In which I have hair, and I tell you about it.

My hair color of choice is Shocking Blue from Manic Panic--a glorious, almost luminescent blue of cobalt bottles and stained glass. It's also one of the few blues I've tried that remained blue (and gloriously luminescent!) as it faded out, instead of going green or grey. But recently Afi pointed me at a limited sale on Mega Blue Amplified, with $12-15 bottles going for $5.

How can I pass up blue at that price?

(Especially with my hair. Seriously, the elementary school nurses just sent me home to my mother on lice-check days, because so much hair.)

Step #1: Bleach the hair! This involves sectioning the hair, mixing noxious chemicals, applying said chemicals to said sections of hair, then wrapping it all up in a shower cap and sitting around for a set period of time while the top of your head gets hot and uncomfortable. I went for 45 minutes, since I had some faded blue ends and a good length of medium-brown root to account for. Remember kids, it ain't ombré if you're just too cheap/lazy to fix it.

Optional extra: ask yourself why you waited till it was 90 °F and sticky-hot to do this.

Technical note: other folks suggest stripping the dye from hair first, then bleaching the roots. I don't bother, since bleaching usually¹ works well enough for my purposes, I'd rather reduce the amount of damage than fret over achieving an even base to color, and I'm not going lighter or for different hues. It helps that blue has proved pretty forgiving of such things, too.

Step #2: I applied a streak of Shocking Blue on one side and Mega Blue on the other. Then I lounged around watching Sherlock for a few hours, which I assure you is vital to the process.

Step #3: Cry for Watson.

Step #4: Rinse the streaks and check the colors! Mega Blue seemed to me to be one of the shades Shocking Blue hits as it fades out, albeit a little more denim and a little less glowy. That was fine by me, since, as previously mentioned, Shocking fades out damn pretty. If Mega Blue is just a slightly lighter variant of Shocking Blue, I can definitely live with it.

Step #5: Blue the noggin! I decided to cut half a jar of Shocking with a full bottle of Mega to see if I could boost the latter with the oomph of the former, and maybe stretch that jar a little farther.

Technical note: if you can do this without turning your entire bathroom blue, you're probably doing it wrong.

Step #6: Give into curiosity around the second hour of non-stop rolling thunder and turn on the news! I usually sit and steep in color for at least six hours, but a slow-moving storm with lots of thunder and lightning was settling into the area and promised thunderstorms all night, which meant rinsing after only two hours. Damn.

The result: Glorious peacock blue! Not the paint or the too snooty to just say teal or turquoise art projects, but the actual bird. I love it. I might obsess. Maybe.

But wait!

Why Manic Panic, mokie?
Why not Manic Panic? I'm lazy and cheap. It has a good range of colors at an affordable price, it's easy to use and damn near ubiquitous these days, and most of the colors that I've used have taken and stuck pretty well. Though I've tried a number of other brands (most recently Stargazer and Ion Color Brilliance), I haven't found them objectively any better than Manic Panic in my preferred color range. (I <3 Shocking Blue hard.)

But I heard that Manic Panic sucks.
That's a whole big debate, dear reader.

On the one hand, all brands have their strengths and weaknesses, hits and misses, and a person's brand experiences are going to be influenced by their preferred color palette. That's why research is a good thing--find out if a brand has great reds but muddy greens, for instance, or if their purples have no staying power. (Don't use Amazon for this. Amazon is terrible for this.) On the other hand, because Manic Panic is so common, it's also served many people as their first/only coloring experience that didn't involve a drugstore box o' color, and thus some complaints have more to do with the customer's inexperience than the product itself. (That's why Amazon is terrible for this.)

Basically, little Susie Boo rubs some Cotton Candy Pink into her unbleached brown hair and is disappointed it's not the swatch color when she rinses. She washes her hair every morning before school, and by the weekend she's griping that Manic Panic sucks and doesn't last.

(Seriously, unless you're working in Grimytown as a tester of heavy duty pomade, your hair doesn't get dirty enough on a daily basis to require shampoo. Try just rinsing daily and washing two or three times a week. Your scalp will thank you. While we're at it: Those Wen hair care commercials? Save your money, it's only conditioner. Try ditching shampoo and using only conditioner. Much softer and healthier hair. No, you won't feel like a grimy toad.)

I have no doubt at all that some brands have more hits and fewer misses than Manic Panic, but seriously, I <3 Shocking Blue, and I will cut you if you come between us.

This is an odd little section, mokie.
I can explain! A few months ago, a friend asked for some advice on green hair coloring. Someone had given her the impression that Manic Panic is the worst dye one can get, which is far from true,² and not my experience when it came to their greens (which my sister was partial to in her teens). I don't think the brand needs defending, but I do think the idea needs debunking--the notion that any hair color brand is uniformly good or bad³--since it sets folks like said friend up for disappointment when a 'good' brand fails them.

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¹ One day, I will remember that all things Splat are terrible, and stop grabbing the bleach just because it's cheap and right there.

² That would be Splat.

³ Except Splat, which is genuinely awful.