Manu's New Look - Ketchup & Pepper

Today was the day for Manu to pay the piper. You can check out the Flickr stream of the process.

We did need to remind Manu to come in today. He conveniently forgot that today was the day for his hair consultation.

We took Manu down to the Monterey Academy of Hair Design in Santa Clara to get their recommendation. Although Manu was game for a full bleach and hair coloring, we were advised to go with streaks instead. The treatment is less intense. Bleaching thick, black hair can take a while and can damage the hair and scalp. So after taking their advise and $44 dollars later, Manu was ready to go. We were assigned to Tony, who was a hair dye virgin prior to Manu.

Tony had plenty of help as many of the other beauticians were interested in Manu's unusual request. The first step was the bleach treatment. They grabbed a few long strands of Manu's hair, applied the bleach, and wrapped the treated hair in aluminum foil. To accelerate the bleaching process, they put Manu under the hair dryer. The bleach process took about an hour and a half. After removing the foil and a shampoo treatment, Manu was ready for the red dye. The red dye application took around 30 minutes. After another rinse, and a blow dry, Manu was done. Although it is clear that something is different about Manu's hair, we were hoping for a more shocking result. If we were to do this again, we would have gone for the full hair bleach and color application. Manu was a good sport, and he will have 4-6 weeks of red streaks to enjoy.

Peter elected to get his hair dyed even though he won the contest. Peter's treatment was considerably simplier. Since he was going for a brown coloring without as much of a permanent coloring, Peter was able to simply have a hair dye applied. After 30-45 minutes, a rinse and blow dry, Peter had brown hair. Not sure how long it will last, but we'll see. Peter's dye job ran $30, but actually seems to be more obvious than Manu's coloring.

Our recommendations after the afternoon outing. For those with black hair looking to really look freaky, go for a full head bleach and coloring. The team at Monterey Academy of Hair were really friendly. The prices are about right, but keep in mind these folks are in training. If you know what you want, be sure to be specific about your request. Since we have no clue about the process of hair dyeing, we were a little out of element in explaining our needs. It was a fun contest, but it's nice to be done with it.