DIY Rainbow Hair Tutorial

Vela Velazquez, a trans community organizer last seen modeling at our All at Once fashion show, returns with a rainbow hair tutorial that will definitely help your friends find you in a crowd this pride. Read on for their step-by-step instructions on how to get this brilliant rainbow hair.

MATERIALS

• Bleach and developer if you have darker hair
• Bleach/dye applicator brush (Optional)
• Gloves
• Semi-permanent hair dyes (I personally use Arctic Fox and/or Manic Panic – both are vegan)
• Petroleum jelly/lotion (Optional)
• Hair clips (Optional)

STEPS

1. I naturally have black hair, so my step 1 is bleaching it until it’s at least gold/yellow-gold. Follow the instructions that your brand of bleach/developer tells you to follow. 

• I usually use either 20 vol or 30 vol developer depending on what I have access to and whether my hair was already bleached before (lower volume for lighter/previously bleached hair). 

• I prefer to wait a few days after washing my hair to bleach it so the natural oils in my hair and scalp can minimize some of the damage.

• I also recommend that you look into how your hair texture and color should be bleached (the volume of developer you use and the amount of time you leave it in will vary). Bleaching your hair might also change its texture a bit, so you should prioritize good hair care after you bleach it. If you are planning to dye your hair on the same day that you’re bleaching it, wash out the bleach with shampoo, but don’t condition it yet. If you’re planning to wait a few days to dye it, condition it after washing out the bleach.

• If you naturally have light colored hair, you can obviously skip this step.

2. Optional step: carefully put some lotion/petroleum jelly on your skin on the areas that you don’t want to get dyed (ears, forehead, back of your neck) to make it easier to wash off the dye. Be careful to not get lotion or petroleum jelly on your hair, the dye won’t stick as well if you do. 

• I think Arctic Fox and Manic Panic dyes wash off of skin pretty easily, and if I’m careful, it doesn’t really stain, but this is an option. If it does stain, you can use a bit of rubbing alcohol to get it off.

3. Make sure your hair is brushed out and as tangle free as possible to make these next steps a bit easier.

4. Gather your hair dyes and decide what order you want your rainbow to be in.

• I really recommend thinking about where you want to place your colors before starting. In my experience, purple is one of the first colors to wash out because it’s being applied on top of its complementary color (yellow). I applied the purple towards the front of my face, but I prefer to use warmer water to wash my face causing the purple to fade faster than usual. 

5. Liberally apply your dyes to your hair. You’ll want to make sure every strand is covered. I like to use gloves and manually apply the dye with my hands because it makes it easier for me to separate hair clumps and get full coverage, but you can use an applicator brush if you’d like. 

• If you're dying it on a different day than you bleached it, make sure your hair is clean, but not conditioned. I prefer my hair to be dry for this as well.

• If you really want to make sure the colors don’t blend together, you can do a few things. You can section off your hair and use clips to keep everything separate, which I don’t usually do because it requires a bit more work. You can also start working from lighter colors (like yellow) to darker colors (like orange or red), waiting a bit before moving on to darker colors to make sure the lighter colors have had some time to set in your hair. 

• If you’d rather have a gradient between your colors, you can mix them before fully applying your next color. For example, if you want a gradient between blue and purple, apply your blue, mix a bit of blue with purple, apply that next to the blue, then move on to apply your purple. You can also mix it directly on your hair.

• This also applies for getting all the colors you need. I didn’t have access to green dye this time, so I just mixed blue and yellow before applying it. 

• If you want a particularly vibrant color, make sure you are using/mixing that color before you apply it. Don’t just assume the color of your hair will create that color when something else is applied on top.

• This is especially true for yellow. Yes, you bleached your hair to yellow, but it will get very muddled with the surrounding colors if you don’t use yellow dye. Similarly, if you apply blue on top of yellow hair, it will not create vibrant green hair. That blue might eventually fade to green, but it won’t be vibrant.

• Remember that there’s really no wrong way to do this! If you have really long hair, you can make your rainbow go from the top of your hair to the bottom. If you have really short hair, you could apply it to make a shape. Be yourself and have fun!

6. A bottle of Arctic Fox hair dye says to rinse it out after 30 minutes. Do Not Listen. I wait at least a few hours before I rinse it out with cold water until the water runs mostly clear. Semi-permanent hair dyes like Arctic Fox are pretty much just conditioner with dye in it so leaving it in for longer won’t damage your hair.

• I usually wait for the dye to dry on my hair. I’ve even waited a while for the colors to settle a bit, put a shower cap on, and went to sleep before washing it out the next morning.

• If you're rinsing it out in the shower, it might stain your skin and shower. I still rinse it out in the shower and bend over to keep the dye from getting everywhere, but you can also rinse it out in a sink. 

• The water will look like a blend of all the colors you applied together when you’re rinsing it out, but that’s just the excess dye mixing together. Don’t worry, the colors have already saturated your hair and shouldn’t have blended together on your head while rinsing.

7. Congratulations on your rainbow hair! I hope you enjoy looking very cool! All you have to do now is maintain it! I’d recommend washing it a bit less frequently than usual, potentially using shampoos and conditioners that are meant to preserve dyed hair, and washing it with water that is as cold as you can tolerate. I’d also suggest looking into whether your usual hair products can interfere with the longevity of your colors. In my experience, some products with propellants might cause it to fade faster, especially at first.

• I personally don’t use hair shampoos and conditioners that are explicitly meant for dyed hair. I either use Viori shampoo and conditioner bars (which I absolutely love) or whatever is cheapest and not on the BDS boycott list.

• The Colors I Used:

  • Arctic Fox Virgin Pink

  • Manic Panic Pillarbox Red

  • Arctic Fox Sunset Orange

  • Arctic Fox Cosmic Sunshine

  • Arctic Fox Aquamarine

  • Manic Panic After Midnight

  • Arctic Fox Purple AF

  • Manic Panic Violet Night