Jello World: DIY Hair

I have really curly hair, and ever since "the incident" in fifth grade (where I went in with long hair, asked for layers, and came out with a short afro), I've had an inherent distrust of hairdressers. This has resulted in two things: 1. Having essentially the same boring hair cut/style for a long time and 2. Doing a lot of hair-related things myself.

I started coloring my hair (pretty normal colors) in high school, and have done so on and off since then. In the past few years, I've gotten a lot more adventurous and bold in both my color and cut choices. And I'm still doing it all (mostly) myself! Whether it's bleaching, going purple, trimming, or taking the clippers to my head, DIY hair is a lot of fun for me. And my friends are always cheering me on, too. Perhaps some time in the future I'll post some actual blogs about my hair care tips or my DIY hair adventures (it's kinda hard to take pics of my own process when I'm all by myself and my gloved hands are covered in dye) but for now, here is a brief history of my hair. (Also, here's a great website for my fellow curly girls!)

High school! Behold, the triangle head.

Later high school. Tamed the pouf a bit.

After "the incident" I grew my hair out and kept it around shoulder-length. The side part was (and still is) my standard style.


Side part and pinned back is hairstyle Option B for this curly girl. This is 2009-10ish.

Found a stylist I trusted to cut my hair, and was brave enough to go short again! Really revitalized my curls.

Short 'do grown out a bit, and dyed dark red, which is hard to see.

Started getting more adventurous with my hair adventures in 2012. Above, one of my first "more than a trim" self-cuts. The color is my natural brown lifted a couple times with L'Oreal Hi-Lift Brown.

Started thinking one day about how I'd look as a blonde, and just how blonde I could go. Here was the first round of bleach. Strawberry blonde.

I went through several shades of blonde that were not pretty. This was as blonde as I got:

I got it in my head that I'd love to go silver. Yes, silver. Grey. But, after a color mishap where my hair ended up several shades of awful, ashy blonde, I needed a solution that wasn't too chemically harsh and was still fun. Somehow I came to this decision:

PURPLE!!!

The first shade was from Manic Panic, but it faded too quickly, so I switched to Jerome Russel Punky Colours.

I kept the purple 'do for a couple months and got tons of compliments on it. I really loved it, and it's probably one of my favorite colors I've ever done. But still, I got bored after a bit. I mixed red and purple for a while to get a nice burgundy. Did that for a couple months before the boredom monster hit yet again. This time it was not only the color, but the cut.

I like the asymmetrical thing I've been doing for a while, and have been getting bolder with it each time. I was ready to take it a little more extreme this time, though. So I broke out some equipment other than my usual scissors: