Working Around the Color Wheel Timeline (code for: long! XD )

As I look at my timeline, I realize that I've always colored my hair by working around the color wheel, to minimize damage and my need for bleaching. I hope this helps people take advantage of fading colors to make their next color choice. 🙂

I started out with waist length, never been colored, jet black, ultra-thick, wavy hair. (I know, right 😀 )

put box dye copper brown over it

Waited 2 weeks and bleached to orange!

put a box Maroon Red over that.

which, due to the bright orange base, got progressively more fluorescent (and orangey) with each wash!

when it faded after 2 months I did a diluted bleach cap which removed a bit of the red and put on a bright pink over it!

The pink turned more and more of a raspberry color as it faded and the red showed through.

When the pink turned dull I put blue over my entire head except for my fringe. My whole head turned purple with a pink streak in my fringe, so I looked like Twilight Sparke for a while 😐

As the pink and purple faded they gradually blended into each other, creating a pleasing gradient that is one of my favorite hair colors ever.
I kept this for a really long time because I loved it.

When stuff started to fade I helped it along by doing a bleach bath (regular bleach mix + equal amount of shampoo). Which faded the pink but the purple turned turquoise because the color I used was blue. Fading blue on top of a yellow base created turquoise. Also one of my favorites!

Eventually it all faded into each other so I mixed a tiny amount of blue in my conditioner and turned my entire head silvery lavender with a bit of turquoise underneath.

I mixed some blue into my conditioner to get this:

It didn't last very long and the old purple showed through underneath, but more faded now.

I kept that color until it faded and faded into this. It was pretty, but I wasn't a fan of the super light colors making all my hair imperfections (dry ends) completely visible!

so I put on an emerald green over it. No bleaching. I did this by mixing green, blue and turquoise together.

Eventually the green faded and my roots grew, leaving me with this unappealing shade:

So I put on Directions Cerise diluted with conditioner over it. My head turned a vibrant purple.

I mixed a little blue into my conditioner to make that purple lean towards blue-violet.

At this point, I bleached my hair with full strength bleach, not a bleach cap. It was so I could get a vibrant turquoise:

Underneath, though, because i didn't bother to bleach my new roots, the turquoise was a green color on top of my orange roots.

As my turquoise faded into a more and more green color, I put some yellow, blue and pink on the tips. Depending on the dilution ratio, the colors turned into various pastel rainbow shades.

Eventually all the tips faded, leaving me with murky green. So I dyed my head emerald green, put cerise (dark pink) on the underlayer, and blue on the upper layer.

That faded and I put Maroon Red over it. I wanted a dark color so I didn't bleach. I got dark Magenta.

The dark magenta was an iffy color, probably because of so much color buildup, so I decided it was time to bleach. For a while, I had murky brownish pink hair. I bleached to a bright yellow and mixed pink and yellow dye together to create a custom shade of fiery orange.

My roots faded first, giving me an unintentional ombre effect that I really liked, so I kept it.

After a month I went to the beach and my hair totally faded and all the color practically washed out, haha. I didn't mind since I was ready for a change!

Kept the underlayer orange, put blue on top.

That faded, as always, to green and pinky oranges:

So I put bright pink on everything except the top layer. No bleaching, so various degrees of darkening or fading hair gave me this:

Which eventually faded to this:

And my roots grew:

And grew some more! The turquoise faded so I refreshed with blue in my conditioner.

But, that faded too since I still didn't feel like bleaching.

Roots kept growing and I kept putting off bleaching so my black hair crept back into view and I dyed my tips bright pink so I had black hair and pink tips:

For a while I just kept changing the tips of my hair and letting my original color grow out. Blue tips recently.

7 months pass by! (haha, i got sick of dyeing. I had 6-inch roots at this point and various colors in my hairtips)

So gave myself a full on bleaching. I bleached twice. Put on Turquoise over everything, left a section of my underlayer and put pink and blue to get a pink to purple to blue gradient. Roots were more yellow than everything else so they turned green, giving my this gradient:

I eventually bleached my roots again so they would match my hair. Also toned to get a truer turquoise, but some hints of green are still there. I like it though! My current hair:

And that's my long, lo-ho-hooooong timeline. Hehe. 🙂 Thanks for reading!

I use Prosil or La Riche Directions for my dyes.