get the look: queer oceanic wretch
I’m afraid I’m going to be that guy who prefaces their delicious recipe with a bunch of personal maundering, so bear with me a moment:
The ideal gender presentation is ‘winged monstrosity,’ really.
The thing people notice about me first is my hair. This is by design. This is because I am trans, and more dysphoric than I tend to give myself credit for, and I have a deeply uneasy relationship with being perceived by others. (Who doesn’t? It’s 2019.) I have stuck with my blue hair even though it’s stopped being cool and started being a slightly awkward throwback to internet-activist Tumblr in 2015, because it’s one of very few things that makes me feel okay about being physically manifest. I try to make up for the vintage keyboard-warrior energy of it all by being really grouchy and ambivalent online, and also by actually donating money to causes when I can.
Bright blue hair is a fun distraction from the concept of gender, or gender presentation. I can be wearing a dress and a practical heel on my walk to work, because I love comfort and hate overheating, and still get double-takes because I look in some capacity unexpected. I try to emphasise this where I can by wearing a lot of black, so the hair stands out more (and the feminine ‘dress’ silhouette gets offset by the absence of pattern or colour). I do not even think of myself as someone who cares about fashion! But then I think about how much consideration goes into the way I present myself to the world. Does ‘caring about fashion’ have to look like caring about fashion labels, or fashion trends? Increasingly I am dubious.
It is all a huge compromise because trans healthcare is absolutely impenetrable in the UK for people transitioning across the binary — I don’t know even remotely what our gender identity clinics would do with the concept of low-dose T — and my body feels wrong even in a binder and the way I am built is fundamentally, universally incompatible with the way I want to be seen. But we get by! As I tell my friends whenever I make an objectively terrible choice: nobody’s died yet.
Maybe you are also having gender presentation difficulties, and you want a colourful way to circumvent them. Maybe you just want to read a hair dye tutorial! Who am I to say? Regardless, I hope you enjoy this guide to dyeing your hair at home, and I hope you will share any results with me (on Twitter, perhaps?) in due time.
(Nota bene: it works best if, like me, you have short hair. If you have long hair, you’re going to want a more structured approach to putting colours on it, probably — or at least a second pair of hands to help you out.)
You will need:
Semi-permanent hair dye. This is important. Because I am on that next-level shit at this point, I use a mix of Manic Panic’s After Midnight and Atomic Turquoise shades, and I tend to find that their stuff lasts pretty well over time; I usually top up my colour every two months or so. Do some research, talk to friends, read some product reviews, and pick a colour that speaks to you.
Bleached hair. Full disclosure: I get my hair bleached professionally, because my manual dexterity is abysmal and I love to not have scalp burns. If you have the means to go to a salon for this, I recommend it. It is also possible to pick up a home bleaching kit and do it yourself, though I strongly advise having a more experienced friend help you out if it’s your first time.
Disposable gloves. Nothing fancy; you can buy them in quantity for low prices online.
Vaseline.
An old shirt that you don’t care about too much.
A plastic container (if your dye is in a squeezy tube).
A plastic bag or a disposable shower cap.
Let’s begin:
You’ve bleached your hair, right? And you’re wearing your old shirt? Good.
Smear Vaseline around your hairline and onto the tips of your ears. This makes it exponentially easier to remove any accidental smears of dye from the most common splash zones! You will thank yourself later.
Dispense dye into your plastic container. If you’re mixing colours, you can do that at this stage, or you can use two containers and kind of smear the colours together on your head for that fun and whimsical ‘two-tone’ look. (Don’t do that yet, obviously.)
Put on a pair of disposable gloves.
Scoop up some dye and start smearing! You want to cover your gloved fingers with the dye, and then comb your fingers through your hair, rubbing in the dye as you go. I prefer to start at the back of my head and work forward, as the back of my head is the place where I invariably put too little dye; I’m more attentive to it if I start there.
If you can avoid getting dye all over your scalp, that’s probably a good idea — try to minimise finger-scalp contact where possible! But stains do wash out, and the scalp is maybe the best place to conceal them in the meantime.
As your head gets more covered in dye, try to gather your hair on top of your head as you go. Think of how you lather your hair with shampoo, and work on that kind of basis! The dye may start to lather up a little as you go; this is normal and fine.
When all your hair is covered in dye and piled up on your head, take the plastic bag (or shower cap, if you have one) and cover your hair with it. If you’ve got a plastic bag, you’ll need to tie it off around your head — make sure it’s covering all your hair before you do this! This step is twofold: it stops you getting dye everywhere as you wait for it to cook, but it also traps heat around your scalp, facilitating the cooking process.
Give it some time. Per most packaging for box dye, you don’t need more than half an hour. My experience has been that the longer you can leave the dye on your head, the better. I go for two hours minimum (that’s either two episodes of a TV show or an afternoon nap, depending on how weary I am). Other people prefer to go longer! If it’s your first time dyeing, err on the side of caution and give it a couple of hours; you can adjust the process as you repeat it. (Put an old towel down on your pillow if you want to nap.)
Take off the old shirt before you unbag your hair! Then rinse it through over a tub, sink or shower with cool water. It may take some rinsing, depending on the length of your hair and the quantity of dye you used, so take your time and don’t be afraid to comb it out with your fingers. When the water’s running clear, or almost clear, then stop rinsing and dry your hair. (I make sure I have a towel around my shoulders for this bit, so I can get the worst of the water out of my hair right away without dripping all over my bathroom.
Blow dry for fastest results — and voila! You have colourful hair now, or you should do. If you can see any patches you didn’t quite cover with dye, it’s totally fine to take another crack at it — just apply the dye as needed, make sure it’s bundled up into a bag or shower cap, give it some time, and rinse.
Aftercare:
You are going to want to avoid washing your hair for a few days. If you do a full shampoo wash too quickly after dyeing, then the colour will wash out much faster, which is probably not the desired effect. If you need to wet your hair in order to style it, then do wet it, but try to keep the water as cool as you can!
When you do wash your hair, the colour will run. That’s just how it goes sometimes. Use an old towel to dry it, and soap off your hands after washing your hair so they don’t emerge from your shower in technicolour.
Make peace with the fact that you’re going to get some colour on your pillowcase. I have a plain, dark-coloured pillowcase for right after I redye my hair (and for taking with me to visit friends, as a courtesy).
Find a good colour-safe shampoo, and use small baby quantities of it whenever you wash your hair. I can recommend Timotei and Herbal Essences as brands with good colour-safe products, personally!
Be super kind to your hair after bleaching it! Get out your conditioner, or apply a hair mask. One thing I like about Manic Panic is that it contains conditioner, so the process of dyeing my hair also nourishes it after bleaching.
Congratulations! Your hair is excellent now. Go forth and make the people double-take.