My personal blog as a 'grown-up' Goth and Romantic living in the Highlands of Scotland. I write about the places I go, the things I see and my thoughts on life as a Goth and the subculture, and things in the broader realm of the Gothic and darkly Romantic. Sometimes I write about music I like and sometimes I review things. This blog often includes architectural photography, graveyards and other images from the darker side of life.

Goth is not just about imitating each other, it is a creative movement and subculture that grew out of post-punk and is based on seeing beauty in the dark places of the world, the expression of that in Goth rock. It looks back to the various ways throughout history in which people have confronted and explored the macabre, the dark and the taboo, and as such I'm going to post about more than the just the standards of the subculture (Siouxsie, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, et al) and look at things by people who might not consider themselves anything to do with the subculture, but have eyes for the dark places. The Gothic should not be limited by what is already within it; inspiration comes from all places, the key is to look with open eyes, listen carefully and think with an open mind..

Sunday 27 September 2015

Half A Spectrum In My Hair

My hair is currently a bit more faded than this. The purple, which ended up being neon pink over blue as the purple dye washed out with the first wash, washed out even after being pinked, and is now a royal blue. The hair at the top ended up less neon green, and more citrus yellow. I used several different dyes, mostly Stargazer, but also a Directions dye. For the greens I used Stargazer African Green and then Stargazer UV Green for another coat over that once the African Green faded. For the turquoise I used Stargazer Tropical Green and then Stargazer UV Turquoise over it.  For the blue I used Directions Lagoon Blue and Stargazer Royal Blue. The purple at the base started off as Stargazer Plume, but was then colored over with Stargazer Magenta because it faded to blue. I had to bleach my hair twice to get it pale enough, and to get enough of the existing turquoise/verdigris dye out. The UV Green washes out really quickly, and the African Green is more permanent. I find it really hard to get any purples to stay in my hair. 

Multiclour Hair. Selfies by HouseCat

This is a very, VERY, high-maintenance thing to have done to my hair. Because of how vividly bright and light the top is, my nearly-black regrowth shows very rapidly, and the colours all wash out and muddy together. I will have to re-do all the roots at some point, and touch up all the colours, but will need to get someone to help me separate my hair where I separated the first time around, so that the colours are all over wherever I had the same colour the last time. The purple just will not stay purple! Whenever it has been freshly touched up, and when I did it originally, the colours were stunning, but it is rather hard to keep it like that. I have also bleached my hair too many times, and will need to get all the hair at the ends trimmed out where it is fried.

It was also incredibly time consuming to do. It took two goes with bleach at its longest allowable leave-in time to get my hair pale. It then took a while per colour, with each colour separated with lots of clingfilm during the curing time, and then I had to wash it all out, and then touch it all up the next day during proper daylight because I'd missed bits trying to colour it in the poor artificial light of the bathroom. I think it was approximately a day's work, just to have multicolour hair.

I did it for my friend's wedding, and I am very happy with how it looked that day. I then re-did it for the start of university, and I think knowing my hair was looking awesome really boosted my confidence on my first day. As such, it was worth it.

Will I do it again?

Maybe, maybe not. It is a LOT of work! I may just try and maintain what I have until it gets unsustainable, and then start again with a more simple variation, with fewer colours, less of a gradient. I am also thinking of having my fringe reinstated, so that will probably alter what I want to do with my hair. But for now, I will enjoy the fruits of my labours. I did gradient hair with three shades of green once before, ranging from lime green through to emerald green. That was a bit less time consuming; maybe next time I will only pick three colours.

Pictures are selfies, and I tweaked the contrast and such a wee bit (mostly to make them all consistent), then made a collage of them, in ::PicMonkey::, which is free to use, although you have to subscribe to the paid-for Royale version for stuff like better bat clip-art. 

4 comments:

  1. It looks absolutely amazing! I know what you mean about sustainability, I have found in the past that some colours last longer than others and I definitely would be more likely to go iwth those again! And more than one colour is very ambitious, and I imagine extremely time consuming!

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    1. Green has been one of my favourites for a while because it lasts really well. Once it's in, it is really hard to get out again, and stays mostly turquoise for a very long time. I prefer it when it is a brighter, more vivid green, but the turquoise is pretty good.

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