My Review of Manic Panic Semi-Permanent Hair Dye

By Shaina Eldredge on November 8, 2017

I am an art student, so it is a given that I am surrounded by a creative environment. Plenty of people I see are covered in tattoos, so many different wardrobe types, piercings, and more specifically, colored hair.

I love coloring my hair, and now that I have started a new job that has no real strict uniform policy, I am finally able to dye my hair once again. Normally, I go for a brand called Sparks, which provides permanent hair color, great coverage, and a happy Shaina.

However, this time I dyed my hair, I instead used Manic Panic, a very well-known brand of hair dye created by two really great women. I tried the Rockabilly Blue shade of the dye, as I am a huge fan of blue hair color so I will be basing my review on this one color.

http://www.sallybeauty.com

To begin, I went to Sally Beauty, a beauty supply store, and looked for a permanent dark blue hair dye. The only permanent blue I could find was nowhere near the shade I wanted. Quickly, my options were limited to one brand of demi-permanent dye and the Manic Panic dye.

Demi-permanent hair lasts longer, but I knew a lot of people that have used the brand with no problem, and it had pretty great reviews. So I bought one color and one bleach of the brand (and got another color free as a part of a deal Sally was running). Grab a couple of gloves, forget to get Vaseline like I always do, and I was ready to dye my hair.

I’ll be honest, I have never used a semi-permanent dye before. When I color my hair, I commit and always go with a permanent color. Plus I’m too lazy to deal with upkeep, and permanent hair dye lasts for so long. But I did not expect the amount of running that Manic Panic gave to me. The color was nowhere near the color on the sample clump of hair at the supply store. It was far lighter than I expected, but that was fine, I guess, it was still a dark shade.

When I first dyed with Manic Panic

Immediately, however, the coverage was so sparse and uneven. While usually when this happens, it is at fault of the person doing the hair, but the coverage Manic Panic gave me was just unnecessary. Plenty of my hair was still brown on one side at the back of my hair. Not what should have happened.

Most disappointingly, after about six days of this hair, my roots were already turning the green shade that meant that my hair was already fading. Six days. I had only washed my hair once or twice within this time, so the fact that it was already fading was really upsetting. Green, brown, and blue made my hair really unappealing to me.

These two images were taken the same day. Note the lightness and the roots.

And oh my god, it runs. So. Much. I could not run my hands through my hair without them coming out like Smurf hands. My nails were forever blue. If I wore my hair down, parts of my face where the hair touched would be the faintest shade of blue.

Usually, this problem is from not letting the excess dye run out of your hair in the World’s Longest Shower you have to take when you color your hair, which usually means standing in lukewarm water until the water “runs clear,” or until the water is no longer whatever color you dyed it. And I did; I stood in my shower for over 45 minutes, watching the blue water pool around me and create a blue ring in my ceramic bathtub, cold and patient. The water ran clear, but for days I still woke up with so much blue on my arms, hands, and neck. Eventually, I was forced to shampoo to see if that would fix the running problem, but shampooing shortens the life of the color. So I shampooed and still had running problems.

Overall, with how hyped the brand is, I was genuinely disappointed to have had this experience with Manic Panic. It’s so much of a mess, the spread isn’t very helpful, and it runs so awfully. It is not a brand for anybody who takes hair coloring seriously, maybe just for someone who wants to play around with highlighting a clump of hair or two.