How To:Hair Chalking, 90s Inspired Grunge Green Hair

Our decade can easily be defined as the comeback era. We have taken everything good from the past style decades and put a modern twist on them. Grunge and Gothic subcultures have always attracted me because of their aesthetic appeal. My wardrobe predominantly consists of blacks and darker solids. As much as I love prints, it leaves me feeling slightly chaotic. So, I instinctively tend to reach out for solids. I have done a couple of posts previously about how to colour your hair unnatural shades. I have done a post about How To Do Pastel Hair (if you do not have chalk pastel) that discusses how to put the colour in your unbleached hair step by step. I did another one  How To: Lighten Dark Asian Hair Without Bleach where I described in detail how to lighten your dark hair before colouring in a gradual and safe way with the soap capping method.

Grunge styles are inherently gritty. It regales in imperfections, a slight messiness. The colour looks best when it's slightly faded. Opt for a piece-y/choppy shag haircut. Leave your long locks slightly wavy. Your hair should look like it's not been made up. Mr. Cobain and his hair was a huge inspiration in the Spring 2013 designer runways. Just look up Peter Som's Spring 2013 collection to get an idea. The hair was absolutely fantastic. P.S. - Green hair has shown up at the Indian Fashion Week 2014. Check out the Easton Pearson show *here*

Here are a few tips to get the perfect (imperfect?) 90s Grunge green hair with hair chalk pastel:

1. Shampoo your hair and use a light conditioner if at all. I would advice not to use conditioner. It prevents the colour from depositing it's pigments properly even if hair chalking doesn't lead to penetration of the colour into the hair.
2. Use the twisting method I wrote about in the 1st post (scroll up to see link to the relevant post). The friction leads to better colouring. Do it on wet hair. This time I used the blow drier to set the colour.
3. You do not need lightened hair. This green would have showed on unbleached hair as well, not as brightly perhaps but, still would have showed up.
4. But, having said that ^ I did like the effect better with my lightened hair. There was a three tone ombre effect which was everything 90s Grunge hair ideally is supposed to be. You do not need to damage your hair with bleach. You can use the soap capping method instead. Follow the detailed directions provided in my previous post (link provided above).
5. If you prefer a more pastel Grunge effect then you need lighter hair than mine. 

 I used soft hair chalk pastel from Born Pretty. Shade - Dark phtalo green 026. I also have their Magenta 022 (seen *here*). It was very easy to put them in my hair and the colour showed up pretty easily. Just wear regular plastic gloves that you you would wear to colour hair to avoid staining. The pastels did not break while applying and there is still a lot left. They are a steal at only $1.27 each.

images via google, pinterest, tumblr.

Sport it in an off duty ballerina bun hairstyle just like in the 3rd photo. It is the hottest hair trend of 2014, been spotted at Diane Von Furstenberg, Altuzarra to Marchesa. Well so are all kinds of fun braids. Why not try a braided bun like at the Dolce & Gabbana show?

FlySongbird