Dip Dying Your Hair at Home

Just dip dyed my hair for the second time in a year. I love it because you can go as subtle or crazy as you want to. Some people don't even notice it but it looks awesome down, in a pony tail, or in a messy bun. I thought I'd share my process since I get a lot of people asking me about it.

You'll need:

Box of dye (this should include gloves to prevent your hands from getting stained)
Some of those small clear rubber bands, since you'll braid your hair first
Tin foil, to wrap your hair in so you can move around during the time it takes the dye to take effect
Old, crappy shirt or towel to protect your body from the dye

Optional: a friend, family member, fiance, husband, wife, willing neighbor, etc. to help you wrap the tin foil around your colored hair, when the time comes.

The process:

I have dark hair: not black, but medium brown. I didn't want to have to strip or bleach  it so I went looking specifically for a dye that was meant to work on dark hair. At Target I found Garnier Nutrisse Ultra Color (I bought the "Ultra Intense Red for Darker Hair"). The box describes the color as, "Ultra vibrant, ultra intense red"...sounds fun, right?!

 

The dye. Use any color you want, though!

I divide my hair into four, approximately even sections. You may need to make more or less braids, depending on how thick your hair is. You only need them to be approximately even because the final product will look better and more "ombre" if you're not too concerned with making everything too perfect.

Braid each of these sections. I finished the braids about three inches from the bottom of my hair because I only wanted the tips to be dyed. You can go as far down as you want, or leave more space so that you'll color more of your hair. NOTE: I did try to make each of the braids end at the same point in the braid, because I didn't want the dye on the front left of my hair way lower than my back right.

Half of the braids. Each of them are finished with the clear little rubber bands.

Rip up the tin foil so that it is long and wide enough to be able to wrap around the hair that is below your rubber bands. I like those little clear rubber bands because you can just throw them away after you're done and they wont leave a huge band if you accidentally get some of the dye smeared above them.

Put your gloves on and mix up the dye according to the box.

Slather the dye all over your first tip, below the rubber bands. Make sure you really get it into the little pony tail at the end of your braid. You want everything that you're intending to dye to be wet. Don't worry about putting too much on because you want saturated color.

You'll need more dye per tip than this! This was just to start with.

Have your assistant wrap the tin foil around the dyed tip and squeeze it closed so that it won't fall off.

Ta-Da!

Repeat the last two steps for all your braids.

Wait for the time recommended by your box.

Remove the tin foil and follow all the remaining box-of-dye-steps. I always follow the steps, then jump in the shower. If you're using red dye your shower will look like you just murdered somebody because there will be drips of red everywhere, so make sure to wash it off the walls/shampoo bottles before it dries on. You'll probably want to use another crappy towel to dry your hair for a few shampoos after you dye your hair, too, by the way.

Fresh out of the shower.

That hair band was always that color to start with--don't worry!

I didn't even use a color-safe shampoo or conditioner when I did mine last time and it lasted for MONTHS. I eventually got the color cut out; it's a really good dye and still looks good, even faded.

About two months later, without using color-safe shampoo/conditioner.

Enjoy your new hair color! I like wearing red shirts with mine because it looks like my hair is sucking up the color from the shirt ;)