It’s summer vacation and there’s no better time to try something new. With a little over two weeks off from school, I decided that the purple hair dye I’ve been using to tone my hair would look pretty amazing on the tips of my hair. A fun dip dye for vacation abroad!

Dip dying your hair seems easy enough, but when you are actually putting that dye straight on your hair, it can be a bit anxiety inducing. For me, I was especially concerned about the dye becoming a solid straight line at the bottom of my hair. So here’s how I dyed my hair to look like it is slowly fading into the color at the tips!


*My hair was already bleached blonde, which will give you the best results in color.

  • For the more faded look, I dyed in two steps. First I diluted my Manic Panic Purple Haze hair dye with some conditioner. This helps the dye to not completely saturate the hair follicles. The ratio to dye was completely eyeballed until I reached the color shown (see color below).
  • I separated my hair into three sections, one on either side of my hair and one in the back. Using an applicator brush, I put the mixture on the bottom three inches of my hair while it was dry. I rubbed lightly on the tips to make sure that all the hair was saturated. You can also twist the ends for easier management.
  • I left the mixture in my hair for around an hour. The Manic Panic dye is organic and so will not damage your hair like other dyes. I washed my hair in the coldest water I could handle and then left it to dry on its own.
  • Once my hair was dry again, I then separated my hair into three sections again. This time, I did not mix the color with conditioner. I applied the dye on the very tips of my hair and saturated them. Slowly, I used the brush to lightly and randomly apply the dye a bit higher up. This mixed with the faded color I already had from the previous dye.
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  • Again, I left the mixture in my hair for an hour and then rinsed it in cold water and then conditioned it. After it dried a bit, I conditioned it further with argan oil since the tips were dry from the coloring.

That’s it! Naturally, this color will fade with each wash and also with the sun. The best way to prevent this is to wash your hair as little as possible (like once a week) using dry shampoo in between washes. You can also touch up the tips with dye to get it back to its vibrant color.

I did this dye one week before leaving on vacation and still had to go school. If your hair is long enough, you can easily hide the tips with buns and tucked under braid hairstyles. Good luck and let me know if you have any further questions in the comments below!

Stephanie