Aqua Girl

If you follow The Shoe Girl Diaries you'll know I've been desperate to get my hair recoloured. Believe it or not, it's been 7 whole weeks since I first went turquoise! I'm quite impressed with how it's lasted, considering I've used Atomic Pink for years and that's like the Queen Bee of hair dye-it lasts forever and really only needs recoloured due to regrowth (rather than fading). That means no other dye ever really compares and the proof was in my brief experiment with pale pink and lilac! Remember those times? Anyway, I don't know how interested you all are in learning more about the process of using more interesting shades like this and if you'd perhaps like some tips that I've picked up over the years (because it does work differently to ordinary colourants)? For now, here's how the turquoise has changed over the weeks (I totally forgot how vivid it was at the start!). Click to enlarge.
The problem with getting my hair done again just now was that my Mum is on holiday (and usually helps me) and I wasn't confident in my ability to have eyes in the back of my head for the tricky job of reapplying the turquoise and leaving the pink ends free again. However, my vanity got the better of me and I decided I couldn't go out for a b'day lunch with my friend tomorrow with bad roots and pale green hair! You'll have noticed yesterday on TSGD it was a success-go me! I think I may even have missed my calling in life-tres impressed!
As you can see or remember from the first time I went turquoise, we left the ends pink (they've not been recoloured for months and months), an amazing purple colour appeared on the light pink sections (between the pink and turquoise) which was a fabulous surprise. That was probably the thing that faded first and I'm so glad to have it back again. The pink as you see (last image above) was still vibrant before recolouring (told you it really doesn't budge) and so I've not had to touch that. The turquoise (freshly done) is not all one tone, you'll find there's a gorgeous vibrant, metallic blue above my ear on either side and in some areas the turquoise is more bluey or more green and I like that. I actually generally like the colour it fades to which is a mint green (the colour I've always wanted straight out of the bottle but never found).
These last pics are my attempts at hiding it when it got really light and then the last two above show it before colouring. Although if this is the effect after 7 weeks, I'm pretty chuffed at that. I also had to cut it because my fringe was totally dodgy and my hair hasn't been sitting right for a couple of weeks because it's gotten so long (unfortunately that meant I've lost some of the pink). I've been using Manic Panic in Atomic Turquoise and my gut feeling is if you don't like the colour in the tub or it isn't the colour you want your hair to be, you're going to like the finished result! For example, AP is a dark, deep blood pink, it's dirty and not very inspiring in the bottle but comes out bright, vibrant pink. AT is exactly the same, it's a dull, dirty blue colour that I really dislike, yet it comes out like this. The lilac I used however (Manic Panic Mystic Heather) looked gorgeous in the tub, exactly how I wanted my hair to look and it lasted about a week before it just disappeared!
I used just over or maybe exactly half the tub the first time round and so just finished what was left this time. I didn't have any left to show you (need to order more) but as you can see on my head (above), it's a dull blue. I was only intending this to be a quick fix until Mum gets back and we bleach my roots and do it properly but actually the roots don't look so bad now and I'll probably get another couple of weeks out of it. Here's a somewhat out of focus image from today (below), really pleased with it!