How I Dye My Hair Rainbow

Every three months or so, I dye my hair 7 colors. Here’s how:

* A quick note — bleaching and dyeing a small section of your hair one or two colors is a good way to get used to dyeing your hair. I had dyed mine for about ten years before I attempted the following.

1. I was inspired to do rainbow hair after seeing this post: Rainbow Connection: I Tried Sand Art Hair.

I was a big fan because of the technique and color combination, in part because it included no yellow — and I look like Draco Malfoy when I have blonde hair.

2. However, I changed a few parts of the method used.

3. You will need to bleach your hair! I don’t do it myself, better to have someone else do it. My hair is very dark, but it only takes one session to get my hair to light blonde. I also advise going to a hair stylist who works with fun hair colors, as they will be willing to take more risks to get your hair light blonde, without damaging your hair.

4. Pre-dyeing: You can dye right after you bleach! Make sure they don’t use conditioner on your hair after bleaching. Only shampoo. And check the instructions for the brand of dye you use.

5. Dye setup:

• 7 dye brushes
• 7 paper bowls
• Rip off about 50 sheets of paper towels and keep a roll nearby
• 2 gloves
• I tape garbage bags over most of the surfaces of my bathroom, so it won’t stain. Any stains can be erased with nail polish remover or bleach
• I wear a garbage bag as a shirt, in order to cover my skin, and I wear only things I don’t mind staining. I throw away everything in another garbage bag I hang up in the bathroom. A last garbage bag is nearby to cover my hair while processing.

6. Mixing the dyes.

Put on gloves. I mix all my dyes. All dye I use is deposit dye, as opposed to chemical dye. The latter changes your hair chemically, the former is just deposited in your hair. These instructions only applies to deposit dyes.

You can mix dark dyes with conditioner to lighten the color. The more conditioner you use, the lighter the color will be. Pastel dyes are just really diluted normal dye.

I use Joico intensity dye—super long-lasting and very thick—and mix the following:

• Mermaid blue + conditioner
• Cobalt blue + conditioner
• Peacock green + conditioner
• Orchid + conditioner
• Orchid + pink + pravana silver+ conditioner
• Magenta + pink + conditioner
• Used on my roots only: Sapphire blue + indigo (Because I have dark hair, this makes new hair growth less noticeable, and also makes the colors blend together more as my hair grows in. If you have light hair, it’s still worth doing your roots a different color, but you might want to do more root touch-ups!)

7. After I mix all my dyes in the paper bowls using the tint brushes, I divide my hair into sections and clip them. How I divide them.

8. Now I finally get to the dye! For each area I sectioned, I further divide them into 2–6 more smaller sections. For each smaller section, I first apply the sapphire/indigo mix on the roots, using a tint brush. Then I randomly select from the other 6 colors, and apply to the top part of the section, the middle, and the bottom. I repeat for every division of hair, probably 30 or so times for my whole head. For each section, after applying, I massage the dye in and make sure it covers all of the hair. Where the colors meet on each section, I try to blend them together, massaging gently. It’s important to try to make sure the colors don’t bleed together. After I finish massaging the color into each small section of hair, I wipe my glove-covered hands off on a paper towel.

During all this, you can put a dyed section on top of another dyed section, gently. Don’t let undyed hair touch dyed hair. I usually start at the bottom, back of my hair and move upward and outward.

After all of it’s done, I cover my head in a plastic bag, and keep it there for 1.5 hours. There’s really no such thing as too much processing time for deposit dyes.

9. Getting dye off skin will be a pain. Use soap, alcohol, or nail polish remover. (I probably shouldn’t, but this doesn’t bother my skin. If you have sensitive skin, this is a really bad idea). I do most of this while my hair is processing.

10. Washing out your hair once you’re finished processing: Just take a normal shower: cool water only, no shampoo! Don’t wash your hair with hot water now, or at any time while your hair is dyed. It will fade the colors and will make the colors bleed into each other. But this especially true within the first week after dyeing. Also, the less often you wash your hair, the better.

11. Touch up any parts of your hair that didn’t come out right by putting tin foil underneath the section, re-dyeing it, and wrapping it up in foil. Wash it out with cold water when ready.