Why I got rid of my teal hair

A few weeks ago I decided to dye my hair teal.  I used emerald something from Splat, and I really liked it, for a while.  

First, let’s talk about the bleaching process.  My hair is naturally really dark brown and I had been dyeing it various shades of dark red and purple.  I needed to bleach it for a long time to get those colors out.  The bleach got really thick half way through bleaching my hair, and I almost didn’t have enough to finish.  Even though my hair's really thick, it’s also really short, so I thought one container of bleach (and dye) would be fine-I’ve always had more than enough dye with just one box before.  So consider this fair warning if you’re going to use this and you have long hair, you probably want to get more than one box.  Also, if your hair doesn’t take bleach well it might not take all the color out.  I had some yellowish parts, some platinum blond parts, and some parts that were still brown, EVEN THOUGH I left it on for an hour.  I would recommend using a different type of bleach.  The last time I bleached my hair I used a box for platinum blond-that worked well and there was plenty of it.

The teal dye phase of this adventure was another story.  Teal dye dyes skin really easily, and my scalp was teal for longer than my hair was.  There was enough of it, but I had to apply it carefully.  So carefully, that I had my hair dressed neighbor do it for me.  The first day great.  The color was neat and interesting and everything I wanted it to be.  By that evening, I was worrying.  Apparently, you sweat teal if your hair is teal.  Thank goodness my hat was black.  After a week, the tips of my bangs and some other parts of my hair had already faded back to yellow-blond so I tried to stain it blond-red, it didn’t work, and now it’s Clary Fray orange.  Not exactly what I was after, but it is stable and I’m not sweating orange.    

When I started wanting to dye my hair neon colors I was eleven or twelve and my hair and clothes looked like everyone else’s.  I thought I could be different by having blue or pink hair.  I wanted to look different, be different, and establish myself as not normal and traditional.  But my hair was long or close to shoulder length at the time and it looked normal, as did my clothing.  My hair would have been the only rebelliously different thing about me.  This seemed out of sync with everything else and didn’t make the sort of strong statement I was after.  So I didn’t dye my hair weird colors then.    

Now I have short hair that isn’t like everyone else’s and I wear clothing that looks different; so dyeing my hair teal, even though it was fun for the week it lasted, didn’t make me feel like I was making the big statement that I thought neon hair would make when I was eleven.  It was just another change to my physical appearance.  What makes me different and unique is who I am when I write my poems and play guitar and fangirl about Fall Out Boy and the Raven Boys.