Metallic Hair Color

Rainbow Metallic 
Hair

Happy Saturday night, tonight I wanted to share my new hair color. Anyone that has followed my blog or my social media over the years knows I'm a fan of dying my hair. I have always loved to have unique hair colors and always played with dyes. When I was a teen being blonde made it easy to change my hair color, I use to use kool aid, markers and store dyes to color my hair. I always loved to have fun colors and funky streaks in my hair. As I have gotten older it hasn't really changed much. I have had a few jobs where I was not able to color my hair as dramatically as I like to, during those times I would color it more natural tones or colors but with sliced in chunky high and low lights or coloring the entire underneath. I have also done the tips or ombre style looks too. 

Luckily for me dying your hair fun colors has become a trend and over the last 8 years many amazing color and hair care lines have come out with some amazing dyes for the hair. I use to use the store dyes like manic panic and it would fade so quickly. For a couple of years while working as a bartender I had an amazing stylist who didn't have experience with the brighter fun dyes but was willing to experiment with me, at the time my hair was white blonde and black. I had gone platinum and didn't like having my hair all one color so I started adding lowlights to give it some contrast. I started with a brown almost caramel color then before long had red and then a darker brown which led to the black and blonde. I dyed the entire underneath black and had the top sliced in chunks of black and blonde. While attending a hair show my stylist came across a new line of dye by Paul Mitchell I believe it was called Inked. Not sure it was over ten years ago, but it was the first line outside of the manic panic lines that had some fun bright colors. 

When she returned from the hair show I added a layer of purple between the black and blonde then a few smaller steaks of purple into my top section. I was hooked. Since then the only times  I have had my hair one color is while I was pregnant and when I was working for the school as a kindergarten aid and substitute. Even during those times I had clip in extensions in different colors and I would dye my hair with the manic panic and another brand of dye I would buy at Hot Topic because the colors would wash out after a few shampoos, on long weekends and holiday breaks I would dye the underneath or some small pieces for fun. 

Over the last 8 years I have pretty much had my hair primarily blonde with an ombre or underneath dyed a fun color. I have experimented with many colors and became a huge fan of hair stylist Guy Tang. I follow him on Instagram and YouTube watching his amazing videos, admiring his stunning colors and techniques. To me he is a hair color genius. He takes dying hair to another level and is a true color artist in my eyes. It has been a long time dream of mine to have him one day color my hair but for now I have spent several years looking for amazing stylists locally. While working making cakes, doing event and party planing and interior design I met one stylist that worked with Pravana dye, for a few years I had her color my hair and she did some amazing work. I was always hesitant to color my entire head because being blonde I have tried other colors over the years and always regretted it then would want to go back to blonde which isn't easy and is very damaging to the hair if done to soon after going dark. I have had to cut my hair many times due to damaging my hair from stripping so I decided to keep my blonde roots only coloring the underneath and ends like I did as a teen and in my early twenties. 

Recently I decided it was time to take the plunge, it is a huge commitment going for the entire head, a lot of up keep but I really was ready. I finally found colors I loved and they are lighter so it would not require going darker which is what I always seemed to not like. I was born blonde and it looks best on my skin tone versus darker colors. I have found some darker Browns and reds that look good in my skin tone but colors fade quickly within weeks of dying the pigment that made the clot look good would fade leaving me with just brown or gold hair. 

Sadly I had made the decision after having blue hair that was stubborn and we couldn't seem to remove, I ended up having to go almost orange to cancel out the blue. Luckily the color looked good in me and I was able to pull off the orange look with some rose tones thrown in giving it a rose gold and blonde look but I wanted to do something I had not done in a long time and that was red. Right around the holidays I had a new stylist who was coloring my hair at her home dye my hair a deep red almost burgundy underneath with an ombre melt effect. The top was my blonde roots then melting into a pink, red then dark violet based red to look burgundy. The red and burgundy was gorgeous but it bled into my blonde and I had fifty shades of pink. Pink isn't one of my favorite colors and within a few weeks I had to have her remove pink tones which reminded me why I didn't like the red family. I decided after the new year my goal would be to lighten my hair little by little trying to keep my long length. I didn't want to over strip and bleach my ends since they had been dyed and bleached so many times over the years. I have strong hair and it had really surprised me how strong it was, it took a lot of the passed ten years and really was still pretty healthy for all the coloring I had done to that particular area of my hair. 

In January I began the process. Sadly my hair was so dark it took many appointments to get the underneath red burgundy color to turn pink. Once it was a bright pink I decided I could live with some pastel colors and really wanted to start the metallics. Guy Tang has a couple of color lines one with Pravana and one with Kenra, the metallics have been a favorite of mine for over two years when the grey first started popping up  and I had been really considering it but once I saw the silver I was in love. 

In order to have silver hair you have to have white hair to start. It can't have any yellow or gold tones it has to be white. Being a natural blonde I have a lot of gold tones in my hair then living in Florida the sun brings out those gold tones even more. Once my underneath was pink I decided to take the plunge and have my new stylist bleach my hair all over. Sadly she didn't use proper products and my hair didn't turn white. I suggested using a violet or purple based toner before dying it because I knew from watching videos and reading about the process of dying hair silver that any hair that was not as white as you could get it wouldn't take the colors. She believed it would take and only be darker in some areas so I let her dye my hair. All I can say is I ended up with silver streaks and gold with pastel pink tips. I will say the pastel link was pretty and then the areas that the silver took looked gorgeous but it was a mess otherwise. Mixing metals is one thing when it comes to accessorizing but when you are coloring your hair I don't recommend it. I left totally crushed along with feeling bad because I am such a nice person I didn't have the heart to tell her I hated it. My husband made me text her to explain I didn't like it. I felt horrible she had become a friend and we had spent hours together over the six to eight months she had been coloring my hair prior to this. Unfortunately she had messed up and had a hard time doing my hair more then this once but I let the other times slide because she charged way less then my previous lady and she was eager to learn. I just had to stop, you get what you pay for and I didn't want to teach someone who should know more then me and at the same time I didn't want to end up bald. I had to cut my loses and find someone new. 

Finding a good stylist is so hard and now I had a mess which would not only require someone with a lot of talent but someone willing to fix and risk working with damaged hair. I highly recommend with bleaching and dying your hair these types of colors to do a lot of research on the stylist you use also be ready to spend some money. It takes a lot of time, the products they will use are expensive and usually they work in high end salons. If someone is going to dye your hair for 100-200 I would want to see photos of their work and find out the brand of dye, and bleach they use, if they are familiar with toner, also do they use Olaplex and other conditioning treatments during the process. Olaplex is a life saver and I wouldn't allow anyone to touch my hair that doesn't use during the process of bleaching and coloring the hair.  My stylist uses an amazing product line by Kerastase.  The treatment she has used in my hair for repairing is called the Fusio Dose and it is amazing.  

Luckily I had a consultation with someone else who referred me to the my new stylist that is coloring my hair. He is an amazing stylist and color specialist but he does a lot of the popular Balayage style color, this is when they don't use foils but paint the bleach or color on the hair using a brush and paddle style board. This makes your hair have a grown out more natural look with less maintenance then regular foil style highlights or to the scalp dyes. This style of coloring and technique is not new, it has been around for a long time but it has slowly crept it's way back into style after ombre became a trend several years ago. He recommended me to the lady that is now my new stylist and I love her, she was willing to take on the task of repairing my color for me, and I was shocked when she told me she would be able to give me the pastel metallic silver and purple color I wanted to start. She was willing to work with me and told me she would be able to keep the health and integrity of my hair. Sadly my hair underneath had broken from all the prior bleaching and was mess. She cut it for me when she was done color correcting and in the end due to my crazy idea to go dark red and within less then 30 days change my mind making the choice to go into the silver metallic and pastel colors, I lost almost 10 inches of length underneath. My hair is to my neck bone on my back or maybe a little longer underneath now. I did manage to keep some length on the top layer and my new stylist did an amazing cut that camouflages the loss of hair. I was so blessed to have found her and feel like she is a God send. 

This all happened the week I was leaving for our family spring break road trip and had a huge event for my job so I didn't want to look a mess. My hair is something I am known for in my work field and I was embarrassed to show up with bad color. She was able to fix it and helped repair it drastically with an amazing cut and using Kerastase Fusio Dose treatment that her salon carries along with Olaplex. If you didn't live with me or weren't one of my closest friends you wouldn't ever know the bad experience I went through that week. My hair looked amazing and it was one of my favorite colors.

Being a creative person I already had my next color ready by the time I returned from vacation. Luckily it is in the metallic family and doesn't require bleaching and changing my hair much. Also the lighter tones fade really fast so I was able to send her photos of my inspiration then she let me know what was doable. I went yesterday and after many hours and lots of bowls of yummy Kenra Metallics I now have the color I have wanted. It was the photos that inspired me to go silver and purple to begin with. I cannot even begin to tell you how gorgeous the colors are. She lifted some of the purple using color remover, I have decided to leave my roots for now since I will have to tone my hair often since the silver will fade quick. Having roots doesn't bother me and eventually will just have a darker grey root. For now it's just darker against the silver looking almost dark grey in photos but really it's my natural color, she did add a darker silver tone with some violet booster but it didn't really take to my natural color, my roots have a violet blonde tone but I think using my purple conditioner and silver based shampoo it will just tone it more grayish. 

Enough babble about colors and old dye jobs let's show some photos. I have had a hard time capturing the colors because it is so hard to really get the colors in photos. For one my hair has three colors in it plus some of the colors will bleed or blend when the hair is all parted or laying a certain way so you really get so many tones, contrast and dimension. To me and I really am an admirer of hair color, I think it is just stunning. You can part it, flip it and style it so many ways and it will look different. The more you play with my hair and move it around the more you see the many colors and all the yummy metallic goodness in it. The top layer is silver grey, the rest is all sliced in perfectly with metallic silver, violet and rose pink. When the silver and violet meet together it looks blue. Let's post some photos finally. 

Here is a shot in horrible lighting, I hate finishing my color so late at night because the sun is gone and I have to wait for the next day to really capture the colors. This photo is with my hair parted to my left side so you see more pink. When it is parted down the middle you see mostly silver with some of the colors peaking through and visible on the ends. Parted to the sides you then see more of the pink and violet colors. 

Here is a shot when I ran my hands through the hair and flipped it around letting it fall so you can see the pink and violet colors primarily. 

Excuse my unmade bed my daughter was asleep in my bed when I got home since it was after nine. Here is a shot with my head tilted at an angle showing more pink with the violet and in good lighting you can also see the blue shades. The blue is again from the grey silver tones meshing with the violet shade. 

One last bad lighting shot but wanted to show my length, the cut, how healthy my hair has managed to stay and trust me it really could be way shorter and fried but luckily Olaplex and Keratesse has made it soft and healthy looking. I won't lie I have breakage and fly always but nothing like I could or should have from all it has been exposed to. 

The photo on the left is my original inspiration photo I sent my stylist by Guy Tang from his IG page. I had ten to fifteen pictures I had sent her and I had saved in my iPhone as far back as last summer but this one he had posted this week. I really wanted something like this or just the metallic silver, violet and some pink. It is amazing how close she got it. I have to say she pretty much nailed it and if you dye your hair these colors you would know that you never really know what the end result will be. You pretty much go for it and hope the colors will taken turning out with the end result being close to what you wanted so imagine my surprise or I will be honest here, my excitement when she finished my blow dry and I saw my hair looked almost identical to the photo. In all my years of using an inspiration photo only one other time was it exact. It is hard because the colors don't always look exact and then sometimes depending on the way the colors or sliced in or placed it will give it a slightly different look. I couldn't be happier with the results and it's just an overall fun color. Braided it looks like art, half up or all up is beautiful, side parted and parted down the middle looks totally different so I have many different looks with this color. 

Both this photo and the one above are photos my amazing stylist posted on her Instagram page. She really did capture the colors good for being indoors, way better then I was able to capture with the photos above at home. 

I was at the beach all day today and I had a hard time capturing good pics but once I was home I took a moment to apply a little makeup so I could capture a few decent shots with the remaining daylight. My hair got pretty wind blown at the beach so it is a little messy here but I really love how the color looks. I got a lot of compliments at the beach along with people stopping to look, snap photos and some even wanting to touch it. 

I will continue to add more photos here and to my social media as I take them. This one was taken on my patio which is covered so I did have to adjust the light and brightness some so you don't get to see the true colors completely but it does show some of the blue and silver in the portion of my hair. 

I know I am in love with the color.  Whenever I am in the bathroom or in front of a mirror I spend time flipping it and moving it around to see all the pretty colors and tones. I have to say that geniuses like Guy Tang and of course my talented stylist Chrissy make hair color look like art. I'm so pleased with the final outcome and most likely will be keeping this color for a long time. I can't guarantee because I am always inspired by photos I see online and in magazines so I can't say I won't see something else soon and want to try it but for now I am concentrating on getting my hair healthy again as well as growing it back. I will be staying lighter for sometime and any changes I make will be in the metallic or pastel family. 

I always love to see other colors and hear about other amazing stylists or good IG feeds with inspiring hair color photos. Feel free to message me or email me or links. I also am always open to trying new hair care products to review here on my blog. I have worked with Hot Heads, Pravana, Olaplex, Revlon, Wet Brush, and other products. Some items I buy myself or get samples from my beauty supply store then review and other items have been sent to me for use to review. I am always honest about all products and will not promote something I don't stand by. If an item is sent to me doesn't mean I will endorse it or love it. One product I have review coming up on was sent to me from Grace & Stella Co. I received the Moroccan Argan mask then used it in my daughter's hair first then my hair. It worked so good I decided to post it and will be doing a detailed review with information for everyone interested soon. If you have a product whether its hair care, styling products, tools or even hair accessories I would love to try them or style them into my daily outfits to post then share. I am always looking for hair care products for my hair and my two daughters. Also I am currently interested in hair styling tools for curling and smoothing hair, also hair accessories from clips, headbands and other pieces I can wear with my daily outfits to work, I would love to have some fun stuff for summer to post here and on social media. Feel free to email me or message me here. 

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed my hair color pictures. You can find more photos of my previous colors over the years here and I have a hashtag on Instagram #melissashaircolor and then somehow I forgot which tag I was using so have also used #melissashaircolors and #melissahaircolor. I also share my hair color photos on Pinterest. 

Have a fabulous and relaxing weekend.

XoXo 

Links for products or items mentioned in above post:

Kenra hair care and color:  Kenra Professional Products

Olaplex: Olaplex

Kerastase: Kerastase USA