Best way to get light gray hair (w/o wig)

[Destinatus]

I'm going to be cosplaying as Kensei to Fanime this year. My hair is dark brown and I want to dye it light gray or white like his hair. A wig would only be an option if I could get one for super cheap.

Do you guys have any suggestions? Thanks!

[Leash]

Going from dark brown is fairly difficult, especially if you aren't experienced with bleaching. Bleach too much, and you will loose your hair. To get a silver look, you would need to bleach out your hair first until you get light light blonde. Then you use a silver hair dye toner, which is basically a light purple toner that cancels out the yellow in your hair.

I would suggest looking around a different salons and ask if that offer this kind of dying service. There's a few punk style salons around my area that specialize in eccentric dying.

[Rainbowgasm]

Originally Posted by Destinatus

I'm going to be cosplaying as Kensei to Fanime this year. My hair is dark brown and I want to dye it light gray or white like his hair. A wig would only be an option if I could get one for super cheap.

Do you guys have any suggestions? Thanks!

its probably going to cost you FAR more to get your hair that way then a wig...

[Emrys]

There IS spray on hair color in white or gray (along with all your normal rainbow colors) that you can get from places like Walgreens, but it is messy, doesn't cover well and rubs off/drips all over the place. I'm just saying it exists, but I still wouldn't recommend it.

[tereshkova2001]

Theatrical hair color is a much nicer product than the spray-on stuff. Ben Nye sells stuff you can apply to your hair with a sponge or brush, which will wash right off at the end of the day.
It's more expensive than the Walgreens sprays, but cheaper than a decent wig.
Here's a link; you would want the Silver Grey or the Snow White for that character.

[Chaletica]

Well, there's always bleaching and dying, but I wouldn't recommend it... a wig will really be worth it in the long run. Plus, a short wig like that shouldn't cost too much either.

[Kelley]

I would just get a wig.

You can get one for ~$30.

Wigs : http://shop.cosplay.com/scruffy2-silver-wig.html
http://shop.cosplay.com/ccsboy-sandy...style-wig.html

Arda also has some nice short ones : http://arda-wigs.com/


Bleaching and dyeing, even doing it yourself, could exceed $30. It WILL if you go to a salon, and could easily go double that.

It's hard to achieve a colour like that. And starting from dark you'd ideally want to do multiple sessions and deep condition in-between.

If you're not gentle enough, your hair can become very brittle and start breaking and falling off. And you're going to have a very orange colour between bleachings. And if you don't do enough and tone ? Weird colour and even more bleaching needed to fix it.

You'll hit $30 easy.

[Destinatus]

Thanks for the help! I decided to try out the Ben Nye dye since my hair is already styled pretty close to Kensei's and running low on time now to get the wig then style it

[LunaNera]

There is a silver hair dye, if you have a store that sells Japanese products, they should carry it. Its called Palty, in the silver ash(I think its called that at least). All the instructions are in Japanese, but the pictures make it easy to figure out.
Get some bleach, bleach your hair out, if you have virgin hair this wont take long at all. You don't have to get it white with the bleach since there is ammonia in the Palty as well to lighten hair.
This is a picture of when I had it in my hair.
Just remember that this is a permanent, the Ben Nye is a temporary. Depends how long you want to keep it.

[Destinatus]

Originally Posted by LunaNera

There is a silver hair dye, if you have a store that sells Japanese products, they should carry it. Its called Palty, in the silver ash(I think its called that at least). All the instructions are in Japanese, but the pictures make it easy to figure out.
Get some bleach, bleach your hair out, if you have virgin hair this wont take long at all. You don't have to get it white with the bleach since there is ammonia in the Palty as well to lighten hair.
This is a picture of when I had it in my hair.
Just remember that this is a permanent, the Ben Nye is a temporary. Depends how long you want to keep it.

Oh yeah, that looks good. I'm guessing its hard to tell what shade it's going to turn out. I already bought the Ben Nye Gray color but I might go for permanent gray if it looks cool

[nanakiff7]

Originally Posted by LunaNera

There is a silver hair dye, if you have a store that sells Japanese products, they should carry it. Its called Palty, in the silver ash(I think its called that at least). All the instructions are in Japanese, but the pictures make it easy to figure out.
Get some bleach, bleach your hair out, if you have virgin hair this wont take long at all. You don't have to get it white with the bleach since there is ammonia in the Palty as well to lighten hair.
This is a picture of when I had it in my hair.
Just remember that this is a permanent, the Ben Nye is a temporary. Depends how long you want to keep it.

Oooooh, I might have to try that stuff, since I TOTALLY want silver hair with black streaks <3