If you know me at all, you may know two things: I love whimsy, and I am very broke. So when the talk of the summer was a DIY hair dye for my friends, I felt a little stuck for a few reasons. Mainly, my hair is a gorgeous shade of chestnut brown, and to dye her a fun pink, I would have to bleach her. Which is expensive. But when designing my Pinterest board for the summer I came across a girl with bright and sparkly hair tinsel: pink, whimsical, and only semi-permanent. Now I could have bought a tinsel kit, but I did not trust my own abilities. Like any college girl, I turned to TikTok, where I discovered that you could get your hair tinsel done at your nearest Ulta Beauty Salon (so like, a location not inside a Target) for only $15! It seemed like a good deal, so after a little convincing, I got one of my friends to agree to go with me (thank you Abby!) and we had a date on the books!
What to Expect
I came with my hair freshly washed and dried, all ready to be tinsel’d. Now, here is something I would be aware of: I have curly hair. And honestly I do believe that that factored into my experience a lot. But we shall get there!
We walked into Ulta at our appointment time (and I definitely would make an appointment. Only some stylists do the tinsel, and they are not in every day!) and they immediately sat us in three spinny chairs (our friend Lily has a car, so she drove us…also thank you Lily!) to pick our colors. They have a wide range of options, but I knew immediately that I wanted the hot pink. Abby opted for a lighter pink.Â
Our stylist was very kind and went over the basic care tips for our tinsel. Spoiler: they are much easier in theory than in practice. Some people’s tinsel lasts for months, others’ can fall out in less than a week. A lot of factors play into why this is the case. The tinsel itself is a few strands tied to a bead that ties into your hair. Abby and I both had 3 beads on each side. Brushing your hair roughly, or even right on the tinsel can loosen the bead, as well as washing it or styling it. The tinsel is allowed to be used with heat tools which is nice.Â
The application process was fairly simple; Abby and I each took about 15 minutes in the chair. This is however when my curly issues started to surface. My stylist had to brush out the places where the tinsel was tied in (overall, the tinsel never really adapted to my curl pattern) making me wonder if I should have straightened it. (Though, both Abby and Lily commented that the half-straightened look with the tinsel was giving Hannah Montana, and I was not going to complain about that.) The tinsel was then snipped to fit each of our hair lengths. They do expect a tip when paying, as it is a service, so my total came out to around $19.
The Aftermath
Barely 48 hours into my tinsel experience I felt as though I may have been shedding a little bit. But with the amount of tinsel on each bead, I had a full head of tinsel for almost a week. I did find myself trimming the tinsel quite a bit. Interestingly enough, I lost the beads on my left side first, but my right side clung on for a while. I would take out a bead too if I noticed there were no more strands remaining. By the two week mark exactly, I had two remaining beads on my right side, each with barely a strand on them and a city date that evening, so they both came out. And the hair wash the next day, when I didn’t have to be uber-ly careful, felt amazing.
Abby felt similarly, though her beads lasted a bit longer than mine did. Her hair however, is a lot shorter than mine with not a lot of texture.Â
Yay or Nay?
Ultimately, I really did enjoy the two weeks of summer whimsy my tinsel brought me. And for $15 I would gladly do it again, though I would probably wait until a certain event to do so-only because I know it will not last too long.Â