I’ve probably had more done to my hair than most people will have in a lifetime. For my eleventh birthday, my mom let me get blue and purple streaks in my hair and I genuinely felt like the coolest fifth grader out there. Then seventh grade hit and for my thirteenth birthday, I dyed my whole head pink. I was at the salon for the whole day and while I wasn’t paying for it, I knew it cost more than I’d be willing to cough up in the future.
After getting sick of touching my hair up at home and buying pink hair dye, I essentially said “f*** it” and cut off half my hair and then dyed it black. I was at peace. Until a few months later, when I got a pixie cut.
P.S. Growing out pixie cuts is genuinely the worst hair phase I’ve ever gone through, and the amount of mullet correction is something I’d like to admit.
During this grow-out period, I went to Ulta to get burgundy hair pretty often, and once I stopped doing that I left it alone for quite a while. (Go me!)
My best hair decision to date was probably the balayage I got done professionally, and then I messed it up by cutting my own bangs soon after.
Needless to say, I’ve done a lot to my hair. Honestly, the idea of me bleaching and dying my own hair in my dorm room isn’t exactly surprising.
I set out on an Amazon deep dive to buy everything I’d need to completely transform into a coral fantasy (or that was my hope.)
(I spent too much money.)
When my arsenal of things arrived, sure to ruin my hair somewhat, I got to work that night. I mixed up and used two bowls of bleach, and it took so long that pretty much as soon as I was done, I felt like I had to go rinse it out (before my hair fell out).
After this round of bleaching, my hair felt sad and damaged. I noticed that the side of my head that didn’t process for nearly as long still looked really dark. Also, on further inspection, there were parts that just didn’t lift at all. It was then that I determined I would need to bleach it again.
However, I was pretty certain that if I were to bleach my hair again that night, it wouldn’t be on my head by morning, so I did like three hair masks over the course of two days and decided that two days later, my hair was ready again.
During this round of bleach, I spot-bleached the side that I actually did a decent job on essentially redid the other half of my head. I was slow, methodical, and had high hopes that this would turn out okay.
One wash-out and hair mask later, there were still a couple of spots that I just missed altogether, but at that point, my hair was starting to feel disgusting and spongy and it was clear that I should not bleach my hair again. I was tired of bleaching anyway.
The next day, my classes were done at 11:25 and essentially as soon as I got back from class, I went to town on my hair.
I mixed up Arctic Fox dyes in Electric Paradise and Porange (pink and orange, respectively), with a ridiculous amount of conditioner to keep it from being insanely bright. I think I went through about three bowls of this concoction before my whole head was fully covered.
When it was time to let the color soak in and process, I put a plastic shower cap on my head and logged into Netflix. I admittedly got a little distracted and probably added half an hour to my goal process time of 45 minutes, but I’ve worked with Arctic Fox before and knew that the majority of the product in my hair was conditioner, so I wasn’t worried.
I then excitedly ran to the girls’ bathroom, sighed a breath of relief that there was a shower open, and proceeded to rinse my hair for about fifteen minutes to get all the dye out.
Not only did my hair feel like heaven compared to what I was dealing with before (thanks conditioner), but it was more or less the coral fantasy I was dreaming of.
So, no, it’s not perfect, and pretty damaged, and I definitely got a few weird looks in the bathroom, but this goes to show that bleaching and dying your hair, in your dorm, is possible, and won’t make your hair fall out like those haunting YouTube videos.
Much obliged to my roommates for accepting the pink stains on the rug.