Pink vs Yellow hair - thoughts!

I thought I would give a quick hair update! In December I put manic panic's 'electric banana' through my hair and boy oh boy was it bright, crazy fluro bright (the bottle does say it glows under black light - should have been a slight giveaway :P). 

In hindesight I could of definitely toned it down with some conditioner before applying because I think my hair looked the best in the colour once I had worn it in for a couple of weeks and the crazy green fluro tinges were mellowed via the joys of shampoo. I did start with completely bleached out hair but the colour in the bottle looked much more mild then how it came out on my hair so I think I can be forgiven for not thinking I'd needed to tone it down! Anyway, can I just say how much I loved this colour - eep and on the flip side how it stirred quite the, well, reaction from others!

The colour once it had toned down :)

Whilst I was out and about people would come up to me and say "yellow hair" or some statement which wasn't positive or negative and didn't have a question attached, so I found myself not really knowing how to reply. In a bakery I had a guy commit to at least two verses of the song yellow and then asked how many times I had it sung to me daily? As someone who is very shy, I found all this interaction a little crazy and when I mentioned to Ben he said something like, "why did you dye your hair yellow then?" which initially made me feel a little defensive but I did contemplate it a bit more.

Short answer: I dyed my hair because I think it's an awesome colour :)

I also specially chose to dye it in December because wedding season is non existence thus deep down I knew it may be frowned upon or I may be viewed in a different (perhaps less professional?) light. I'm not sure if I'm articulating my thoughts very well but I was left with the decision of not having bright hair and staying more anonymous (something which I appreciate) or dying my hair a colour I loved but opening myself up to comments from strangers.  When Ben did my roots before leaving, I did dye over the yellow and put a faint touch of pink in which I'll show you below.  I'm kind of bummed at myself for letting people influence my decisions but I also really don't like drawing that much attention to myself.  I have to say that nobody said anything bad about my hair they just came up to me and pointed out I had yellow hair, which I'm sure for some people is a non existence thing but it was something that made me feel, well, self conscious.  On a sidenote, I'm fortunate that this is something I can change and I have much respect for individuals who get pointed out aspects about themselves which they have no control over - I'm all for, if you have nothing nice to say then close those pretty lips :P :P

It's funny because I look at all those photos above and I don't even think that colour is that crazy (although these were taken once it had died down it's intensity!).  I actually just think that colour is awesome - ha!

So I've been up keeping my roots every 6 weeks or so and then I'll put through a toner just to get rid of some of the unwanted brassy hues and general uneven-ness.  I've tried a bunch of different toners and to be honest, I'm not that fussed which one I use.  I think I gravitate a tiny bit more towards the ash coloured one, which I'll put through my hair (mixed with developer) and then watch closely until my hair has changed to a nice colour and then i'll wash it out.  With the ash based toners this process can happen in as quickly as five minutes :)

I'm still loving the brite organix brand, which if you're from Australia you can buy from woolworths and they are very reasonably priced and vegan! They are also very very pigmented.  I've been reading reviews where people are annoyed that the colours come out crazier then intended but my cheap skate mind just thinks, woohoo, the tube will last longer because I just need to use less :P

My latest hair - going super mellow after the yellow :P I think I used a drop of pastel pink into conditioner to get this colour.  

Now pink on the other hand people seem to love! When I had my bright pink hair not only did I get amazingly nice comments in Japan, I also had nice comments back home as well.  People would stop me in the supermarket to tell me how nice my hair was *gasp*.  Of course, this is still having people interact with me which made me a little awkward but someone giving you a compliment - isn't that so nice? I'm all for that! Plus I was given full statements so I could say "thank-you" at least :)

Overall I think it's funny how the choice of hair colour can greatly influence how others view and respond to you - I'm going to personally try and not judge someone's appearance and or/choices because to them they may feel killer in how they look/what they're wearing and why take that away from someone?  And hey, if I work up the courage I may give yellow another whirl one day too! Maybe, just need to take a shy break for now!