Hair trends: Raccoon tails

March 4, 2:51 PMTampa Counterculture ExaminerCourtney Fenwick

Previous

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Tampa Counterculture Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

A recent trend in hair coloring is what is commonly known as "raccoon tails." I have to admit, I don't like the name. I call them "stripes." I have done this to my hair a few times. I did it again just last week. So many people ask me how I do it, so I figured I would do a sort of "how to" for those who want to do them but aren't sure how to go about it.

The first things is to make sure you have your "tools" ready.

I use a hand-held mirror, comb with a pick handle, brush, hair ties or rubber bands. and if possible, a medicine cabinet mirror.

In order to get a good effect, I bleach the hair that will have the stripes. For effect, I sometimes dye the other parts of my hair another color. In this case, I choose to dye my hair black.

I used Herbal Essence products for the bleaching and the dying. The bleach I used was gel rather than cream because the cream is runnier and could end up in places I don't want it.

For the striping of my hair, I used Manic Panic's Hot Hot Pink. I got it from Spencer Gifts but you can get it from Manic Panic's Web site. I have to say that in general, I do not like Manic Panic products. Most of them do not seem to work very well. The dark colors, however, aren't so bad. They are vegetable dyes, which is nice, but they wash out too quickly.

For lighter colors, I prefer to use Special Effects or Raw. They are both vegetable dyes. You can get Special Effects from Amphigory's Web site. Raw can be purchased at Hot Topic.

The first step in the process is to determine what it is you want to do with your hair. Once you have that figured out, you need to part and separate you hair accordingly. As you part it, use the hair ties to bind the sections.

It makes the overall process easier if you divide your hair into several sections. This way you can work with smaller sections of hair to help ensure that your dye or bleach will not get into areas you don't want it in.

If there are sections that will have the same color or bleach, don't stress about getting the perfectly parted. As you can see on the back of me head, the part wasn't perfect. But, both of those sections were being bleached so it didn't really matter. The most important thing is not to miss any of the hair when you are coloring or bleaching it.

Once my hair was parted, I dyed the top part black first. I also dyed the lower section black.

After I applied the dye, I balled each section up and tied it down with hair ties. This keeps the hair out of the way and keeps it from touching areas I don't want it to touch.

I let the black sit for as long the instructions indicate. It's usually between 25-40 minutes. Once you get used to dying your hair frequently, you don't really need to time it, you just kind of know when it's ready to be washed out.

Once I have washed the black dye out of my hair, I blow dry all of my hair a section at a time. This way, my hair is dry, as it should be, before I move onto the bleaching process.

As you can see in the picture to the right, my hair was blue before I started this process. Blue is very difficult to strip from your hair, so be prepared to have to deal with what you might be left with after you bleach it. Also, if you are bleaching over already dyed hair, it might not be the platinum blonde you are hoping for. Even if you try to bleach it multiple times, which I do not recommend because it damages your hair, it still might not completely strip your hair of color residue.

Next, I bleached the section of my hair that you see hanging down. As you can see in other pictures, the bleach did not take all the color out.

I bleached my hair a second time. However, I was careful not to apply bleach to the roots. As you can see, the roots were sufficiently bleached the first time. Plus, you want to be careful not to cause your hair to be weakened, especially not at the roots. you could end up nearly bald. And, bald, after all, is not a hair color.

After I washed the second wave of bleach from my hair, I dried it again before moving on to the next step.

The next step was to do the striping using the Manic Panic. I apply it with a finger and a thumb.

It takes about a day or two for the Manic Panic to come of of your fingers if you do not use gloves. It depends, of course, on how often you wash you hands throughout the day. That is the drawback to not using gloves. But on the upside, if you aren't bothered by having dye on your hands, it is non-toxic, as it is a vegetable dye.

I apply the dye to my finger and thumb and squeeze the parts of my hair that I want to have pink stripes. I roll the hair a bit between my finger and thumb to make sure to get the dye all the way through. For the very top stripe near my scalp, I just press my finger on top of my hair against my scalp.

After I let this sit in my hair for the required amount of time, I rinse it out. Now all that is left is to dry my hair and style it.

In the slide show, you can see pictures of the finished product as well as a couple of pictures of previous striping that I did to my hair.