Real Hair- Black Berry Juice

From about the age of 12 I wanted to dye my hair blue but my parents would never allow it. Then, around the age of 16 I wanted pink hair, but again, wasn't to be until I could move out. At 17 I enlisted in the Air Force so even though I was now out of my parent's house Uncle Sam wouldn't allow me to dye it any unnatural colors. Since then my hair has been various shades of dark red and brown and black. BORING.

Cut to last year when my enlistment ends and I'm finally free to dye my hair- or not. My other job won't allow it either! Now in addition to not being able to dye my hair anything fun I have developed an allergy to PPD. I thought I was going to be stuck with my dull brown-black hair for life.

Recently I was struck with an idea- what if the unnatural color was so dark that nobody would notice enough to say anything at work... With pink and blue out I decided to attempt a color I once tried to get from a box dye and failed (it turned candy apple red): black berry juice, purple-black!

But wait--- how was I going to get black in my hair with out PPD!? CRAP! Cue sad face. I began a search for a PPD free black that lead me down a few dead ends, everything just made my hair several shades short of black. I wasn't going to attempt henna and indigo either as a renter in a stark white apartment. Like a moron I forgot about what I knew all along- Manic Panic makes a black dye that's PPD free! 

Here's how I achieved my purple-black hair:
I started with my "virgin" abused but unbleached dry hair and applied a nice thick coat of Manic Panic Raven. I left it on for 30 minutes and then rinsed. I did not used heat or a plastic cap because I did not want my hair to become jet black.

Once my hair had dried I was please to see it was the soft black I was aiming for. *insert success meme here*

The next day I applied a nice thick coat of Manic Panic Ultra Violet, the blue based purple. I originally wanted Special Effects Deep Purple but I just grabbed Ultra Violet when I got Raven.  Any way, I left Ultra Violet on for 2 hours. I was going to apply heat but decided not to since my hair is damaged and I'm trying to avoid heat. My hair did came out the color I wanted with out using heat.

One thing I love about Manic Panic (and similar veggie dyes) is how conditioning it is. Unlike dyes that need to penetrate into the hair and thus rough up the cuticle veggie dyes are basically tints and sit on the outside of the hair. This type of dye is non damaging and really makes my hair feel soft due to the extra conditioning ingredients. One more thing I love is my hair is STRAIGHT again and I didn't need to use a flat iron. Not sure if this effect will last since the "hair gets wavy in your mid 20s" gene runs in my mom's side of the family.

My hair is just purple enough to not be boring black and hopefully not so purple that I'll get in trouble at work.