Posted by carolmanaw on August 10, 2001 at 08:31:02:
In Reply to: Help With Kool-Aid posted by Curious George on June 09, 2001 at 15:15:14:
Method # 1:
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In a large bowl (a little bigger than your head) put in hot water
and Kool-Aid. The longer your hair the more packets you need:
for shoulder length try 3.
Dunk your head in the bowl, and with a cup and a friend work on
pouring the K.A. all through your hair.
Once it is totally covered and saturated squeeze out the excess
and blow dry.
Let it sit on your hair for a day. (Beware: it can be VERY
messy, and during the day it is on your hair it might smear on
your clothes....be careful! Bleach seems to take the stain of
off hands and counter tops.)
-by Jodie Zwart
Method # 2:
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1. Decide what color you want your hair to be. Remember that the color
of your hair will affect the way the color turns out. If you have
really light blonde hair, it will be about the same color as the
drink, but the darker your hair is, the duller it will end up being.
And if you're a redhead like me, greens and blues just don't work
very well...they usually turn brown. I've got reddish blond hair, and
I used one package of Rock-O-Dile Red and one of Orange. Now my hair
looks kinda like it's on fire.
2. Get as many packages of unsweetened Kool-Aid as you feel necessary.
My hair is pretty thick, and reaches most of the way to my waist, and
I got pretty good results with only two packages. And don't forget
that you can mix different flavors to get new colors. One package
of Berry Blue and one of Lemon Lime turned my brothers light blond
hair an amazing shade of turquoise.
3. Boil enough water to completely soak the part of your hair that you
want to dye. It has to be really hot, so don't plan on dyeing too
close to your head. This is another reason you might want to pick a
color that will look OK with your natural color (or, in my case the
color your hair happens to be at the moment). Just make sure you're
using less water than you would if you were making Kool-Aid to drink.
I used six cups of water for each package of Kool-Aid, instead of
eight. My brother only used four, but I don't think it made too much
of a difference.
4. Dissolve the Kool-Aid in the water
5. Dunk your hair in the dye (careful...it's hot...don't get your face
too close to the dye...or any part of yourself other than your hair
for that matter). Let your hair soak in the dye for at least five
minutes, then you might want to dry off some of the dye with a towel.
6. Let your hair dry (it will drip dye all over the place...I usually go
outside) but I don't recommend using a hair dryer...it won't leave
your hair very healthy-looking.
7. As soon as your hair is dry, you can wash it to rinse out some of the
extra dye, so that it doesn't get all over your shirt. But if you
rinse the dye out before it dries, it might all wash off, leaving
your hair the same color as when you started. Now is also a good
time to use a good conditioner, because the hot dye can dry out your
hair pretty badly.
Unfortunately, so far I don't know how long the dye will last...at
least a week, fading just a little bit each day. The color runs a
little for the first few days, and after that it's only noticeable
when you wash your hair. Rock-O-Dile Red mixed with Orange on dark
reddish blond hair gives a very bright red, which looks a little like
fire if you only dye the ends and a few streaks of your hair. Berry
Blue mixed with Lemon-Lime on light blond hair gives an intense
blue-green. Grape on black hair gives purple highlights when the
light hits it the right way.
-Kym Britnell (britnell@idirect.com)
Method # 3:
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Take the packet of dry Kool-Aid and pour it into a paper cup.
Add a squirt of conditioner and about 3 drops of water.
Mix it so it is kind of thick.
Wet the part of your hair that you want to dye, put it on (cover
your hands because it stains really badly) and wrap said hair in
Saran Wrap.
Leave it in for 10 mins, and rinse lightly.
Blow-dry and style as usual :)
- -Mindy Sue
Method # 4:
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Just a spoonful of vinegar added to the Kool-Aid solution helps the color
stay in longer, and wrapping your head in plastic wrap and then a towel
or something and sleeping overnight with the Kool-Aid in works well. As
a brunette, I have trouble getting my hair to "take," but my best
friend, a light blonde since birth, used less Kool-Aid than I, and only
as "streaks" which we painted onto her head with a basting brush for
turkeys and stuff, yet pink and blue strands were still found in her
hair up to four or five months later! An Asian friend of mine also dyed
her hair with absolutely no success. Know your hair type.
As for the staining effects of the Kool-Aid, I highly recommend that you
designate a towel as your Kool-Aid towel, and keep the rainbow-colored
thing around through all your trials of hair color, as a sort of trophy
of your accomplishments, and a colorful history of your explorations.
Those blue scouring pads work to get the stains off skin relatively
quickly with only a little removal of skin (hey, it was either that or a
blue forehead!) But I have recently found that baking powder (good ole
Arm and Hammer) provides all the scouring power that you could want
without the pain. In hardship, I used baking soda-toothpaste, which
worked so well and so quickly, that it made my head spin. Vaseline, as
always, is a good idea to rub onto your forehead and ears, to keep those
runs from staining your skin.
WARNING: The strong and pungent flavor of the Kool-Aid you use will
remain as a scent in your hair for several days, and while pleasant, it
might earn you a nickname (i.e. Strawberry-Jill) from your dormmates for
the rest of the year. :)