Alternative Hair Colors - Dye / Color, Wigs & Extensions

There are plenty of hair color alternatives to blonde, brunette or red hair. You can pretty much have any color hair you want, thanks to the wide selection of colors of dyes, wigs, and extensions available. You can dye it all one bright color, get two-toned hair, or you can literally have rainbow hair like the girl pictured here. Whatever your preferences, this lens/webpage should help you experiment and figure out what colors will work best for you, as well as how to go about getting them.

If you are ready to permanently dye your hair whatever color it is you want to dye it, you need to make sure you're going about it the right way. While it is best if a professional hairstylist dyes your hair, you can do it yourself at home.

The best way to dye your hair will depend on two things:

1) How light or dark your own hair is at the moment, and

2) how bright or dark the shade(s)/color(s) is/are that you want to dye your hair.

For instance, if you have, say, dark brown or black hair, and you want your hair to come out a bright yellow or orange, you'll need to bleach your hair accordingly. Otherwise, your hair will just come out with dark with a tine of whatever color you put on it. But if you have blonde hair, and you want to dye your hair a dark brown or black, you don't need to bleach your hair.

Where bleaching your hair is concerned, always make sure you wash all the bleach out of your hair. Let it dry (I don't know if it's ok to let it airdry, but I've seen plenty of videos where the bleached hair is blowdried). It needs to dry so that the color will take to your hair better. Apparently it doesn't work as well when the hair is wet.

I've heard several things where hair dyes are concerned. A lot of people will use the Manic Panic brand because it's vegan. If you use it according to the directions, it doesn't last much longer than 2 weeks. But leave the dye on your hair for 1 hour- 1 1/2 hours at least (you can leave it on longer than that if you want, since it is conditioner-based), and it will stay much longer than two weeks. I've also heard that mixing Manic Panic colors, as well as using the Manic Panic AMPLIFIED dyes, allows for the color to come out much better on your hair. I have also heard that the Special Effects brand naturally will last much longer (how much longer, I do not know). But there's other dye brands available besides just those Manic Panic & Special Effects.

Even having said all that, it's really best to talk with someone who has dyed their hair the same color you want to dye yours (and/or several other colors). They'll be able to give you pointers on what you should & shouldn't do to your hair, before and after you dye it. You can also watch video tutorials online (and watch several of them).

If you don't want it to be permanent, you can always use the semi-permanent hair spray color, or paint pigment/eyeshadow, which I will explain about in more detail in the Dip-Dye/Ombre/Gradient Hair module farther down on the webpage.

For more tips & techniques on how to dye your hair, click here. You can also check out the YouTube video tutorials (just below this section).

I've also reblogged a few dye tips on my Tumblr blog- one about hair dye jobs in general (with special Manic Panic instructions/tips I previously mentioned) & tips on using Manic Panic hair dye on dark hair.

I cannot feature as many hair products on this webpage as I would like to (thanks to a 2-link limit per domain). So instead, I've opted to throw a series of products onto lists. Click this link to see them-- Alternative Hair Color Wigs, Extensions & Dyes on Amazon - Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple & Black.

The "Hair Care Tips & Techniques : How to Dye Hair Wild Colors" video is a very short video tutorial about the effect that bleaching has on hair colors (which is simply that it will come out brighter, so if that's what you want, bleach your hair).

Alternative Hair Colors - Hair Dye Video Tutorials

The "All Dolled Up- Amazing Pastel Hair Tutorial!" video is a much longer video tutorial about dying hair extensions. She uses a lot of different colors and gives a good tip about using silicone-free conditioner to mix with your hair dyes.

The "TwiggX- How to dye your hair in an extreme colour" video is a tutorial showing a girl bleaching part of her hair, then dying it a bluish-green color (which comes out looking more green once it's dry).

The "Charlavail Hair Dye" video has a good tip about not putting too much conditioner (if any at all) in your hair. She uses too much conditioner, and as you'll see, the color doesn't stick very well on her hair.

The "Coloring My Hair 'Misty Maven' Blue" video features a black girl dying her hair extensions a kind of "turquoise-like" blue. And as you will see, it comes out pretty lovely.

The "How to #Ombre Hair Pink & Purple" video features a different black woman dying a blonde wig various shades of purple & pink. Definitely watch this video to see the neat way she separates her hair dyes. Her look is very similar to singer Azealia Banks's look, which is gorgeous.

I realize the "How to Color (dye) Your Hair like in a Salon, at Home" video isn't of a girl with an alternative hair color. But for those dyeing their hair any one color all over, this video gives good tips about how to do a professional-looking dye job on your hair at home. There's only thing she says in the video that I wouldn't recommend, and that's using left-over color to remove spots on your head that got dyed in the process. It might work with whatever color dye she's using, but with colors like orange & purple and such, it might just end up dying your skin more. I don't know... you can try it if you want, but at your own risk.

While the "Affordable Hair Care Routine + How to Get 'White' Hair" video isn't really a tutorial, the girl in it does explain the process of getting her hair white, as well as all the products she uses to keep her hair in good condition. So if you're after white hair, watch this video.

Lastly is the "How To: Healthy Bleached/ Color Treated Hair", which also isn't a hair dye tutorial, but a video about how to maintain bleach and color treated hair and keep it healthy (or at LEAST healthy-looking). Might be more useful for people who dye their hair pastel colors like Brittany (the girl in the video) did.

A list of products you should use to help you dye your hair & keep it as healthy as possible...

List of Hair Bleaching Kits, Products & Hair Color Remover; Hair Toning Products; Protein Shampoos, Conditioners, Serums and Protein Fillers

And now for a brief description of the hair products on this list...

Hair Bleaching Kits, Products & Hair Color Remover on Amazon:

There are some hair bleaching products you can use, along with a hair color remover kit if you don't like the way the dye job comes out...

Hair Toner Products on Amazon:

If you bleach your hair but it comes out with brassy tones (yellows & oranges) in it, these products are supposed to help get rid of the brassiness. But read the directions for how to correctly use your chosen product in order to get your desired results. And definitely read the reviews for these products.

Protein Shampoos, Conditioners, Serums and Protein Fillers on Amazon:

The protein fillers are to be used a good 30-60 minutes before you apply your color. It restores protein in damaged hair & allows the color to stick better. Also, using protein shampoos and conditioners will keep your hair healthy. But READ THE DIRECTIONS.

I have linked to a few dip-dye tutorials on YouTube.

Hair Dip-Dye Video Tutorials

Once you've learned how to properly dye your hair (or if you already know how to), you can try dip-dying your hair. You can dip-dye just the ends, or you can give your hair an ombre/gradient look. There are a lot of different ways to go about doing this.

This one is a dip-dye look option only-- hair chalk. (You can also use chalk pastels, but that might be damaging for the hair. The hair chalk is likely designed specifically so it won't damage your hair.) This will work on any hair, as it shows up on dark hair as well (better than the kool-aid options I'll explain below). You just spray the ends of your hair with hair spray or water, then open up your container of hair chalk and apply it directly to the ends of your hair, rubbing it in with your fingers. It's not permanent, and will wash out easily in dark hair (might take a few washes with lighter hair). You can do the same thing with special powder pigment (which you can get from India, probably online; more expensive, but sticks better and actually works well all over the hair as well). However, you can't really get the looks shown here with hair chalk, chalk pastels or pigment powder.

If you use kool-aid, you can two this two different ways. There are YouTube video tutorials that show people mixing kool-aid with water, then boiling it in a pot. They then let it cool down (or and sometimes they transfer the liquid to a bowl or cup), and then dip the ends of their hair or hair extensions in it. They might wash the ends with cold water after a few hours, or they might wait overnight. However, the color is usually very faint, even if left on overnight. And the darker your hair is, the less visible it will be. Plus, kool-aid doesn't work well for the ombre/gradient look.

The second way to dip-dye hair with kool-aid is by mixing the kool-aid with white conditioner, then applying it to the hair the same was as you would regular dye. but just on the ends. Again, this works better on blonde hair. The color comes out slightly better, but not much. You could use this for a faint, pastel ombre/gradient look if you wanted to.

In my opinion though, the best way to dip-dye or get gradient hair is to just use regular dye. If you want the dip-dye effect, you just paint it onto your ends. If you have dark hair, you'll need to bleach your ends before doing this. For the gradient hair, you will take 2 or more colors or shades and paint them in layers over top of one another. Do your research and watch a few other YouTube videos (other than the ones below) and read a few articles/webpages, and you can get any of the dip-dye/ombre/gradient looks you see here, or you can create one of your own.

I've created a list with a few hair chalk color choices for you to pick from. Because I've already hit my 2-link per domain limit with Amazon by linking to two other Amazon lists, I can only provide the HTML URL for this list. Simply copy & paste it into your browser bar.

http://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/2YMZQRS43ZTWF/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=httpwwwsq04d2-20&linkId=J4CTYSPTUMZKEF7A

• Tish & Snooky's MANIC PANIC® N.Y.C. Online Store (which has dyes, wigs & much more)
• MANIC PANIC® Hair Swatches (listing of all MANIC PANIC® hair dyes available along with hair color swatches)
• HairCrazy.Info- (A Guide To Alternative Hair Styling [and coloring / dyeing, actually])
• Hair Dye Forum (Forum where you can ask anything & everything about dyeing your hair [or extensions or a wig])
• CandyColoredHair.Tumblr.com- Blog with pages & pages of photos of people with various hair colors, shades, and hairstyles (already hit the 2-link limit for the tumblr domain, so I will give you the HTML URL - http://candycoloredhair.tumblr.com)
• F**kYeahYellowHair.Tumblr.com (Tumblr blog dedicated solely to yellow hair; I can't link directly to it here because of the profanity in the URL; just copy & paste [with the actual curse word spelled out] into your browser's URL box)
• BeeUnique Alternative Hair Dyes & Accessories (it should be noted that they sell 4 other dye brands besides MANIC PANIC®)
• BeeUnique Alternative Hair Dye Gallery (Gallery with photos of people with several different hair colors)
• A Rainbow of Star Hair Colors (presented by InStyle magazine on Living.msn.com)
• MSN Wonderwall's Hairdos & Don'ts: Color Edition
• Easter Colored Hair Gallery on Audrey Kitching's Buzznet Page

So, what do you think about these hair colors? Do you think it's too much? Or do you want to experiment with or dye your hair a crazy color? Or have you done so already? Whatever your thoughts, leave them here...