how to: ombré hair

Last spring I bleached (and then dyed and then bleached again) my hair. I wanted it to have that ombré look (like these people here), and in an ideal world my hair would be fading to lavender right now. Unfortunately Mystic Violet did not turn out so well for me (hence Bleach-a-thon Part II). The good news is that Bleach-a-thon Part II did indeed work out, so now my hair looks like this (the third photo being most current):

   

Bleach + creme developer. Mix.
The first thing I did (besides look up a thousand variations of the same tutorial online) was buy a box of powder bleach (usually contains a couple packets of powder and a set of plastic gloves) and creme developer/creme peroxide (30 vol is ideal, wouldn't go higher than 40) from Boots and Superdrug. Follow the instructions according to your box of bleach and mix the bleach and developer together really well using a wooden popsicle stick or something similar. I lacked any sort of mixing utensils, so I just put on my gloves and used my fingers. Can't give you my full recommendation on that one.

Run bleach mixture through hair.
I separated all of my hair into two roughly equal sections, scooped up a small fistful of my bleach + creme developer mixture, and ran the bleach through maybe 6-7 inches of the first section of my hair. I did the same to the second section. Then I let it sit for about 20-30 minutes and freaked out in amazement as my hair started fading from black.

Repeat but focus on the ends of your hair.
After the first round of bleach, I repeated the process but finger-combed the bleach through the bottom 4-5 inches of my hair only. Veddy important! This is what gives your hair the ombré look. More bleach = lighter hair color, so you want to make sure the ends of your hair have more bleach than the sections higher up. Let the bleach sit for another 15-20 minutes, and then rinse everything out. Be sure to treat your hair with conditioner afterward (no shampoo!). And tah-dah! Ombré hair.

   

Mostly I ended up winging the whole process, which is not ideal when you are messing around with your hair color for the first time. But I did look at this video tutorial first and found it to be really helpful, so here it is for your reference:

If you want to color your hair, depending on your natural hair color, you may have to tone your hair after you bleach it, and then dye your hair the color you want after you tone it. Make sure to do some research on that because different toners are used with different hair colors. Best of luck!

grrrl patches

I made these 2x4 inch patches a few weeks ago. The design on the left was inspired by oldmotherfox's Hairy Pits Club patch, available on Etsy (in other words, I shamelessly stole and altered it. Sorry girl). To make these, I used handmade stencils, scrap fabric and white acrylic paint, though the stencils were not all that effective. My lines were all really messy, so I had to touch them up with black paint obviously.

I have some more fabric and some more paint sitting next to me, and two guys I know have asked me to make patches that represent various physical accomplishments (e.g., completing the saltine cracker challenge), so I suppose that will be my next project. After that, I want to buy studs and go to town on my denim vest.