Special Effects ~ Semi-Permanent Hair Dye ~ Pimpin Purple

Ive been using this brand for over 6 months now and LOVE it. It's the only brand that doesn't instantly wash out. I use the Atomic Pink and Burberry Wine colors so far to get my hot pink highlights. Yes the color will get on EVERYTHING, but rubbing alcohol will usually take it off anything (even clothes, skin, walls, tubs) I also use Tilex mold and mildew and it completely takes away the color out of the grout and all in the shower/tub even when its been sitting for a few days or even a week just let the spray sit for about 5 mins and usually it sprays right off with hot water sometimes i use a scrub brush to get into the grout.... also bleach clean up spray works good but I found Tilex and rubbing alcohol work the best. don't forget to use towels of the same color as your dye or towels you don't care get ruined. I haven't had my towels stain from the color yet, it washes out in the washer some how but I do know after drying my hair for the first week or so there is tons of dye that comes out. Also wear old shirt while coloring your hair or no shirt at all if your doing it by yourself. I also line my sink and floor where I am standing with towels to help with clean up so less actually get on my surfaces and just mainly get on towels that I can wash. Yes after the first few washes your hair can leave pink on things especially when its WET... i usually shower at night so when its wet I make sure I don't lay my head on the furniture and when I go to bed I put a towel over my pillow. And once the towel is finally not turning pink anymore I know im safe to remove the towel for the next wash. It's the price to have funky colors almost all of them do this, but at least this one (at least for me) stays on my hair for 3-4 months instead of only 1 week. also I never had problems of it dyeing my clothes when my hair is dry just when it is wet and only for the first few washes. So avoid if its raining or just blow dry your hair after showers before you put our clothes on to avoid your clothes from getting ruined. You will freak out the first time you wash your hair after dyeing it but when you come out of the shower it will still look great. I have no ideal how my hair can still be so pink after the first real shower because of how much pink comes out of my hair, it always (even still) freaks me out and Im scared it all washing away, but its still there everytime. I have long hair just below my bra strap and I use 1.5 - 2 bottles for just highlights. I do have where I put the pink at lighten so the color takes to my hair better and is a brighter pink. I have dark brown hair and my hair stylist lightens it to an organish color you don't need to go completely to blonde/white just lighten to an orange color. My color will last about 2-3 months depending on how I take care of it. To make it last longer do's and don'ts: 1. wash/rinse every time in the coldest water you can stand it keeps your hair cuticles shut so more dye stays in your hair than with hot water. 2. us a shampoo that is safe for colored hair 3. Wash less frequent if you can (dry shampoos are awesome to help length between shampoos) 4. use as little hair products as possible after the shower also. 5. only put on DRY hair and let sit longer than the 15 mins that say. there is no harsh chemicals in it so it won't fry your hair the longer it sets in your hair the better it will take to your hair and stay in it. 6. wait as long as possible to do the first real wash after dyeing day... 4-7 days is best so try to do hair styles to get away with it for a bit like pony tails without hair spray, the longer it sits in your hair before the first real wash the longer it will stay in after each shampoo. I love this brand and colors, wish they lasted forever but at least they last a long time compared to other brands, got to love the maintenance to have funky colors :)

Ok, first off: a review of the seller. Then, a small tutorial on how to achieve pastel pink/candy colored hair! Review: You are probably not going to find Special Effects dyes cheaper from any other seller on amazon. This place is great, I got standard shipping and my dye got here within about 3-4 days. The packaging was great, my dye was bubble-wrapped and in a BOX not an envelope, so it wasn't roughed up from shipping at all. Inside the box, was their cute business card and for some reason....a Swedish fish candy...I don't know why they gave me a Swedish fish, but that was a cute/odd touch. So overall: Shipping 5/5 Packaging 5/5 Price 10/5 (Atomic Pink for $11? Crazy cheap!) Now, here's how I dye my hair: Disclaimer: I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL. However, I bleach and dye my own hair at home on a budget! These are all tips and tricks that I learned through trial and error and what I have found through hours upon hours of research. Until just a few weeks ago, the thought of bleaching my hair terrified me, too. But I spent a LOT of time realing posts from the LiveJournal Community PinkHair (go check it out, it will save your hair the first time you dye) and now I'm fully confident in dying my own hair and getting it exactly the way I want. First of all, I want to say that if you have light brown hair at your roots that you haven't dyed, this dye WILL soak into them and give them a pink tint. Aside from that, YOU NEED TO BLEACH YOUR HAIR. If you want to get the color in the bottle exactly, you will have to bleach your hair, there's no way around that, your hair needs to be WHITE. The only reason to skip bleaching is if your natural hair color is very light blone (almost white) or you just want to tint your hair. Trust me, if you do it slowly (over the course of 2-3 weeks) bleach is not scary and should NOT burn. It may be slightly itchy, but it should NOT ever burn or hurt! Ideally you should not wash your hair the day before or the day of bleaching. This builds up enough natural oils on your scalp to protect it from the bleach and keep it from hurting. Yes it may be gross and oily until you bleach it, but when you come out without hurting your scalp, it will be well worth it. Now, the reason why bleach is because you want the color to be exact to what is in the bottle, or close to it. Think of it like this: take a white sheet of paper. On one side, color with a brown/black/red crayon (this is your natural hair color)...now take a light pink crayon and try to color over that brown/black/red. At best it turns into a nasty mud color, at worst, the pink doesn't show up at all, does it? Now color with the pink directly onto the white paper...the color is vibrant and true to the crayon, isn't it? The white paper is like bleached hair. If you're looking to get a pastel pink/light candy pink out of atomic pink...you will need to dilute it, and that's because the color IS STRONG. The best way to dilute special effects dyes are with really thick conditioners or deep conditioning hair masks (think pantene, or those conditioners that come in jars, just avoid anything with dimethicone in it, as it separates the color from your hair). If your hair is already bleached, then mix tiny amounts of Atomic Pink with your conditioner to get the exact color you want. Don't make it darker, because your hair will turn the EXACT color your conditioner/dye mix is. Then, just put it all over your head like you would with normal conditioner, and let it sit in your hair as long as humanly possible! I mean at least half an hour if not more! 15 minutes will only give you a tint, it won't dye your hair correctly. And don't worry, with all that conditioner, plus the natural ingrediants in the dye, your hair will be baby soft by the time you wash it out. =) And then just dry your hair and you're done! If you're like me and went for a lighter candy pink, then this bottle will last you a LONG TIME. My hair is very thick, curly and down to my waist, and I only used about a teaspoon of Atomic Pink and about 2-3 cups of conditioner. Have fun, Wulufii

I have been looking for the perfect dark pink with a hint of purple forever, and one that lasts a while, doesn't run when I sweat, and shows up on hair that's bleached to a light orangey brown (my hair is so dark/previously dyed that I'd never get it white blonde). So yes all the dyes I'd tried previously (manic panic, ion brights, directions) hadn't given me the results I was looking for. Ion had been the best but it faded to a bright pink quickly. Manic panic disappeared entirely very quickly and bled everywhere. Directions didn't show up well and stained everything in my bathroom. So I ordered some Virgin Rose and Pravana Wild Orchid. My hair was previously dyed dark brown with some faded directions cerise/manic panic hot hot pink highlights. I bleached some new highlights in my hair- they were coppery orange/light brown after bleaching. I then washed my hair twice with a clarifying shampoo and air dried it, then applied the virgin rose over the entire top half of my head and left it an hour. After the lackluster cerise results I wasn't expecting much but as soon as I washed out the virgin rose I could see dark pink even in my wet hair. Upon letting it dry, I had dark purpley pink highlights in my hair and a slight tint in the sun to my dark hair. The highlights were very visible even inside and yet professional enough looking for my job. (Previously I'd had to touch up the manic panic or ion every 10 days or so to keep it from fading too bright pink for my job.) So long story short I love the virgin rose, it's my perfect color, beautiful looking even on hair that wasn't bleached light blonde! I have gorgeous bright dark pink/purple highlights and the rest of my hair was left dark brown unless I'm in the sun. So far they haven't faded noticeably (it's been about 10 days and previously I'd be refreshing my color about now) and my hair hardly bleeds at all even in the shower. I wash with sulfate free shampoo/conditioner but confess I still use warm water. Special effects still stains my sink if I spill it when I'm dying but the bottle is much easier to pour into a mixing bowl than the tubs used by other companies. I was able to dilute it 3 parts dye:1 part conditioner and it was still highly pigmented so I will try diluting it more next time to save on dye. Sorry for writing a novel as a review! But I wanted to address some of the areas that I wasn't able to find information on before dying. Overall love this product! I've already bought 2 more bottles of the virgin rose. I'm not even going to try the pravana dye I bought at the same time as I know the virgin rose is the color for me! Update: after about 3 weeks, the virgin rose has faded from a deep purplish pink color to a very vibrant jewel toned but decidedly pink color. I still love it, but it is a bright enough pink that it is no longer work appropriate so I'm refreshing the color with pravana wild orchid & red mix to try to get that purplish pink that fades more red. Don't get me wrong, virgin rose is still an amazing color and it doesn't fade hot pink or anything, rather a lovely vibrant deep pink. If the wild orchid doesn't work, I will keep using the virgin rose and just touch it up more often!

This stuff was truly terrible. I have used manic panic in the last but it fades so quickly and I read a lot of positive reviews on this. Not only did it not turn out the color that it was supposed to it dyed EVERYTHING it came into contact with when I rinised it. I used pimpin purple and instead a nice deep dark purple, I got a bright almost fuchsia color. My back had a huge dark purple streak from rinsing my hair in the shower. My face looked like the girl that turns into a blueberry in Charlie and the chocolate factory. I took a shower twice, trying to get the dye off my hands and body and out of my hair. I am now resigned to the fact that I am just going to have to rinse my hair with a hose or something. I know this is supposedly suppose to last longer than manic panic but all the work it's going to take to deal with the aftermath is not worth it. *Update* So I was pretty upset about how this all happened. My hair is still bleeding pretty badly over a week later. I will say the color looks really good. But it took so many washes until i could get the dye off my scalp which made me look like I had these super purple hot roots. It literally dyes EVERYTHING still. So while I think the long lasting color is great but the bleeding and staining everything (I went swimming and didn't get but the base of head wet. I went to lie down on a lounge chair and when I got up, there was a huge purple circle.). If I were ever to dye my hair again I would probably use this but I would think of a better way to rinse my hair out.

This is by far the most disappointing SFX dye I've ever gotten. After phenomenal results with SFX Atomic Pink (which I bought from a different retailer) I decided i wanted to change my hair to purple and dye over my left over pink (which even after months of wear was not fading). I got a bottle of the SFX purple, bleached my roots and tried to dye over. After realizing I didn't have enough dye I decided to do a purple to pink gradient and dye the top part of my head purple, and blend it into the pink at the bottom half of my hair. When I first started using the dye I noticed it was inded purple but looked a lot more transparent out of the bottle than in, an experience I've never had with dye before. I left it on for a full hour like I do with all my dyes and I washed it out. The results were pretty, but not purple at all. The dye had toned my bleached hair to a steely blue/ purplish, silver color which was nice but not purple. That color washed out patchily, coming off the top of my head first (where I apply shampoo) then the rest of my hair within 4 washes, I think about 2 weeks. The majority of these pics are from about a week after I dyes and you can see it's already wearing away patchily. Unfortunately I can't find the pics I took from just after the dye job. The picture where i'm holding the glass is about 5 weeks later, my natural roots are growing in and ALL of the purple dye had washed out, using gentle color protective shampoo. After such an amazing experience with SFX pink i can only wonder if purple is the brands weakest color, I got a defective batch, or the product is not genuine. Regardless I was disappointed. Since then I have dyed my hair purple with another brand achieved the color I wanted, still, the product I got here was a waste of money.

Do you have long hair? My daughters is down to the middle of her back. We used three kits of Manic Panic Flash Lightning Hair Bleach Kit 40 Volume . Three bottles of JEROME RUSSELL Punky Colour Hair Color Crème Platinum Blonde Toner 3.5 oz --smells like Laffy Taffy and works great! Finally, we used three bottles of Special Effects SFX Hair Color Hair Dye Cherry Bomb and bought a fourth for touch ups. My daughter is 24 and has a shirt that says 99% Mermaid. "Advance Prep" Spend at least a month nourishing your hair. Avoid shampooing as often as possible. Try Dry shampoo so your hair develops with natural oils to help protect it from burning on bleach day. Don't brush wet hair. Comb and brush gently and do your best to heal all split ends. "Assemble" Order or gather all the tools and products needed for the dye job. We bought a packet that included a nicely sized dye bowl, several dye brushes and hair clips with a handy plastic zip bag for storage. Great product. We also purchased a simple chemical/shampoo cape for my daughter and a vinyl apron for me. Package of 30 ct disposable gloves Roll of paper towels Stack of towels, washclothes and fabric that can be ruined Blanket that can be ruined 50 SPF Children's Sunscreen Pouf Scrubby Q-Tips Comb with a pointy end Aforementioned bleach, toner and dye. Quality shampoo and conditioner--sulfate free Painting Clothes--that can be ruined with dye for Dyee and Dyer "Cut Away" Cut your hair as desired. We cut 4 inches off of my daughter's hair. BLEACH DAY "Set Up" Lay down the blanket, place the chair in the center, cover the chair with towels. Have a table area handy for the person doing the dying and something for the dyee to use too. Lay out ALL your equipment so anything needed will be within reach. Unpack the dye kits but don't open the chemicals until needed. "Miss Dye Prevention" Take your time to heavily moisturize the Dyee's Face, neck and chest. And then put on sunscreen too! Use Q-tips to coat the ears careful not to get lotion on hair. Lotion on hands too! Get dressed in disposable clothing and something that buttons up. Dyee puts on gloves and cape. They need gloves too! Really, they can't help it, they will touch the dyed or bleached hair... Dyer must coat their hands and arms in lotion and sunscreen---trust me that dye gets adventurous and tries to get away any where it can. Glove up and put on apron. "Lose the natural color" It's Bleach Day after all! FOLLOW WARNINGS ON THE BLEACH KIT. Bleaching. I found it best to bleach the scalp area hair first. Go from side to side until you get the hair next to the scalp all covered. Bouncing from side to side during application helps the bleach work evenly on both sides. Once you think you have all the hair covered next to the scalp--don't try to bleach all the hair at once if it is long or thick--cover in a plastic cap. Almost any hair/head would do better to have the bleach done in at least two stages. The cap helps keep the product moist and it also retains the heat produced by the chemical reaction, possibly improving the bleaching effect. "Get Naked!" Once the hair bleached is light colored, straw colored at least, strip! Ask for help. Also, get a new set of gloves for the shower and ask the Dyer to help with the rinse to ensure all the bleach is gone. Dry the hair when done--either overnight or with dryer if you must but I advise a combination of both. "Rinse Repeat" Be sure to reapply lotion. Bleach the remaining hair. Rinse and Dry. The second bleach is really good for catching any areas that were missed the first time but do the darkest hair first. "De-bronzify" Getting rid of that awful orange. It's really a color trick. By applying a lavender dye you counter the orange. It helps the Cherry Bomb color come out true. Treat the purple like dye. Use lotions, gloves and all other equipment. You can do the whole head in one shot this time. "Time to Dye" Really Really careful layout. Make sure you cover everything within range. I cannot stress enough how much this dye escapes and gets around the room and if you get it on the sink handles etc....half a second and it's there forever. Open at least two bottles for long hair, put one at a time into the bowl. Add 1/4cup of water to the dye. It spreads easier and works perfectly at that ratio. Take your time. Really can't take too long unless you leave it on overnight or something. Coat all the hair and use the pick and comb to pick up hair by the scalp to ensure you get every single strand. Get the neck hairs too! Use a damp paper town to wipe off any sloppiness on the Dyee, Hope you did a good job with the sunscreen!! Rinse and scrub away any dye. Rinse and Rinse. Water won't run clear but it gets light pink. Use old towels and towel dry as much as possible. REAPPLY LOTION ASAP. THE DYE WILL STILL LEAVE THE HAIR FOR DAYS ON YOUR NECK, FACE AND EVERYWHERE YOUR HAIR TOUCHES---HANDS WHEN BRAIDING.... Use some kind of climate protection and sunscreen to preserve it and you'll be Mermaid red for weeks! I'll publish photos. Her hair looks perfectly red. Take your time, prepare and buy enough product and you'll love the fun results you get from Special Effects Dye!

I love love LOVE this dye!!!! (TL;DR at bottom) I have medium to dark brown hair, and the thought of bleaching it terrifies me because the last time I bleached my hair in high school I absolutely FRIED it. I was pretty hesitant to see how well this pink would show up on my dark hair without bleaching it first. Boy was I surprised. First of all, I have a LOT of hair. I needed 3 bottles of dye to cover my whole head. Hopefully you can use my photos to compare your hair length to mine and use what I said to help you determine how many bottles you’d need to buy. I didn’t just pour it in my hands and rub it all over my hair, I actually sectioned out my hair piece by piece to make sure I got the dye on every last bit of hair as evenly as possible. This whole process took about 2 hours. Yes, it was exactly as awful as it sounds. Man were my arms tired.. After I finished dying it, I put all of my hair up in a shower cap / bonnet and let it sit for 5 whole hours. Excessive? Probably lol. I swear I remember hearing once a long time ago that when you wash out hair dye in the shower you’re supposed to keep washing it til the water runs clear. Well I was in the shower for a good 40 minutes shampooing the life outta my hair before I just gave up and got out the shower lol. My shower water continued to run pink every time I washed my hair for at least a good 2 to 3 weeks. Oh and as for the washing?? Yeah I hate cold water so I never did any of that stuff that you’re supposed to do. I continued to shower every to every other day, and I used warm to hot water every time. Yeah yeah I know the color won’t last as long, but screw a cold shower. I also switched to using Herbal Essences Color Me Happy shampoo. [EDIT: I am now aware that Color Me Happy is actually horrible for colored hair. That shampoo still contains SULFATES, which is the ENEMY OF HAIR DYE. So yeah make sure you read the ingredients on your shampoo bottles carefully, because clearly Herbal Essences is a bunch of LIARS.] So after 1 month of warm showers and Herbal Essences, the third photo is what I was left with. I’m honestly incredibly happy!!! The pink definitely faded a lot, but there was still enough pink in my hair to the point where if a stranger on the street saw me they’d be able to say “that girl has pink(ish) hair.” This dye has exceeded all of my expectations. One thing I’d like to add, though. This dye does seem to stain plastic showers. It kinda comes off when you scrub it with acetone (nail polish remover) and some abrasive cleaners. Over time the stains definitely do fade. But I just wanted to give y’all the heads up in case your shower turns pink and you can’t scrub it all off in one night. I’m about to re-dye my hair with this same dye as soon as I finish writing this review, so it might even be brighter and last even longer this time! ~TL;DR~ 1. Shows up great on medium brown hair, but I let it sit for 5 hours before washing. 2. Long hair (or at least mine) requires 3 bottles. 3. Stains plastic showers. 4. Color stays in nicely after a month of daily warm showers and using Herbal Essences Color Me Happy shampoo & conditioner.

I have dyed my hair many funky colors but always highlights or chunks never the whole thing. I have very very dark hair that people always ask me if I dye it black. I finally got the courage to just go for it and finally dye my whole head instead of just parts. I had wanted to do it for some time but was scared of the damage that bleaching would do to my hair, because since its so dark it would take a lot of processing.I bleached my hair to a brown,blond,orangey color which i figured would be light enough to catch the dye color. I wanted to go for a natural product for the color because I didn't want to add further chemicals on my hair after the bleaching and i had read that these natural dyes color and help condition the hair as well. After looking around and reading reviews it came down to this or manic panic. I went for the manic panic first but it was a complete failure to be written about in another review lol. I waited for the manic begin to wash out and then re-bleached and ordered this product. ~ OK firt thing first this is WAY too pricey. I have long layered hair down to my waist so at $14.95 plus shipping (the price when i bought it) it was a very costly endeavor since it took 3 bottles of dye. ~ I had read reviews that this stuff gets on EVERYTHING and they were 100% right. I dyed my hair in the yard to keep from staining anything in the house. The concrete which is painted dark green now has a big purple stain from were i rinsed my hair. I rinsed with the hose for about 20 min and the water was still coming out purple. Eventually i got tired and figured it would ok to go rinse in the shower since most of the color was gone. Well i was WRONG. My shower curtain is purple and there is a light lavender tint on on my tub that doesnt go away no matter how hard i scrub. In preventive measures i had covered my face with a lot petroleum jelly and that helped a lot because the rest of me looked like a big purple bruise. It went away after about two days which wasnt too bad. i just had to wear long sleeves and jeans and keep my hair down to cover ears and neck. I died my hair 3 weeks from writing this review and What really annoys me is that its still bleeding. My ears are always purple and so are my brushes and pillow cases. Even my hands turn purple when i handle my hair granted it washes off right away but its still very annoying. I cant wear any white clothes because even when dry hair still stains things. ~ The color is nice a bright purple( a shade thats more on the red than on the blue spectrum, but definitely purple and pretty) on the parts of my hair that were bleached to an almost white. On the rest of my hair which had only been processed to that orangey brown blond it looks almost black. Its noticeable when I am outdoors in the sunlight and it looks lovely. I love the color, i just wish it were more noticeable indoors under more subdued lighting and that it showed up in pictures. ~ What i really like about this product is that it did condition my hair. I have always taken good care of hair and try as much as possible to keep my dark locks as smooth silky and healthy as possible. After I bleached my hair it felt coarse and dry and brittle and i just hated it. After I applied this hair dye (which i left on my hair for about 3 hrs) my hair felt manageable and it has a nice luster to it which i wasnt expecting. It doesnt look dry and as coarse as some other dyes would leave it looking. Obviously after processing my hair will never be as healthy as it was but this did condition it nicely and left it with a bit of shine. This was my first time using this product and I am not sure if I will again. What really makes me think twice about purchasing this again is the bleeding. I have never used a product that bled for this long , and for that matter stained things even after its dry. These are my thoughts and my experience with special effects pimpin purple hair dye. Hope this helps :)