Red Velvet Hair Like Erin Robinson

I tried Erin Robinson's red velvet hair color!!!!

I recently decided to dye my hair red from blonde. I have never had red hair in fact I usually fought off any red, golden, orange or yellow hues with my cabinet full of Wella toners. So this has been quite a fun adventure for me.

A little bit about my hair history.

I have dirty blonde hair (about a level 7). I grew up putting in highlights and lowlights. Never really changing much. A few bad experiences (One including a cap of low lights in a salon the day before my high school graduation photos. It looked like a head shot for an audition for cats my hair was so speckled). I used a variety of box dyes in various hues of blonde. Once I got to college I started actually buying the good stuff from Sally's. I again stuck to my various shades of blonde. Sometimes going platinum and others going my natural dark blonde. So the current hair journey I am on started after I got married in September 2017. I was sick of all the upkeep I had subjected myself to during the year prior to my wedding. Including highlights, tape in extensions, fake nails, pedicures, facials, laser face treatment and spray tanning. This was a busy year for me not including dress fittings and meeting with our dj, photographer, wedding planner... You know the deal (We actually had a pretty small and affordable wedding no less. 30 people). Either way I was done with it all. I stopped everything. Except for pedicures. I just do not do a good job. Although during this shut down of 2020 I am going to have to break out my nail polish. I started doing more things at home again. Tanning lotion, gel polish, clip in extensions and of course home hair dye. I decided I wanted my hair to rest and I went dark blonde. I had dark blonde for almost a year when I decided I wanted to go dark. Level 3 and 4 dark brown. It wasn't bad but I liked it for a week and then was done with it. I missed my blonde. I lives with it for a few weeks before using color remover and bleaching it 2 timea. Luckily, my hair has been good to me so far and I have only dealt with minimal breakage. I started doing bleach blonde November 2018 and continued during my pregnancy 2019. Then I decided to do a shadow root with a level 7g and 8n about 2 weeks before I delivered because I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep up with the upkeep of bleach ( I followed Ellebangs tutorial on YouTube). The shadow root carried me for about 6 months until it started to look too grown out.

So here we are March 2019. I was going to just bleach my roots. Threw some bleach on my grown out roots but didn't let it process long enough because I was working around my babies schedule. So I did it again. Same problem . Normally I would ask my mom to take the baby while I do my hair but with social distancing I didn't have much choice. So while baby was down I attempted to bleach my hair and tone it. Leaving me with spotty and yellow roots. So I decided to go strawberry blonde. At this point I should have used a depositing color like a semi or Demi. I used a permanent. It looked nice by my roots but my ends didn't take the permanent hair dye. Had this for a week then decided last minute to go dark red. I had a friend who was at the grocery store shopping for me, so I don't have to go out with baby during this crazy time, pickup some dye. Bad idea for my hair. I know better than to use a permanent dye. No less box dye with 20 vol developer I am assuming. So I did the box dye and my roots were super vibrant and my ends were not. I then decided to go on YouTube to find the perfect formula. After all I have never worked with reds before. I only have experience with blonde and some brown. I came across Erin Robinson's red velvet hair color tutorial. In the video Erin goes to her colorist and gets her roots done and her ends touched up. Since my roots were pretty vibrant I didn't use the formula of permanent dye on my roots. I will try next time I do my roots. The combination was of Joico semi permanent red, ruby red and pearl black. In the video her colorist mixes it but doesn't give the measurements so I'll share what I used. Red (4oz) Ruby Red (2 oz) Pearl Black (.6 oz) ***!!!Make sure you note the black is .6 oz not a whole number only a little more than half a ounce!!!*** Just to avoid any mistakes. I put on my hair processed 20 minutes and washed it out.

I love the color so much and it is so vibrant. It really makes my hair look much healthier than it was before. I am loving red hair right now and never thought I would. As I said I am so used to fighting gold's, reds, oranges and yellows with toners and shampoos so it is nice to just embrace it at the moment and see where my hair journey goes next. I am thinking an Auburn or more of a coppery color. Now I just need to find a good clip in hair extension.

If you have any tips for red hair or questions please feel free to ask.