Fixin My Ombre

If you don't know this by now you probably should... I am madly deeply in love with... Halloween. In fact for two years in a row now I have cheated on my boyfriend with Halloween. The hours and hours that I pour into planning and executing costumes borders on "perhaps I should seek help". This year I was Iron Man (err... woman?). More on how I made my costume later. This post is about the torture my hair endured during my transformation.

I decided very last minute that my hair needed to be red. Looking back now I realize the inaccuracy of this decision  After all, Tony Spark has black hair. Regardless I purchased a can of what was supposed to be TEMPORARY hair color. BUYER BEWARE! Here is the product I purchased in red:

I sprayed it through my hair only to discover the next morning that it was not rinsing out! My hair was now an awful color with blotches of red and orange and pink. Yep it looked this bad:

At first I thought a clarifying shampoo would remove it. Nope! It just made my hair extra dry. After nearly a week I felt desperate. Although I did not want to have to bleach and dye my hair I didn't know what else to do. So, with a brave face I trotted off to CVS since the beauty store was closed. I purchased Splat's Bleach Kit.

Following the directions in the box I bleached the blonde part of my ombre. Here's the during picture:

In my arsenal of products under my vanity sink I already had 20 Volume Developer and Satin Hair Color in 8N - Light Blonde. So I mixed the hair color and developer and deposited onto my bleached hair. After 25 minutes I rinsed it out and began working on the brunette portion of my ombre.
While at CVS I also purchased a box of Revlon Color Silk in Deep Rich Brown. Again, following the directions in the box I mixed and deposited the color onto the the brunette portion of my hair and let it sit for 25 minutes. I was very careful to not let the color drip onto my newly colored blonde portion. If I had it to do over again I would have done the brunette before the blonde.

Alas, I was so relieved and happy when I dried and styled my hair and this was the result:

Moral: Don't ever spray color onto your bleached hair. Lesson learned. : )