The summer after I graduated from college (wow, it’s been five years now) I did this style for the first time.  After letting the color fade, I dyed all my hair a plain, boring brown, because I needed to find a job.  I’ve missed this look ever since.

Having finally gotten approval from my boss to add the color back, I had to wait for my hair to reach a reasonable length.  It’s been a maddening wait, but I felt like I finally had enough to work with this month.  I picked up a bleach kit and a jar of Atomic Turquoise from Manic Panic, and got to work.

The first step was to wash my hair and leave it naked for a couple days.  I washed it on Tuesday and then browsed galleries of hair color for the next two days because I was just too excited for words.  Thursday, as soon as I got home from work, I claimed the bathroom.  I pinned up all the hair from the top of my ears up and placed them in a shower cap.  From the top of the ears down, I combed down for the bleach.  I’m not sure how long I left the bleach in, because it started working immediately.  I covered my whole head with the plastic cap from the bleach kit and waited for it to get to the “pale lemon” stage.  Parts of it weren’t getting that pale, but they didn’t seem to be making any more progress with time, and I didn’t want to stress out the hair that was already surpassing that point, so I washed out the bleach.

After blowdrying with the top section of hair still pinned up, I pulled out my jar of dye and brushed the color in.  I was instantly giddy when the dye coated my hair.  It’s one of my favorite colors.  I covered up and waited for 30 minutes to pass, then marveled at how the texture of my hair had improved with the dye after feeling so dried out from the bleach.

Not finished yet, I wanted to color over my grey hair, so I dried the underlayer, then braided strands and wrapped them in foil to keep it protected from the dark brown dye on top.  I did the top last, because bleaching dark dyed hair will just make it orange, and I didn’t want any surprise patches afterward.

You can still see where the grey hair is, but it mostly just looks like highlights.  I’m just all kinds of happy about my hair.  After rinsing out the brown dye, I uncovered all the hair and used the conditioner from the kit for all of it.  I love how my hair feels after a dye, so I wasn’t going to miss out on super soft turquoise.  Also, have you seen how wavy my hair is?  The picture below is just immediately afterward, and I’ve done nothing but blowdry my hair.  *throws curling iron in the trash*