How to Chalk Your Hair

Big thanks for today’s post on how to chalk your hair goes out to the talented Anna Lutzke from Be Inspired Salon and the amazing Kinsey of Kinsey Mhire Photography for styling and photo credits! Thanks ladies!

You may have noticed something weird about my hair in all my wedding photos that I’ve been sharing lately. My hair is purple…and pink…and blue.

Hair chalking is an easy way to temporarily add some sass to your look. I absolutely love all of the beautiful shades of pink and purple that tastemakers are sporting on le internets these day, however given my day job, a full purple dye job is not in my future. In addition, I hate what colored hair looks like as it as it fades and grows out. Yech.

DIY Hair Chalking

Art Pastels – I used this set, which is only $10 on Amazon and has free shipping!
Spray bottle (optional)

Start with dry, combed hair. Doing one small section at a time, moisten the ends. You can be fancy and use a spray bottle, but I just dipped my fingers under the faucet and patted the water into my hair. Take the pastel chalk color of your choice and gently rub it on the damp section of hair.

I found it works best to hold the very tip and rub the chalk away from my head. Then I place the entire section I want chalked in my palm and give it another good rub to get the very tips. Continue with as many sections as you desire. The final step is to heat seal with a straight iron or curling iron. You can see photos illustrating the process below!

Things to consider:

Especially in light hair, this will probably not completely come out in one shower. The pink really likes to hang around – in me it’s about 90% faded after 4 washes. That final 10% takes about 2 weeks to really disappear. If you are worried about this you can skip wetting your hair. Here’s some chalking I did myself the first day and then after a shower:

Hair chalking does work on brown hair. It’s more subtle, but still really pretty! You can see an example here.
Don’t blow dry or use styling products on your hair after it’s chalked as it can cause the color to come off or make a mess.
Once it’s heat set, I haven’t had any problem getting it on my clothes but it’s probably not the best night to bust out that new white silk shirt you’ve been dying to wear!