I’m naming these two by brand name specifically because they’ve both been around forever and they’re both what a lot of people know best.
Manic Panic Pros:
veggie-based and non-toxic — great for homes with small children or curious pets like cats and dogs
vegan friendly — if you care about that
company owned and managed, still to this day, by two women from NYC’s punk scene — if you care about that
wide variety of colours, some of which claim to glow under blacklight
semi-permanent and thus gentler on hair
Manic Panic Cons:
the fact that it’s veggie-based and “natural” means that the results (colour, longevity, etc) won’t always turn out uniform — take their semi-permanent Black (called “Raven” in their catalogue): on some people it turns out a very dark green, on others it’s turned out a very dark or medium purple or red. A lot of people also report that the colour washes out faster than the wording on the jar implies while others claim that it stays just fine. They say they’ve tweaked the formula to improve its longevity and colour uniformity, but it’s still “all-natural veggie based” which means it will always have this flaw. Generally, though, their “gel formula” in the bottles (available on the company website, most retailers don’t carry the bottled stuff, only the stuff in jars) stays better and has a noticable better history of colour uniformity than the cream-stuff in the jars.
better uniformity in the MP jars seems to be brought about by abusing your hair more. Yes, if you check the website, Tish and Snooky’s hair looks great, just keep in mind that these two dolls have been killing their hair for about twenty-five years now. The more you abuse your hair (with bleach and perm solutions), the more porous it can become and thus the more willing it is to absorb any kind of colour you put on it. Manic Panic cream colours work best on hair that’s been chemically beaten into submission.
Special Effects Pros:
Chemical-based, so it’s like doing your hair with SCIENCE! Also, the chemical basedness creates more uniformity of colours and increases longevity (still, as a rule, any semi-permanent dye will last longer and have brighter colours on hair that’s been bleached and otherwise been treated enough to be more porous).
vegan friendly — if you care about that
wide variety of colours, some of which claim to glow under blacklight
Special Effects Cons:
Toxicity indeterminate. The bottle of toner I have states that it’s not tested on animals (which, these days, implies that animal testing is no longer necessary for the ingredients used), but also warns that using this product too close to the eyes may cause blindness
may be harder to find than Manic Panic — if memory serves me, MP has a few years on SpFX and has a bigger reputation, so a lot of beauty supplies (especially Sally) are urged to push MP, and more often than not, the employees pushing MP are pushing it because it’s been sold at Sally for, like, a hundred years or something and not because they actually know anything about the hair-dye itself.
Stains are often more ornery than MP stains (though not always)
You really shouldn’t dye animals1 with it, due to its chemical base and “may cause blindness” warning. I know a lot of people liked giving Kelly Osbourne crap over having her dog dyed to match her hair, but Manic Panic is an OK dye to use for temporarily dying pets — Special Effects should be avoided on animals. I’ve had cats accidentally get into my MP and the worst thing to happen was their hairballs came out slightly pink, and the cat was going to upchuck a hairball anyway, and as best as I could tell, the dye didn’t make it worse at all (and other people have on-purposely spotted a cat with MP cos they were dying their hair and the cat was being annoying). In fact, SpFX should be avoided in you live with animals that have tendancies to get into stuff or lick your head or something; if you have pets like that, and, say, they lick your head before your first shampooing, it may not cause any immediate problems from one or two licks, but the more they ingest in one sitting (before poping it out again) will increase the likliness of causing problems and your pet may need to get her stomach pumped.
Note:
1: I don’t advocate dying your pet on purpose, in fact, I advise against it most of the time, not because it puts the animal in danger or because you have to hold the animal down to do it (I know a girl, I stayed at her house for a few days, and her little longhaired teacup chihuahuas seemed to actually enjoy getting dyed to match her hair — but then again, I’m of the opinion that chihuahuas are actually an alien race that got stuck on this planet (cos contrary to popular belief, the Aztrecs or whoever didn’t have to breed those fuckers down to that tiny size, chihuahuas just kind of happened and it’s an evolutionary anomoly that they’re somehow the same species as, say, a real dog, like a pitbull). I advise against it because I’m not totally comfortable with people using critters as fashion accessories. Still, some of you people are going to want to dye your dog or cat anyway, so if you’re going to do it, might as well advise you on doing it right.
