Something different below: a video of me swishing my hair around. I felt a little silly, but I got a new HD SD card after years of not bothering and I can finally shoot proper video again. Lol.

Welp, I finally decided to do a full-strength bleach on my ridiculously long roots. I was lucky enough to be given a color I had never tried before, which is La Riche Directions Atlantic Blue by the dye fairy godmothers @berbiedolls. 

All I can say is, this color is absolutely stunning and I’m in love with it.

Read on for photos and instructions of the bleaching/dyeing process!

Supplies:

2 packs of bleach from HBC Exclusives (available at SM Ecoland)

2 bottles of 12% developer (same as above)

Tinting brush with a comb (1 for bleach, 1 for dye)

recycled plastic bowls/containers like the ones I used in this tutorial

cling wrap or foil

rubber ties

plastic clips

virgin coconut oil

old towel you don’t mind messing up

Bleaching:

1). I wore an old t-shirt during the entire thing.
2.) I covered all of my hair in virgin coconut oil and let it soak in my hair for 1 hour. Without rinsing it off, I started the bleaching process.
3.) I sectioned my hair into 4 parts. (It helps to have 2 mirrors, one in front, one at your back, so you can see what you’re doing.)
4.) I bleached only my roots and left my previously bleached and dyed midlengths alone. Watch how to bleach roots here.
5. I clipped my bleached hair up because bleach drips down. Bleach in your eye is not fun, trust me. Also, dripping bleach can cause your ends to be more bleached than the rest of your head.
6. Cover hair in a shower cap. I’m a pleb so I used an old grocery plastic bag. The hotter the bleach gets, the faster it will develop.
7. Wait 30-40 minutes. I waited 40 because virgin growth.
8. Rinse all the bleach out. You can shampoo at this stage to get everything out and to prep hair for absorbing dye.

Here are photos after bleaching:

As you can see, I have more roots than midlengths, lol. The top layers still have the old turquoise from my old color.  The bottom half of my hair and underlayers are still peach/plum.

Here’s a closeup.

The camera doesn’t capture blonde very well, so I took another photo of what I felt was a truer rendition. It’s more blonde/brassy below. I didn’t want to bleach another time and was too lazy to tone so I decided to dye over this anyway, because it was light enough for me.

Dyeing:

1.)  Make sure ALL bleach is rinsed out before dyeing.
2.) Section hair into halves.
3.) Begin dyeing hair by starting from roots and working dye down with a comb. Combing hair along with brushing on the dye extends the dye coverage and makes everything more even.
4. Comb and brush the dye into the hair until the combout or froth looks white (which means all the dye has been absorbed).
4. Gather tips of hair in your hand and cover with dye to make sure they also get an even color.

Left the bathroom to take a photo when I had dyed half my head. Because of my base, I knew Atlantic Blue would have a hint of turquoise when I was done.

I used Atlantic Blue full-strength. I didn’t mix it with conditioner at all, so this color will not be pastel, but a vibrant, more pigmented color when done. 

This photo shows that because of my blonde base, the color glints turquoise and blue when the light shifts. This is also because I have naturally wavy hair, the structure of which means the dye doesn’t always cling to it as evenly as it would on naturally straight hair. I like the multi-tonal quality, so I don’t mind!

Also, I didn’t bleach my previously dyed hair at the bottom, so even though I put Atlantic Blue over everything, some of it will still look more green than the newly bleached parts.

I also left a very thin section of hair undyed. I wanted it to have different rainbow colors. This is an underlayer, so it won’t show unless I pull my hair back. This whole section is about 2 inches thick. Right to left: my old Directions Turquoise color from previous dye job, Prosil Yellow, very diluted Cerise, Atlantic Blue, and Directions Neon Blue (which should be called Neon Purple because it looks violet!)

Dyeing One Section A Different Color:

1.) Prepare rubber bands.
2.) Have cling wrap or foil ready.
3.) Clip up all the blue hair away from undyed section.
4.) Begin dyeing dark colors first (violet, blue)
5.) After you finish each color, tie hair up with a rubber tie and clip to your head.
6.) Dye light colors last (yellow, pink) Repeat tying and clipping.
7.) Cover entire rainbow section in cling wrap. Make sure it’s covered so that colors will not bleed when rinsing.

ugh, bare face @_@

I let the dye sit in my hair for 2 hours, or until I felt it dry and become hard (which means the hair will have stopped absorbing the dye and you can rinse). 

How to Rinse / Prevent Color Bleed

1.) Make sure everything is sectioned and clipped off if you have different colors.
2.) Rinse out dark colors or major sections of hair first. In my case, that’s the Atlantic Blue.
3.) I towel-dried the Atlantic Blue hair and clipped it back so it doesn’t touch the rainbow parts.
4.) I washed the small rainbow section over the sink. Because the sections are so thin, there isn’t really a danger of too much bleeding.
5.) I also towel-dried the rainbow section.

And here are the photos of the finished dye job! I’m really happy with the way it turned out, even if my base wasn’t completely even or white when I had to dye over it.

It’s a lovely pigmented blue that goes turquoise in the sunlight and looks quite blue indoors.

The photo above is in natural sunlight, and the photos below were taken with a flash.

I clipped my hair back to show the rainbow section, but otherwise it can’t be seen. The colors in it are diluted, so they look less pigmented compared to the rest of my head.

I love this color! It’s really vibrant when undiluted, and very blue even with a blonde base. If I had decided to bleach one more time and toned I’m sure it would have looked bluer, but I didn’t want to damage my hair any more.

I’d like to thank @berbiedolls for supplying my La Riche Directions dyes! You guys are the best <3

Do you like this color? What’s your favorite blue dye? :)

xx,
Jad