Sunset Hair 2.0 | The Refresh

- December 19, 2018

I had my sunset hair touched up yesterday, which wasn’t wholly necessary, but my family is visiting later this month (and I usually see my family two to three times a year), so I wanted my mom to see the sunset effect in its full glory. We did make some adjustments, though based on how it “faded” (more like transformed) over the last six weeks. At this point, these posts are mostly my written record for myself in my hair “journey” more than anything else, so I hope you’ll indulge me with another post about it. (If not, it’s an extra post anyway, so you’ll be getting your normal daily dose of posts!)

The first time I did the effect, I was a little nervous about the rose gold/copper/orange tones, so they were the least present and were done more in the back, instead of being more prominent in the front and around the pieces that would frame my face. I found that I liked a lot of the purple streaks along with the peek-a-boo effect of the lighter, orange/copper pieces, and they were getting harder to “find” after four washes, as the stronger pink/magenta dyes washed through and tinted the lighter orange pieces.

After seven washes, there was still nuance from those pieces, but they were darker, more red-copper. Thankfully, I still loved and enjoyed the overall effect and look of the more pink/purple in my hair, and I also found that the color seemed to get more vibrant as the rose gold/copper tones muted from the pink. Since I was going in for a touch up, I passed along that feedback, and I had also decided that I wanted to do more orange and more purple with less pink overall–I told my stylist 20% orange, 30% purple, and 50% pink. She modified the process a bit by going for a stronger orange mix of dyes, and she rinsed each piece from foil individually so that on the first rinse, more of the orange-heavy pieces wouldn’t get the pinker/purpler dyes running through it.

The retouching process took just under four hours from start to finish with about an hour being the rinsing, drying, and styling. It took about two and a half hours to separate and paint all of the sections of my hair (which then went into foils). When I originally did it, the process took seven hours but included raising my balayage up as well. The next time I go in, I expect to raise my balayage again, but I think when I do that is really dependent on when my hair grows out too long that it feels heavy enough that I need a trim (it’s getting there).

I still really love how my hair looks, from the first coloring to how it’s held up and looked over time to the retouched look. Never say never since who knows what might catch my eye, but the plan is to keep the sunset effect until closer to summer. In Arizona, they don’t typically bury the water pipes very deep, and it’s impossible to get cold water in my home during the summer months, which is less than ideal for keeping in brighter hair dyes, so I might use that time to make more drastic changes (I was originally considering going a little lighter, more rose gold/dusty pink for spring!). I feel like this type of shades suit me; they’re brighter but not all the time, as it really depends on the light and angle, so I can play it up or down in a way. It’s also good since I tend to go heavy on eye makeup that I don’t need my hair to be competing 24/7 for attention with my eyes!

For further reading: Sunset Hair 1.0 (more about what was used, the process, etc.) / Sunset Hair 1.0, 1 Month Update.

My hair was done by Laura Krech at The Waverly Salon, and I’ve paid for all of my services!