Manic Panic Amplified Hair Color
I haven’t dyed my hair in years due to an allergy to a chemical commonly found in permanent and semi-permanent hair dyes. The chemical is para-phenylenediamine (PPD) and from my personal experience, I recommend avoiding hair dyes containing PPD, even if you have successfully used them many times before with no adverse reaction. Even the “natural” hair dyes sold in most retailers contain this chemical or some variant of it. An easy way to check to see if a particular product has PPD is to see if the dye has two components that have to be mixed together prior to use. If so, this is a chemical hair dye requiring a chemical reaction during the mixing. Be especially careful with chemical hair dyes if you have ever used black henna temporary tattoos.
Having mousy, dirty-blonde hair gets old after a while. Even though I waited most of my life for my first full hair dye experience, I was accustomed to having at least highlights or lowlights or both. Once I discovered I was allergic to PPD, I thought I was destined to live with the dishwater blond until I turned gray.
Enter Manic Panic semi-permanent hair dye. My oldest daughter introduced me to the product. She works at Hot Topic, a retailer in malls that specializes in pop culture fashion and accessories. They also happen to carry Manic Panic hair color. Manic Panic is also available online via Tish and Snooky’s Manic Panic website or through Hot Topic’s website. The product is vegan; it contains no animal ingredients and it is not tested on animals, but tested on celebrities. The best part for me is that Manic Panic is PPD free!
I was ready to dive into the wonderful world of hair color again. The classic cream formula comes in about forty different colors. I chose to try the amplified version because it is touted to last as much as thirty to forty percent longer than the classic cream. The color selection in the amplified line is a bit less diverse, with only fourteen of the most popular colors currently available. Let me warn you, if you are looking for a “natural” color, you are not going to find it in the Manic Panic line. These colors ROCK!
After checking several Pinterest boards and doing extensive before and after Google searches, Vampire RedTM and Purple HazeTM are the colors I chose, while my daughter went with Rockabilly BlueTM. Not being very experienced in the hair dye process, I found it very helpful to have a partner. I dyed her hair and she dyed mine.
For the most part, we followed the instructions on the bottle, which are clear and easy to understand. For purity of color, the manufacturer highly recommends that you lighten your hair first and they have products available for this. My daughter and I opted NOT to bleach our hair and just apply the dye directly over our natural color.
The amplified line comes in a squeeze bottle and we just applied it directly from the bottle to our freshly washed and still-wet hair. As the instructions suggest, we combed the color through until the hair was saturated and frothy. I’m very glad I had my daughter to help me, since I was doing two colors. She applied the Purple HazeTM to the longest layer of my hair and then wrapped the purple part in foil before she applied the Vampire RedTM to the two shorter layers of my hair.
After we were well saturated and frothy, we applied heat to our hair with a blow dryer set on low for about ten minutes. Then we wrapped our hair in plastic wrap, put a plastic shower cap on over that, and topped it all off with a knit cap. The dye is activated by heat rather than chemical, so we figured the more heat, the better. The bottle says to leave on for thirty minutes. In our research of before and after pictures, we found that many consumers recommend leaving the product in your hair much longer, even overnight if possible. This is the method we chose.
In the morning, we rinsed the dye with water as cold as we could stand until it ran clear. We followed that up with a rinse of 1 to 1 vinegar and water, which I’ve since found is recommended on the website, but not on the bottle. You can use a conditioner on your hair and rinse through one more time, but we found our hair to be soft and shiny without the conditioner. Our color came out fantastic! I am very pleased with this product. Not only did I get great color, but I had no allergic or adverse reaction even after leaving it in for ten hours!
Definitely check Trish and Snooky’s website. There are all kinds of handy tips and tricks to use when dyeing your hair. Especially pay attention to the eleven commandments. As the website says, live fast and dye your hair.
So far my color has lasted a week without any noticeable fading. The bottle recommends not washing your hair for at least a week after dyeing and only washing your hair once a week thereafter for maximum color retention. I only lasted four days after dying and then three days after that. I will post updates as to how long the color lasts for me.
Happy dyeing! Happy Cosplaying!
Steampunk has entered the cultural mainstream in clothing style, fiction, video games, TV, movies, and more. There are even sub-genres of Steampunk such as Cyberpunk, Gearpunk, and Dieselpunk. As Steampunk becomes more widespread we have more and more character choices for our cosplay. “Glue some gears on it and call it Steampunk” is no longer enough when it comes to costuming in the genre. Characters such as Madd Moxy from Borderlands or Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd are some examples of pre-existing characters we can choose as a basis for modding. Post-apocalyptic characters are also available to play with – think Mad Max or even Waterworld. 
My second original character is “Steampunk Sadie”. Sadie’s look is an eclectic mixture of old west characters. Part saloon girl, part gypsy, Sadie is fun-loving and free willed but still has a touch of Victorian lady hiding underneath. She wears a bandolier with glass bottles of potions and herbs – the tools of her trade. Sadie is an apothecary and a matchmaker, so naturally her specialty is love potions. Again, with this character, there is no need for goggles or gears; she simply doesn’t require those items in her day to day life. But let’s not be mistaken, she has plenty of impressive stuff back at her workshop. Mortar and pestle, jars and boxes of herbs and plants stacked high on shelves, vials of colored liquids, specimen collection containers, and maybe even special oculars to help her pull tiny seeds from their pods. She may carry some of these items out and about with her, but mostly she just needs to carry her best-selling potions for a quick sale to a lovesick traveler.
