DIY Adventure: Color/Ombre Hair - Lesson learned and What Not To do When Bleaching/Coloring Weave...

Sup Cuties!

How are you guys doing today? 

This DIYLady has a DIY to show you all today. 

This DIY was a sort of fail, but thanks to my tenacity, I was able to make it look a bit decent. 

Sooo..for starters, this "name" DIYLady didn't just happen overnight. It came by as a result of my trying to do EVERYTHING by and for myself. Hair, makeup, and whatever else you can think of. 

Well, I had been wearing my hair black for a while and I wanted CHANGE! As you guys know, I wear weaves sometimes, so I decided that before I take off the weave I had on, I could Change it  by making it a different color, and trying out an Ombre look. 

It didn't go as I wanted it to, and I will share the mistakes I made along the way with you guys in today's post. 

Please keep in mind that the lessons I learned/mistakes you should avoid are MY opinion and the coloring/ombre-ing was done on BEAUTY STORE BRAND WEAVE. NOT Brazillian, Peruvian, Whatever-ian Virgin hair. Lol

The hair on my head in this post is Milky Way - Yaky Weave in color 2. 

This post could also be beneficial to you if you are planning to dye your real hair. 

ANYHOO, here's a collage for you. Coloring happened... Ombre-ing, NOT so much. lol... 

Read on for more.. 

My adventure to DIY Color/Ombre Hair began from the Almighty YouTube. I watched a gazillion (I'm not really exaggerating) Videos before I attempted this.
All the videos sorta kinda had the same basics. For Dying black hair - You have to bleach out the dark color with a Bleach and Developer mixed together. Apply like hair relaxer... and depending on how much color you want, TIME is the factor. 

Sounded simple, so I went to my local Sally Beauty Store and bought A Bleaching powder and Developer.
The developers come in different strengths, the higher the number, the more color is lifted AWAY from the hair. I didn't want to lift too much for my first DIY, so I chose a developer in the number 30 - by Salon Care. 

The lady at Sally's told me this bleach works good, so I went with her choice. 

The Bleach was also by Salon Care. It says PrismLites on it

With everything laid out as seen above.. I got to work. Brushed out my hair. Since it was already sewn on my head, I had to do this on my head. 

I used a clean trash bag as a Cape so that the bleach and whatever I used wouldn't touch my skin/shirt. I still wore something I didn't care about ruining under the trash bag though - So I advice that you should wear a shirt you don't care about for this. The Plastic Bag really helped, so try it out. I just poked holes in it to make a neck and allow my hands to be free so I could do my hair. 

I brought out my phone to be used as a timer, wore my gloves, and I mixed the solution together. I mixed it to the consistency of a relaxer. Not too runny but not too thick. I didn't measure it. I poured the whole sachet of bleach, and added developer to get the consistency I wanted. 

Once I had that step done, I pretty much just used my hands (with gloves on) to apply the mixture to my hair. I started with the bottom, waited for 10 minute, and did the next layer. Then I also wanted some highlights so I applied the mixture to some strands of hair.

I then Wrapped the parts of my hair  that I was coloring with Foil Paper. 

Note: The Mixture smelt awful... Like strong bleach. I should probably have bough a facial mask for this. I had to do my nose like this A LOT while this whole DIY project was going on. 

 As you can see below. I used an old tooth brush for this... to transition between the "ombre", so that I don't have harsh straight lines. A tooth brush worked fine, since I used my hands for most of the work. This plastic spoon and bowl are my "mixing bowl" and NO I don't ever put them in the kitchen.
Timer was on my phone.

.....
Brace yourself for the next picture. After about 45 minutes, I decided it was time to wash my hair since I didn't want it BLONDE... Just transitioning to a light brown from the dark hair it was.

Well, This is Where everything went NORTH.. or is it SOUTH? Basically it went to a place of NO return.
I contemplated just taking out the weave, but the DIY LION in me ROARED and said, MAKE IT WORK!
My mom looked at my hair and was like, OH DEAR, it's over.. This didn't go well.

I was FURIOUS! And I went to bed after the hair got dry.

SO What happened you ask? 
Well, after I decided it was time to wash my hair, I did what everyone on youtube said I should do. Wash off the bleach, shampoo and deep condition your hair. 

I started off by rinsing off the bleach - did this twice. Hair looked fine.
Then I used my shampoo (the regular one I usually use), but for this step, I shampooed about 3 times because I wanted to wash off the chemical I just put on the weave you see...
Well... I probably shouldn't have done that. Because all I had after that step was RASTA hair.. I'm talking Tangled mess almost like unkept dreadlocks!

Look below... Oh don't be fooled by the side hair. The real damage was at the back..

Ha LOOK!!! The Ombre-ing DID happen, But The hair was tangled!!! What a mess you say? I said to myself, Fear not. Deep condition it, It should be fine. Well After conditioning, the hair still wouldn't Untangle, so I just blow drirf it so I could sleep, since I did this late at night.

The next day, I wore the same outfit I didn't care about ruining, looked at the hair again.. tried to brush it, and that didn't happen.

NOTE: I also went to the beauty store to buy some Detangler, and yada yada yada... NOTHING WORKED.
At this point, I told myself, I'll try and save this hair, and if the result is horrible, I'll just take the hair down and uhmm still have a post on the blog telling people NOT TO OVER SHAMPOO When they bleach, color their hair.

Alright, I brought out my razor, and just started cutting through the dreadlocks. A major advantage of using weave for DIY trials. Lol.. I would have CRIED if this was my real hair.
I was still furious though.. (Those following me on instagram might remember my sad face video after getting done with this very hectic process of reviving this hair).

After all was done, Cutting through the dreads, combing, and brushing, and yanking and pulling,. I was left with What you see below.

THIN hair, and Colored/slightly ombre hair.  My hair was left thin and No longer 18 inches.
The color shows more in plenty lighting.

Just in case you think I'm joking about losing so much hair.. LOOK BELOW!!! 

*sighs*.. Not every DIY goes as planned as you can see.

The Biggest Lesson I learned while bleaching/coloring my weave was that I shouldn't have shampooed it as much as I did. Or maybe I should have used a shampoo that was specifically for coloring hair.
I was told by a hair stylist that when one bleaches/colors hair, they shouldn't shampoo for a week because the bleach strips the hair of it's moisture and leaves it DRY. She said that next time I Bleach my hair, I should just rinse out the bleach and deep condition it. LESSON LEARNED!!!

As I stated before, the hair I used for this is beauty store hair. It says 100% human hair on it, but IS IT REALLY? lol...
I'm happy it colored, and I'm glad it was redeemable, but MY GOODNESS the process was NOT FUN!!
After shampooing, I nearly started crying with the tangled mess I was left with.

But looking on the bright side, I still had enough hair left on my head as you can see below.

Well, That's it for my adventures in DIY Color/Ombre Land. :-)

I hope you've learned a thing or two from me, and I say, GO FORTH AND COLOR!
Till Later, God Bless.