It’s not impossible to do your own hair!  Salons cost you tons of money if you decide to get this done downtown.  They could easily charge $50 and up.  If you do it on your own, all you really need to spend is about $10 on a funky color of your choice (purple, blue, green, pink, ect…), $10 on a bleach kit, and it costs about $4 a box for plain cheap black hairdye.  It’s your choice, but if you have patience you can do it!  I’ve been doing my own hair for years.  Get it done by a professional if you’re not confident enough.  Professionals know what they are doing, for a price…  So the decision is yours.

     Now on to the streaks…..  Chunky streaks.

     Now, for choosing a bright funky color there are many brands out there.  From my experience Punky Colour by Jerome Russell is the best!  I’ve never tried Special Effects, but from what I’ve seen and heard about it it would be second choice.  In my opinion, Punky is vibrant and has intense colors, Special Effects is more of extreme neon colors.  Example:  So if you’re looking for neon purple go with Special Effects, if you want a more “gothy” dark vibrant purple go with the one I’m using, Punky Violet.

     Now to go on to bleach kits.  There’s lots of kits that come with everything you need, including gloves, a mixing tray, and the cream developer and powder.  Bleach powder cannot be used alone, you must have a cream developer to mix with it.  Follow the instructions in the kit!  Cream developer comes in different numbers called the volume.  There’s 20, 30, 40, and 50 volume developer.  This represents the strength of the bleach and how fast it will lift the color.  Most of the bleach kits come with 30 or 40 vol.  20 is weak.  50 is super powerful and you should never use it!

     If you are naturally blonde to light brown hair, use the 30 volume.  If you have medium brown to darkest brown hair use the 40 volume, which is what I use.  If you have black or red hair it might be tricky because you have a lot of pigmentation in your hair….  You might have to even bleach twice, which could result in major hair damage!  I would go to a professional and have them do it for me.  If I was doing it myself I’d bleach using 30 vol., then wait for a few weeks being extra careful with my hair and using a LOT of conditioner and other moisturizing hair products…  Then rebleach again.  If you’ve previously dyed your hair, even if it was a long time ago, DO NOT bleach your hair because it will probably damage it really bad.  Especially if it’s black or red.

     Even if you’re blonde already, if you want it to be extremely intense, you should bleach those areas of your hair to remove the natural pigmentation so you can replace it with your funky color.  Bleaching is the worst part, it can burn, damage your hair, ect. so be very careful with bleach!!!!!  Tip:  Start at the bottom, skipping the roots…  Wait until the hair is one shade less than what you want (wait until it’s a dark brassy yellow) THEN do the roots.  The heat from your scalp will speed up the bleaching process on the roots.  Honestly, all you really need is banana yellow for most dyes to work.  The lighter the better.  Keep in mind if you want blue, yellow will mix with it and make it green when it fades.  So get it to the lightest whitest shade possible!  Same for red.  Red dye plus yellow hair makes orange when it fades.  Purple covers brassy yellow really well.  I had brassy orangey yellow hair when I covered it with punky violet and it worked great!

     The streaks I’m doing are two very thick chunks in the front.  The more streaks the harder it will be when you need to redye.  Think about doing all those roots too!  Very time consuming.  Thick chucks are best because it’s easier to fix later when your roots grow in.  But do whatever you want.  Just keep in mind it costs money to keep your hair looking nice.  Colored dyes fade so the less the better.  You can keep using the same tub of dye over and over for your streaks if you only have a few.  If for example if you dyed your whole head, you might have to buy 3 tubs of dye every few weeks!  $$$

     Make sure you have lots of cheap plastic gloves, towels, and something to help you get the roots.  A tint brush is a MUST but if you don’t have one you can use your fingers carefully or use a toothbrush!  A toothbrush works wonders.  Tinfoil is used to help cover and protect your streaks when you do the rest of your hair black.  Lots of hairclips to pin your hair back!

     This is just a basic rundown of how I personally do it myself.  My streaks are already bleached so this is how I retouch up my hair.

1.  Comb hair really well.  Separate the streaks from the rest of hair.  Put the rest of hair in a ponytail and use hairclips to keep bangs out of the way.  Make sure everything is covered with towels, wear an old shirt, wearing gloves…  Put the purple dye on my faded streaks using my hands and a toothbrush for the roots.  Clip it up and sit and wait for about 40 minutes.  Then, wearing fresh gloves, take the clips out and rinse it carefully in the kitchen sink.  I use the kitchen sink because it’s stainless steal and a LOT of dye comes out.  If you do it in the bathroom it will stain.

2.  When it’s all rinsed out I let it air dry on it’s own.  Hours later….

3.  I’ll go onto the black dye.  Brush hair out, and then put your streaks in tinfoil just like at a salon.  Then I roll them up and clip them to my head.  This keeps them protected from the black dye.  Just be extra careful with the roots!

4.  Do all the rest of your roots black, wait 20 minutes, then use the rest of the dye to do the rest of your hair to refresh the color.  Try your best not to get any black on the roots of your fresh streaks!

5.  I get in the shower, head tilted back, with lukewarm water, tinfoil still in, and just let the water rinse through all the black hair until the water is light brown.  Then I take my streaks out of the foil and let it all rinse together.  It doesn’t affect my color at all.  Maybe because purple is dark….  If you have a light color you might need to be more careful but I think it will be fine as long as the black isn’t sitting on your color for a long period of time.

6.  I lightly shampoo and use a lot of conditioner that I leave on for about 5 minutes, then rinse.

7.  I let my hair air dry until it’s only slightly damp, and then I blowdry it straight.

     I know it’s a lot of info.  I went through it pretty quickly so if you have questions you can email me at psycho_suzy2003@hellokitty.com