Watercolor Haircolor

Remember when I experimented with hair chalk?

I found something that may be even better when it comes to temporary hair dying. I was browsing around when I came across a blog post mentioning temporarily coloring your hair using a watercolor hydrating color mask. Basically, all you do with these masks is place them in your hair for an amount of time then wash them out. Supposedly, the color will stay in your hair for a short time, about a week or so, and then come out without permanently staining your hair.

Now, I can't afford to simply start ordering actual products to use just for testing... But I figured that if all it is comprised of is watercolor pigment and conditioner, hell I already have both of those. In this post you will get to see me experimenting with watercolors on my hair! First, I need to test out the colors on a small strip of hair that will not be too noticeable if botched. There is also a small list of things that you will need before you try this:

dirty, old shirt
moisturizing conditioner
non-toxic watercolor paints
paint brush
mixing plate/bowl
tin foil
rubber gloves

Lets begin!

It's probably best to start with hair that hasn't been washed for a few days. Here, my hair is three days dirty. I clipped back the largest portion of the top of my hair and sectioned off a small strip.
Next, using my paintbrush, conditioner and watercolor paints, I mixed the colors to my liking until they had a desirable consistency.

I decided that if I used really rich, deep colors that the pigment would stick better. I went with a deep royal purple, a teal blue and a rich, golden yellow tone.

After that I could begin painting the mixtures on my piece of hair. You will definitely want to use an old shirt for this step, you can see how I got it on my shirt and hand. I didn't have any rubber gloves but it was fine for such a small section. If I were doing a larger portion I would most certainly use gloves.

After I finished applying the colors to my test strip, I wrapped a small piece of tinfoil around the section and allowed it to sit for about 20 minutes. The tinfoil is mostly there to keep color from going everywhere.

After I had allowed the color to sit for a good bit, it was time to rinse and dry.

The test strip did not take at all. Literally, there was no color retention whatsoever.

Therefore, what makes better since than to lower the amount of conditioner and to amp up the amount of color!? Not much. Since the test strip didn't even take, I decided to take the risk and to just add a whole shitton of color to my ends. If worse comes to worse I'll just end up with temporarily purple ends anyway. After all, this experiment is for fun.

I ponytailed my hair directly on top of my head and began the application. Using my paintbrush, I gently applied the deepest, royal purple color that I could obtain to my ends. Lets hope that this works.

After I got the color all through my ends as thoroughly as I could, I added a little bit more conditioner to my ends to not only add a little more moisture, but also to help to more evenly distribute the color throughout. Once I finished applying the color, I carefully took an old, black tank top and wrapped it around the hair and then hairbanned it into place in a bun. I used a tank top rather than the tinfoil because a. that's way to much tinfoil and b. the tank top is more gentle on my hair. Now we wait.

Well that was a complete and utter waste of a blog post. I allowed the color to set for what seemed like hours and none of the color stayed during a cool rinse. I guess that I shouldn't be surprised considering that it is watercolor paint. However, if you were to try this without rinsing it would probably work. Although, the watercolors dry with just about the same consistency as hair chalk, so I will not be using my paints for an experiment like this again. 

Guess I'll just stick to hair chalk for temporary coloring.