Today I decided to attempt a pink ombre on some cheap hair extensions I bought awhile ago off ebay, but never really wore. I never really wore them for two reasons. One; they were the shade "lightest blonde' meaning yellow, the kind of yellow you would be familiar with if you get your hair bleached. It's the lightest yellow you can go, the shade which is perfect to then tone to go platinum blonde. Two; as they were around £20 for a full head set, they are sooooo thin, especially at the ends! Most of the hair is a lot shorter, resulting in the thickest parts being from the top to the middle.
I don't have pictures of the extensions properly before I toned them, but here are some instagram pictures;
You can see on the left the colour didn't match my hair, and look how thin the extensions are!
Below are my ones from Foxylocks.com, they are amazing! And matched my hair colour without me needing to do anything, and they are an amazing length too!
Anyway, back to how I toned the cheap yellow ones!
I applied Directions "white toner" straight on to the extensions and left for 15 minutes. I left one weft for an experiment though. I did end up using a whole tub, and as these extensions aren't even thick, I would advise if you were going to do this, buy several tubs incase! It would be so annoying to run out!
For the weft I was experimenting with, I decided to see if I could tone it with just my silver shampoo. I filled up a sink with warm water and squirted in some of my silver shampoo, then mixed it around. I submerged the weft and swirled it around, leaving it for awhile, checking to see when it looked silvery, then rinsed.
This worked surprisingly well! So I rinsed the wefts that had the directions toner in the sink of diluted silver shampoo, leaving them in until they looked silvery, and rinsed.
Results look so similar, top weft is with just the shampoo, bottom one you can tell it is slightly silvery and has a touch of purple from the toner. But you can hardly really tell much difference between them, so it saves time just toning with just a silver shampoo!
I still had pink semi-permanent hair dye from last summer when I had pastel pink hair, so I just used the same one. I used Flamingo pink by Directions, I got a really strong pink so I could dilute it with lots of conditioner, meaning the pots would last ages! I had tried using Manic Panic's cotton candy pink before and diluting that a bit, but I used it up fast! This one has lasted SO LONG!
In a bowl I added lots and lots of white conditioner, just a Tresemme one, doesn't have to be a specific one, just needs to be white! I added a small amount of the dye as it is very pigmented, and mixed thoroughly. I laid the wefts on top of some tin foil on a table. Then just below where I wanted the colour to start, I applied the diluted colour on to the hair, all the way down to the ends.
Next I blended the starting line of colour with the brush, pulling the dye up so there wouldn't be a harsh line.
I added more dye to the diluted mixture, and brushed on half way between the start of the pink and the ends of their hair, applying all the way down. I repeated adding more dye, this time just applying on the ends.
I left this for around 20 minutes, then rinsed out the dye thoroughly.
I always hear you aren't meant to dry you extensions and usually I don't, I let them dry over night naturally, but I didn't really mind blow drying these ones as they were cheap and this was all an experiment, also I couldn't wait to see how they came out!
I think I got a pretty good gradient!
Here are all the wefts together, not thick at all!
And here's an instagram pic of them in my hair.
Let me know your thoughts guys! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments.
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