| Jane Goes Streaking |
| Jane Bullock |
| Date: 10/01/2001 |
Introduction
(Oh, please—you really didn’t think I
meant actual naked streaking, did you?) Change is the name of the
game, and you can make fun color changes to your hair using Tish & Snooky’s Manic
Panic Flashing Lightning & Hair
Color. It’s been years since I colored my hair, that is, not since my
disasterous attempt to become a redhead in the 80s….so I decided
it was time to go out on a limb and try something different.
Trying this product out requires a real commitment—you first have to
deal with the Flash Lightning Kit and then the actual color cream.
The Flash Lightning Kit comes with plastic gloves & hat, 1 oz.
of bleaching powder, 3 oz. of developer, a mixing tub, and a tint
brush. (The plastic gloves & hat are a clue that you’re
working with something that you need to be careful with.) I
have no problem testing oceans of hair care products, but coloring
my hair—even a streak—was scary. Be advised that this color
is definitely permanent. Do what I did first—research, and
talk with your hairstylist. I took the kit in to show my stylist,
Shelly Pryor, and got her take on it. As any good stylist will
caution you, be careful. If you have dark hair like mine,
the kit recommends you leave the bleaching solution on the hair
for anywhere from 40-90 minutes. As Shelly explained, in order for
the color to take in dark hair, the idea is to strip the color out
first. How light you go is up to your own personal sense of
daring, but with dark hair I would definitely err on the short
side timewise.
Note:
In order to achieve maximum Manic Panic coloring results on medium
to dark colored hair you must first apply the Bleach Lightening
Kit to pre-lighten. Manic Panic colors applied to medium to
dark hair without the Manic Panic pre-lightening step will not
achieve the best results in color.
Once you’ve lightened your hair, then you can apply the color. Be
advised—if you strip the color out of your hair, the color in
your newly-stripped hair will be the color in the jar—turquoise,
purple, red, green, etc. As for the color, Manic
Panic comes in lots of great colors, and I chose Atomic
Turquoise. Why? Why not?
How I Tested Tish & Snooky’s Manic Panic Flashing Lightning & Hair Color
First I tried to avoid using the bleaching
kit completely, and just applied the color. Yup—you guessed it,
it didn’t take at all. So I committed myself to it, and followed
the directions on the Flash
Lightning Kit. Here’s where I had some confusion: the outside of
the box advises you that your hair should be “dry and
unwashed” prior to applying the bleaching solution. But the
instructions on the inside of the box tell you that the hair
should be “clean and dry.” I decided to go with
dry-and-unclean hair.
Another point of confusion is in the actual mixing instructions. The
outside of the box advised emptying the full contents of the
bleach powder into the mixing tub, while the inside instructions
want you to only use a teaspoon of the stuff. I compromised and
went halfway with it. After all, I only planned to color a small
streak of hair.
You are further advised to use the plastic hat; I didn’t. Since I was
only doing a streak, I pulled my hair back off my face with a
headband, and combed the area I wanted to color forward. As a
precaution to avoid staining my skin, I put petroleum jelly around
my hairline and eyebrows. I put on the plastic gloves, made a thin
paste with the bleaching powder and the developer, and gingerly
applied the bleach (using the tint brush) to the “streak
site.” According to the directions, I checked the progress every
10 minutes: I wiped away the mixture with a damp tissue and
checked the color. Then I reapplied the solution. This went on for
40 minutes, and I succeeded in lightening the “streak site” to
a light blonde. At that point I chickened out—I really didn’t
want to completely strip the color.
I immediately got into the shower and shampooed my hair thoroughly. Once
towel-dried, I put the headband back in my hair, and pulled
forward my newly-blonded streak. Next I used a small brush to
stroke in the Atomic Turquoise, then combed it through. I let it
sit for 15 minutes, then rinsed it out. As my hair dried, I
admired my new turquoise streak—not aggressively turquoise, but
actually pretty nice! (Of course that inspired me to lay out all
my turquoise jewelry for the next day!)
Manic
Panic Flashing Lightning
Kit Ingredients
Bleach Powder: ammonium persulfate, sodium
silicate, EDTA, xanthum gum, magnesium stearate, hydrolyzed
collagen, algin, hydrolyzed silica, and silica.
Developer: water, hydrogen peroxide,
phosphoric acid, and tetrasodium pyrophosphate.
Manic
Panic Hair Color Cream Ingredients
Water, beeswax, ceterayl alcohol and
cetereth-20, mistletoe extract, hops extract, chamomile extract,
acetic acid, methylparaben, and may contain one or more of the
following: CI Acid Blue 9, CI Acid Green 25, CI Acid Orange 7, CI
Acid Red 35, or CI Acid Yellow 3.
Packaging
The Manic Panic Flash Lightning Kit comes in
a very art-deco-looking black box with silver lettering. The Hair
Color Cream comes in a clear plastic jar (so you can see the color
clearly), with Manic Panic’s trademark black, red, and white
label.
Conclusion
This is not for the faint or heart or shaky
of hand! Decide before you apply the bleaching compound and color
how much hair you want to color, and if you can live with that
color for quite a while. It’s semi-permanent, but it will take
several shampoos and trims to get rid of it. So be sure—don’t
do this as a spur-of-the moment thing!
Jane’s Rating
On my own scale of 1-10, 10 being the best, I
give Tish
& Snooky’s Manic
Panic Flashing Lightning & Hair Color a
cautious 7. I was mainly bothered by the fact that the
instructions were conflicting in two areas. You really do have to
be careful with this stuff. It’s lots of fun to give yourself a
change like this, but I wouldn’t advise doing much more than a
streak or two at first. |