The pursuit of purple: Loosened curls and a shaved head

I LOVE PLAYING WITH COLOUR!!!!! I've always used my hair as a form of expression, even more so when I started colouring my hair while in university. I'd go from deep browns, to copper, to reds and burgundy and everything in between. Due to joining the working world, I put the colour itch on hold, until I relaxed my hair back in 2010 and didn't like my natural brown hair straight so I'd dye it black. 

My love for colour!!!

Within the past year, eccentric hair colours became trendy. I'd see pinks, purples, blue and even green hair being worn and I was fascinated. With the aid of one of my hairdressers I bleached out my entire head and proceeded to use a not so popular purple colour I found in a variety store (I honestly can't remember the name of it lol). By the time we were done, I was disappointed, the colour was wayyyy too dark and with that went my hopes of having purple hair. I decided to make the best of it. I would eventually try a variety of semi permanent colours in my hair with reckless abandon (I wasn't working at the time, so no worries)...

Failed purple attempt

As a new job prospect came to light, I decided to darken my hair using a permanent dye. This was sometime in May. A few months passed and I noticed my hair lightened up so sometime in August I darkened it with a permanent dye again. I wore senegalese twists for almost 6 weeks and when I took those out early October I realised the colour didn't fade this time, but I was itching to try the purple again. So on October 15th (the night before my birthday) my hairdresser and I took the task of lightening my hair again to put in another purple, this time Purple Rage from the Adore line of semi permanent colour. Because of work, I decided to only lighten the ends of my hair. The process took forever, and my hair turned green due to the permanent colour that was still present in my hair, but after what I think was an hour of having the mix in my hair it finally lightened enough to put the purple in. 

Yup...my green hair, notice the difference in my 
texture, we left the bleach in longgg

I will admit I did notice a change in my texture when we was the bleach out but I didn't think too much of it as I was more obsessing about getting my purple. We put the purple in, put me under some heat, rinsed my hair out, then she flat twist it for me to wear a flat twist out for my birthday dinner.

Birthday night!!!! Heading to dinner

My hair looked awesome for my birthday. At that point I didn't really see any major changes to my curl pattern as I did when we first bleached it, but it wasn't until I washed my hair a few days later that I really noticed the change. My coloured hair looked more 3b/c than 4a (my hair for the most part is 4a with some 4b/c in between). And to my horror, the hair at the nape of my neck was almost bone straight. When I washed my hair, it felt as though I was transitioning from a relaxer again...one texture at the roots, another at the end. It wasn't hard to come to the conclusion that leaving in the bleaching mix too long caused the change. A few days I took a pair of scissors and cut about an inch of my hair in some places.

A better look at the purple. The twist out helped to hide
the difference in texture. The colour really is beautiful. 

Fast forward to October 26th. I was on my way home from my boyfriend's when I decided to call one of my other hairdressers (yes, I have different hairdressers for different needs lol) to find out about a tapered cut and if her barber guy could hook me up. We had spoken about it a few days before but I chickened out lol. This time I was determined to do it. The barber, who had a loooongggg line of folks waiting, was very accommodating to squeeze me in, he took off all the hair in the back and on the sides, and then my hairdresser finished off my trimming some of the hair on top. I will not lie, seeing my hair fall to the ground freaked me out BIG TIME, but then I started thinking about why I was doing it. I believe in healthy hair more than anything. I had managed up to this point to have healthy coloured hair, but my pursuit of this purple made me jeopardise the health and texture of my hair. So in a way, I decided to start over....again lol. I learnt a few things in the midst of all this:

1. I really do love to experiment with colour

2. Because of this love of experimenting, using permanent dyes in my hair is a NO NO

3. It's just hair, it will grow back.

loving my new do

I haven't decided how long I plan to keep this cut, but what I do know is that when I do let my hair grow back out, I will gradually cut the rest of my hair till all of it is even. Who knows, I may just colour again, well actually I'm sure I will colour again, but for now, I will give the crazy colours (and the not so crazy colours) a rest and I will try to enjoy my dark brown. If you're thinking that I hate my hair colour, that is so not the case. I just like to be different sometimes.

In the end. It was a learning experience. I learnt the limits to which I can push my hair. Some people argue that when you colour using anything besides henna you're no longer natural. Others say that once the texture of your hair isn't affected then you're still natural. I see the validity in both sides of the debate and at this point considering what's going on with my hair (or lack thereof lol) I fall within the grey area of both schools of thought. What's your take on hair colour? Do you/have you coloured your hair? I'd love to hear your stories, good bad and in between. Some may consider this a setback in my hair journey, but I don't. I never had a length goal and I still don't. I simply turned the page and started a new chapter in my natural hair story.

Regards,

Tshenelle aka Nelly B.