This started with Saly mentioning that she might color Lucy’s hair pink for the summer—maybe just the ends, for easy trimming-off before school started. That’s when I put the Manic Panic Cotton Candy Pink in my Amazon cart. When I’d had enough time to think/fret about it, I ordered it. It arrived in the mail yesterday, and Elizabeth and I started in on it as soon as she got home from school.
Ideally, hair should be bleached before Manic-Panic-ing. Not only does this let you start with a white canvas, it apparently makes the hair more porous and thus more willing to absorb and hold the color. But I didn’t want to bleach Elizabeth’s hair, at least not until we’d experimented with NOT bleaching.
First I washed her hair in the sink, using a clarifying shampoo and no conditioner.
Damp hair, checking out the jar of Manic Panic
I combed it and divided it first into two sections as if I were going to do ponytails, and then divided each of those two sections into two sections. Four sections total, if you follow me.
I took gloopy pinches of the color with my fingers and smooshed it into the hair. This is the step I would do better next time: I’d get a brush so I could paint it on, and I might put the hair into the baggies (or onto pieces of plastic wrap) FIRST, rather than trying to cram gloopy hair into the baggies post-glooping with my gloopy hands.
I used about a third of the jar, because I’d read online that people generally use one or two full jars on a whole head of hair, and I was doing just the bottom half of a child’s hair. I was glad I’d read that, because it encouraged me to make sure there was a lot of color on the hair.
When the hair seemed gloopy enough, I put each section into a plastic baggie (non-zip type) and then used a hair elastic to make a ponytail that included the baggie.
It’s hard to tell in the photo, but it was a surprisingly pretty effect—like a hair tutu
I’d read that heat helps to set the color, so I used a blow-dryer on the baggies until she complained about the heat—a minute or so on each baggie. We did this three or four times during the waiting process.
The jar says to leave the color on for 30 minutes, but apparently nobody does that: the people giving tips online leave it on overnight or even for a day or two. We left it on for about four hours, until bedtime. Then we took off the baggies and I rinsed her hair in the sink, and blow-dried it so we could see the color right away.
It’s SUBTLE, which was a little disappointing and also a relief. If it had been clown-pink, I probably would have felt alarmed. As it is, it’s definitely visible but I don’t think it would immediately catch the eye of a passerby.
This was super fun and I want to try it again and maybe do a streak in my own hair. I’ll be interested to see how long the color lasts, especially since she has swimming lessons most of the summer. I’d also like to try a Kool-Aid dye as recommended by Erica (here’s the tutorial Erica linked to: How to Dye Hair With Kool-Aid). We would have started with that, in fact, but our grocery store doesn’t carry the non-sugared-already Kool-Aid, and I haven’t quested for it at other stores yet.
I think it looks cute and she certainly looks thrilled with it!
I’m thinking about this for my daughter. Her hair is a bit darker than E’s but has blonde streaks. I think if I start with the darkest purple we’ll get somewhere. I’m thinking ends too since I’ll want to cut it off after summer. She has been begging for purple streaks forever, I’m hoping she’ll go for purple ends.
I used to dye my hair with Kool-Aid in high school, back when my mom thought Manic Panic was only for deliquents. The red colors worked well on my medium-light blond hair. The blue & green did not.
I have a friend whose daughter dyes the underside of her hair bright colors and it looks so cute. It is quite visible in a ponytail, but not much when it’s hanging loose. I’ve been trying to decide if I am too old to do it myself.
Love it! Perfect amount of subtleness & noticibility :)
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I think it’s perfect for the first experimental journey into fun hair color.
I also love the idea of a hair tutu!
She looks so cute.
My 13yo niece puts fun colors in her hair like this. I’m not sure exactly what she uses, but she has dark brown hair and the streaks really stand out. When they fade out, she’s left with almost-as-cool blond highlights.
She and her mother get some disapproving comments, but I think it’s becoming more acceptable. Within the last month I’ve seen an adult woman with bright pink chunks and a little girl with blue streaks (and wearing a skirt straight out of a Cyndi Lauper video! So fun!). They look so fun that I wish more and more that I had a less conservative job.
My girlfriend and I dyed our hair with red Kool-Aid as tweens. Then we went out to a local carnival, where it rained. She had fine, light blonde hair and her Kool-Aid washed all out (and ruined her shirt!) but it stayed in my curly dirty blonde hair FOR. EV. ER. My mom wished she’d let me use Manic Panic after that! Good luck, I think the pink ends look cute!
The brand Special Effects lasts longer and gives brighter colors, if you have an interest in that.
Looks super cute!
love it! every year before my big race of the season I want to dye a chunk of my hair blue – to match my bike. I think we might do this before race weekend, as 2 of the kiddos are racing too!!! thanks for posting it!
I love it! It’s light and summery and feminine and fun, but not In Your Face.
Are the boys at all jealous and wanting to dye their hair as well?
What a cool mom! And although I have no scientific proof, I think doing stuff like this when kids are young helps it not be a big deal when they are older.
Cute!
I’ve always been disappointed by how quickly Manic Panic washes out, but if you’re only doing a smallish streak, and you bleach it first, then you can re-dye it fairly often and have it stay nice & bright.
AWW! This post makes me happy to have a girl. Although I would definitely have to do the bleach thing first with my little dark-haired Fake Hispanic. Boo.
I find the pink colours tend to stick more than the other Manic Panic colours, but they won’t last too too long. If you want the colour to last longer you can also try Punky Colors. I have found they stay in just a little longer.
ADORABLE! It came out so well and she looks adorably thrilled. Well done, and what a fun mama you are. Bonus: From now on you can be all “I dyed your hair pink FOR you when you were FIVE!” and hold it against her as needed.
(She is five, yes?)
So cute – I bet she’ll remember this forever! Bonus Mom points!!
It’s adorable. I love how happy she is :)
PLEASE PUT A SREAK IN YOUR OWN HAIR!!!!
I have ALWAYS wanted a pink or purple streak in my hair, think “Kate” from Days of our Lives with her bright blue streak, but with my office job I can’t :(
Let me live vicariously through you! Do it!!
1) You are the COOLEST MOM EVER. My mom would have killed me, not done it for me.
2) I dyed my hair blue in college with manic panic (pre-bleached at home..err…dorm) and then when I washed it out it turned moldy, gross GREEN. And that lasted for a month or so. Awesome. So pink is a much, MUCH better choice, or maybe red or really anything but BLUE.
I like the more subtle look. It looks cute and she looks thrilled. I would say success!
I used to use kool aid in high school — BEWARE THE SMELL. You can’t get away from it, and some are pretty awful to live with 24-7. Also beware the associated pillow case tinting. And smellifying. *shudder*
Are you the coolest mom ever? I am thinking so. I wanted to do a brightly colored streak in my hair, too. But chickened out due to professional meetings and would people take me seriously, etc. etc. Anyway! So I went on etsy and bought rad-color-streak-hair pieces. Very inexpensive and I can take them off if needed. Oh, and they look totally ‘real’.
This is so cute. I love her expression as she checks herself out in the mirror :)
My very blonde niece (now 5) used to accidentally dye her hair as a toddler because her parents would let her take a sippy cup to bed with her. Sometimes the sippy had Crystal Light and if it leaked and she slept in it all night, she ended up with bright pink hair. It was a pretty funny turn of events but she looked adorable.
In my experience Manic Panic fades pretty quickly, especially the cotton candy (or other light) color. It’s awesome that you’re letting her do this though! Go bolder next time!! ;)
I’ve been reading you for years but have never been tempted to comment, but this..this has brought me out of my shell. :)
I’ve died my hair many crazy colors over the years and I always came back to pink (and man, I should do it again because I miss it!).
If you ever want a bit of a richer more purply pink, the darker pink shade of manic panic, which looks SUPER BRIGHT in the bottle is actually a really lovely rich pink when it’s applied.
The light pink looks super great, though! Love it!
yay! she looks so happy with it! i love that, are you going to do the boys next?
koolaid works great as well, we did my mom’s hair with that and it turned out super bold and lasted a surprisingly long time.
That is very, very cute. I would have loved it in my hair when I was that age.
This is a serious eye-opener for me. When I was young I wanted to dye my hair (highlights, or something benign like that) and my mom flat out refused. I was too young, I’d have to keep doing it forever, etc. and so on. And now I learn that some people even dye their little kids hair, just for fun! I have been living in a cave. Also: thinking about dyeing my hair.
It won’t last too long, a few weeks tops (dont know what chlorine does to hair, I don’t often pool). I dye my bangs hot pink, same brand and its MUCH MUCH more vibrant, almost a magenta/purple in the first few days and then levels out. I also get my bangs bleached and professionally dyed the first go round and touch up with manic panic as the professional color fades, I generally touch it up once a month, sometimes more frequent if I want to look especially bright for something.
I put aqua blue streaks in my eight year old’s hair recently. We used the the Splash brand (avaible at Walmart, Walgreens, etc.) She loves it. She definitely think I’m the coolest mom EVER, especially when I went ahead and dyed the bottom layer of my own hair blue. I work in an office and it’s barely noticable unless I were to wear my hair up, which…doesn’t happen often anyway. So much fun!!
Your daughter is adorable!! She looks so happy, I love it :)
Cute!
You posted this the day after my 11 year old asked me about dying her hair! Thanks for the tips!
Heather
I’ve never bleached prior to manic panic or used plastic over top…and it always came out cool…I think my color of choice was called Poppyseed (burgundy red). I think this turned out great!!!
I’m going to second Emily WK’s recommendation of Special Effects hairdye- longer lasting than Manic Panic, more vibrant color. I dyed my hair dark purple for over 8 years and definitely preferred the Special Effects. And as a bonus, I found it didn’t rub off onto everything as much as the Manic Panic did!
OK, so I did it today. We used Mystic Heather Manic Panic (a dark purpley-pink) and my daughter has it all wrapped in plastic. I think she’ll keep it wrapped and soaking through the night. I used a metallic plastic shower cap (I think they call it a conditioning cap) and I wrapped it around her gathered pony tails and secured it with a rubber band. It looks like she has a deflated Jiffy Pop foil on the back of her head! But I think it should be easy to sleep in. Fingers crossed.