Purple Hair - Ion Color Brilliance

I've been dying my hair black, and adding small bits of purple to it on and off for years now. But my dream hair has always been all-purple/violet.

I honestly just feel like its the most aesthetically pleasing hair color. I just love the way it looks. I truly wish it wasn't a 'weird' color because I seriously don't like the attention it brings (and how hard the upkeep dying is!) I just wish it was a mainstream accepted hair color so I wouldn't worry about having it at work, or having people look at me because of it, or judge me.

Here's some random images of what my dream hair would look like: (sorry I didn't save sources or credit)

Definitely click to make it larger for more detail!

Even though these images are my favorite hair, I probably won't ever have it this bright/light. So my goal isn't really those exact colors- just any kind of purple hair dye (that will not turn pink) that lasts is my personal goal right now.

Special Effects Deep Purple
The dye I've used the most is Special Effects Deep Purple. I like the color it gives, but its horrendous at staining everything. It will stain your skin, scalp, anywhere it touches and it will take days and multiple scrubbings to get it out. I resort to using not-good-for-you cleaning bleach to rub off dye that gets on my face... terrible idea, but thats just how strong the stains are. Soap and even "dye removers" will not get it out.

Its also horrible to your shower and you must clean it with bleach as soon as you get out. AND you need to be careful your wet hair doesn't drip onto clothing/bedding/carpet or it will stain.

So the color and staying power in my hair is wonderful, I'm just too tired of the staining. It will keep bleeding even weeks after dying, the water will basically never run clear. Even when its dry, and you rub your hair- your fingers will be purple.

Manic Panic, Raw, & Splat
These I'm just lumping into one category because they give me unsatisfactory results too. The biggest issue is that my natural hair color will NOT take purple dye. I must bleach it. The above brands, even their most dark purple-- ends up light & almost pink on my bleached to blonde hair. I just don't like the colors. Especially Splat. It came out a terrible pink I was not expecting. Raw & manic panic also have a hard time holding onto my hair..

Ion Color Brilliance Brights Purple
I may have found MY purple finally! I like this most of all because it does not stain anything but hair! So amazing! My scalp is free of dye, and even little bits that were on my face easily washed off. My hands are not stained after the shower the way they always are with Special Effects and the shower wasnt that stained!

AND I love the color! In my opinion, its more of a blue/silver/gray base than other purples. I'm sure I'm not explaining it right - but basically I can see that when it fades, it will probably fade into a gray-violet rather than a bright pink.

Here was my hair dye adventure this weekend.
Before image; my hair is a combination of Splat fail, and Special Effects Deep Purple and after image is boxed-drugstore-bleach. I must bleach my roots for it to hold my hair, and I decided to bleach the rest of it so new-purple would have a lighter base.

Then I used Ion Color Brilliance Brights Purple - that can be bought at Sally's Beauty Supply. You can find it on their website too.

A couple things that I did to make SURE my experience was a good one: I put a cap on and blow dried it with heat. I kept it on for a few hours and randomly would heat it every so often. To wash, I did not shampoo my hair after. Shampooing may clean your dye out too much, I only rinsed for a very long time in cool water. I HATE cold showers, but I tried my damnest to keep it as cool as I could stand.
I then used "Ion Color Defense - After Color Sealer," counted to 120 (my way of figuring two minutes).

To finish, I took a deep breath, leaned my body away from the shower as much as possible and rinsed in ice cold water. They say this "seals" in your color, and you should do this at the end of your shower.

The photos are really hard to do, the lighting is just bad in my home. But to me, in person, I am very satisfied with the color and the non-staining skin/bathroom of this dye and I plan to keep buying this and eventually doing my whole head!

 

So as you can see, this isn't the color of my "dream" hair, but for now I do truly like it just because the dye is easy to work with and its not too pink. I work in a corporate office environment, and I think this purple is better for me than the bright purples I put in my collage.

Can't wait till my black grows out more and I use this dye again!