Joker Green Temporary Hair Dye help?

Hey guys,

I'm going to a fancy dress party in the next couple of weeks, and I plan on going as the Joker (just from the comics, no specific version). I absolutely loathe the hair color sprays that I've used previously - just makes things tacky, and it always gets on the collar of my purple tailcoat. I've also been thinking of experimenting with different hair colors in my normal life, so I'm looking for a hair dye that will be semi-permanent/temporary. I really like the color of Jared Leto's Joker hair, so anything close will be greatly appreciated.

Here's the catch - I've got dark brown hair, and I don't fancy bleaching it (I will if there's absolutely no other choice). Any options out there for me?

Thanks, guys!

Hate to disappoint you, but you're definitely going to need to bleach your hair if it's dark brown. I remember these two guys who made a bet, one of them would paint his hair green while the other would make it purple. They both had dark brown hair, the guy that went with green had bleached his hair and got a bright green, while the guy that went with purple didn't bleach it and you could only see a hint of purple if there was enough light shining on his hair.
As for green dye, every dye reacts differently per person, so there is no way to be 100% sure which dye Leto used. From my experience, Arctic Fox had great quality products but they don't have a very big variety, whereas Crazy Colors, Directions and Manic Panic have a big selection, but quality varies. Also, I don't know what spray dyes you have been using, but maybe you can look at what those brands have to offer, though I don't have any experience with sprays. Looking at pics of Direction's dyes, Spring Green seems to be relatively close, though if you search it on google it seems turn out lighter for some people than others. If none of the colours look good enough you might also wanna try just mixing two different green together.
I hope this was somewhat useful, I know how hard it can be to get the exact colour you want.

Safuran said:

Hate to disappoint you, but you're definitely going to need to bleach your hair if it's dark brown. I remember these two guys who made a bet, one of them would paint his hair green while the other would make it purple. They both had dark brown hair, the guy that went with green had bleached his hair and got a bright green, while the guy that went with purple didn't bleach it and you could only see a hint of purple if there was enough light shining on his hair.
As for green dye, every dye reacts differently per person, so there is no way to be 100% sure which dye Leto used. From my experience, Arctic Fox had great quality products but they don't have a very big variety, whereas Crazy Colors, Directions and Manic Panic have a big selection, but quality varies. Also, I don't know what spray dyes you have been using, but maybe you can look at what those brands have to offer, though I don't have any experience with sprays. Looking at pics of Direction's dyes, Spring Green seems to be relatively close, though if you search it on google it seems turn out lighter for some people than others. If none of the colours look good enough you might also wanna try just mixing two different green together.
I hope this was somewhat useful, I know how hard it can be to get the exact colour you want.

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Somehow, I knew I was going to have to bleach it. Thanks for this very helpful answer How would you recommend that I bleach my hair? How bleached should my hair be before putting the green in?

Well, platinum blonde will always be the best, but if you don't want to go that light I'd say going as far as medium blond might do the trick.
As for how to bleach your hair, of course the safe route would be to let a professional do it for you, though I have always done it myself so who am I to tell you to do otherwise. If you'll be doing it yourself, what you're gonna need is bleaching powder and a developer. These can come together in a kit, which might be best to buy if you've never bleached before or you're gonna have to buy them separately, which I usually do. There really isn't a brand I can recommend here though, since the bleach I use works alright on my hair, but didn't work so great on my friends, like I said, everyone's hair is different. As for the developer, where I live they use XX% peroxide, ranging from 3% to 12%, while in the US they use XX-volume developer, ranging from 10-vol to 40-vol, at least, from my understanding, so you're either going to need 9% or 30-volume. Don't do for the highest one as that'll most likely destroy your hair and skin.
Now when you got the powder and developer, mix em as instructed on the package with a hair brush, and once it's nice mixed the fun or torture may begin. With torture I mean that high % or volume developer can get very hot and hurt your skin. Usually you use aluminium foil to contain your hair, which also increases temperature, which is why I hesitate to use it myself, so whether you use it is up to you since the foil does help with coloring. After painting everything you wash it out after whatever time the manual tells you to, but you can somewhat decide it for yourself by looking ever 5-10 mins to see if your colour changes. If it changes very fast you might want to wash it out a little bit early, while you can leave it in a bit longer if it isn't changing enough. Now you might have to bleach twice if it didn't get light enough, just be sure to use a ton of conditioner whenever you shower to heal your hair a bit. If you have to bleach twice just wait a few days between bleaching so your hair won't get destroyed, though if you've never bleached before your hair should be able to take quite a beating.
Which reminds me, bleaching will probably make your hair yellowy so the green I recommended will probably also become to yellowy, you'll have to look for a green that's greener than Leto's to compensate for the yellow or you need to get a toner and purple shampoo/conditioner to get the yellow out of your hair.
Well that's about it I guess, I didn't mean to write such a huge wall of text, but then I've never been great with words. Anyway hope this helped and I hope I didn't forget anything.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0045ZCGUI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 try this works like a dream on mine

brucebatman said:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0045ZCGUI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 try this works like a dream on mine

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Does this work on dark hair?

I have dark brown almost black hair (from having it dyed black) and i've been using Jerome Russell's BWild spray. It's a chalk, so seal it with some hairspray if you go this route. Also don't touch your hair while it's in. You'll have to layer it on, but it looks very vibrant!

http://jeromerussell.com/product/bwild-color-spray/#

As for Jared's hair, reportedly they used Manic Panic's Electric Lizard, which makes sense because he's been known to use Manic Panic for his bright pink hair. If you use this, you'll definitely have to bleach your hair first. Good luck!

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Here's the source for Jared's hair. It's on Manic Panic's website, so I'd assume it's reliable (if a company lied about that, it would have some pretty serious blowback).
https://www.manic-panic.co.uk/article.php/22783/hot-press

These are all excellent suggestions, guys I'll have to try them all out in my spare time. However, from what I've heard, bleaching my hair to go platinum blonde will take weeks - time which I don't have. I'll go with the Neon Hair Gel that brucebatman suggested - if that doesn't work, it's back to the spray on colour for me XD

As far as the costume goes, I'll need to purchase a green waistcoat soon, and I'm thinking of making a cane for it as well. Stay tuned