Another Starry Nite: Hair Chalking

For those of you that don’t know, I’m in Beijing. Improving my Chinese, but back being a student again has also freed up my time a lot more. (After all, I have to start practicing my procrastination again, no?)

I saw hair chalking on Tumblr about half a year ago and the thought crossed my mind that I’d want to try it, but work took over and it just slipped through my mind. I can’t remember what triggered it in my mind again but I set out to find an art store and actually buy some soft pastel and do it myself.

It’s really simple, all you need is:

Soft pastel (has to be soft pastel) – about RMB 3.50 each
Water – tap water is fine
Comb
Curling iron to seal the colour in (optional)

I found a lot of small art shops along Dongsi W. street if you guys are looking for where you can get some in Beijing.

There are tons of Youtube tutorials out there, so I’ll just give you the basic run down. I have extremely black hair, so if you’re blonde, just skip the step of wetting your hair.

1. Choose the colours you want to use, unwrap them if they have a paper around them

2. Part a small section of your hair

Oh wait, first, either make sure you’re wearing an old shirt, or you’re naked. I usually do it in the toilet, because the chalk really does get everywhere.

Ok, so after parting a small part of your hair…

3. Dampen the section of hair. I usually hold the section with one hand, then wet the other hand with tap water and then just use that water to dampen the hair. You can also use a spray bottle or whatever.

4. Use the comb to comb through it to flatten it out and even it out. Some people say twisting your hair gets more colour on it, so it’s up to you.

5. Wet the chalk and then start colouring your hair in a downward motion. Going up and down will create lots of tangles, so try and avoid it. Don’t be afraid to experiment, you can overlap the colours to create rainbows or gradients, so just try things out. If it looks bad you can just wash it out. Easy.

6. Wait for it to dry and enjoy.

Warnings: This will get on your hands when you fiddle with it/touch it. It will get on your clothes (so wear a similar colour shirt), don’t worry though, it’s washable. If you’re really worried you can tie it up in a bun or braid it.

They say not to wear it if it’s raining… It does wash off in one go, so you know what rain is going to do. It doesn’t get on your face, so don’t worry if the hair touches your face.

To wash it off, just shower. It does absorb a lot of the moisture from your hair though, so just remember to condition that day.

Fortunately my hair is too short to touch any of the clothes I’m wearing. Unfortunately it’s too short for me to do the back tips by myself to make it look as nice.

Here’s some examples of some I found online: