puffkins, if you want brightly-colored streaks or something, you only have to bleach out those spots. You can use cool-colored dyes in unbleached hair for a subtle effect, but it'll only be really eye-poppingly bright with treated hair.

You people and your long hair. xD I used to keep mine really long (and I LOVED using chopsticks or chopstick-type hair things to hold it up) but I wanted to do something drastic with it and lobbed it off. It's so much easier to care for at this length that going back to long hair is an almost impossible thought.