dye from a beauty supply store, if you buy the box kind from a Target or something you can skip this material)

Gloves (this stuff will STAIN so be sure to wear gloves)

Hair dying shirt

An empty container and a stirrer 

Hair Clips

Vaseline

Patience

Instructions:

1. Start with your hair a little dirty, just a day or so should be fine and brush it out really well. Put on your hair dying shirt and clear your bathroom of anything you wouldn't want to drip dye or bleach on. 

2. Mix together your bleach. If you bought a box that has all the parts divided for you, mix together the mixture as instructed on the box. If you bought lightening powder and developer, mix together equal parts and stir. If you're not sure, add developer slowly. You can always add more developer, but you can't always add more bleach powder. The mixture should look kind of like pancake batter - drippy, but still sticks to your brush.

3. Once you've mixed your bleach, put on your gloves and part your hair down the middle. It helped me to clip back my bangs so that I could just focus on the ends of my hair.

4. Take the bleach and apply it as evenly as you can to just the ends of your hair. Save some bleach for the rest of your head, because we will be working our way up. I did about 3 inches at first because I knew I would be cutting a lot of it off, but put on as much as you'll want your hair to be bright red. This will be the brightest part of your hair.

5. After about 10 minutes, I added more bleach to about 2 inches above the first part and left all of it in for another 10 or 15 minutes. Then I rinsed and dried my hair.

6. After the first go, I realized that the end weren't as blonde as I wanted them. Everything looked about the same color, maybe a little lighter. So I took what was left of the bleach and re-did the ends. Just about three inches or so. I left the bleach in for about 20 minutes, rinsed, and dried.

7. I finally got what I was looking for. My roots were pretty dark, the middle got lighter, and the ends were pretty blonde. Now it's time to mix together your red hair dye.

8. Follow the directions on your dye box for mixing and applying your red dye. This is where the vaseline comes in handy. If you don't want to dye your forehead red, rub a little vaseline around your hairline to prevent the red from staining your skin.

9. Apply the dye to your entire head, don't worry, the different shades will show. That's why we went through all that trouble to bleach it! Leave it in for the recommended amount of time and then rinse out as much red as you can. Dry and you're done!

This was the result from my dye attempt and I was pretty happy with it. Unfortunately, like I said above, I didn't have the patience to keep re-dying my hair red. So after about three weeks I changed my hair again. I'm fickle like that. 

If you try it out, I'd love to see how it turned out for you!