Don't ever dye over coconut oil

Anyone else do this?  Figure out a solution?

I couldn't sleep, so I decided in the middle of the night to dye my hair blond (using high lift with a blue base and 40 volume, then do some highlift with a violet base to add some white highlights in it). 

Yes, I know, you are supposed to clarify to remove buildup and gunk before you dye it, but I had just washed it a few hours before and I had put some coconut oil in my hair to condition, and I didn't feel like waiting extra days or washing and drying it again, so I dyed over the coconut oil anyway.  Its just coconut, how bad could it be?  I started to worry a little when I put the first bunch of dye in and the area with the coconut oil (from my ears down) started to feel quite warm, and even a little bubbly - but I'm impulsive, and I can also be lazy, and I wasn't worried enough to wash it out and start over.  I've been unhappy with my hair of late anyway.  (Yeah, I know, I get what I deserve). So, when I did the second batch, I just did some small strips, not getting much on the area from the ears down except in a few tiny stripes.

The result is that my hair did go light blonde, but mostly from the ears up. From the ears down its darker blonde (though still lighter than it was) with some light streaks in it.  I can live with that.  I can always touch up the shades later if I decide I don't like how it looks.

My problem is that my hair feels awful!  It feels slimy and sticky at the same time where the coconut oil was.  From the ears up its fine, so I know I didn't melt my hair, but from the ears down I washed it 5 times, after it dried it still felt hard once dry and slippery like it was full of dye. So fearing I didn't get it out and was gonna go half bald in my sleep, I washed it 3 more times (conditioning too of course).  Even now, dry, if I run my hand over it, gunk comes off on my hand and I have to wash it.  Not visible gunk, just a slippery but sticky feeling.

My point, if it ever comes up, don't do it, its a pain in the butt. Not worth all the effort trying to get it out.  Tonight I'll try clarifying and baking soda shampoo and just hope it doesn't screw up the tone of my dye job and make it go too yellow.  And my hair still stinks like hair dye.

Thanks for the support!  That's interesting about the cornstarch - I remember hearing when I was a kid that you could use oatmeal as a dry shampoo, but never could get my head around how oatmeal kernels did anything!  Cornstarch is probably much better. 

I agree with you, it probably prevented the color from penetrating, since my head is a lot more blonde than the length.  Then the dye must have bonded to the oil somehow to form some substance I can't get rid of.  Less of an oil really than a glue it feels like. 

I used clairol high lift stuff, both the blue and the violet, I'm not sure which colors exactly but I remember the numbers started with H for high lift.

Susan, I'm sorry you went through this! I must say though, I don't think the coconut oil did anything BAD to your hair. I think it was just the 'feeling' it left on your hair that was bad. From what I hear (and read) coconut oil is one of the few oils that can get right into the hair shaft and add protein. But it is lightweight. Possibly the peroxide mixed with the oil sped up the processing of the colour and also drove the colour in deeper. Vitamin E oil is often added to colour to speed up it's processing, but it also protects proteins in the hair. In fact, a lot of hairdressers are adding oil into their formulas to protect the hair! You're way ahead and you don't even know it!!

Thank you so much for letting us know what happened, so sorry you had to go through all that mess.   Yes I know that horrible feeling of dread you get when you look in the mirror and realize you might of made a mistake

Susan W wrote: fakeizme:  Ha ha! I completely agree, it didn't do any permanent damage, it was just a total pain.  I think it acted as a protein filler, like you said, but it prevented the dye from doing as much to my length as it did from the ears up, so the length wound up darker than the rest.  I have since redyed it and got it all how I want it.  I love it! .....

YAY Glad you love your hair now & it is ok, healthy...that was scary.

Good to hear about a quality oil for hair Mr. Coconut.


Maybe you used HLV & HLB... 

What do you refresh with later down the line?

Cheers



Edited by borne.blonde - October 04 2008 at 1:13am

borne.blonde:  Yeah, that sounds right, HLB was what I lifted it with.  After that I thought I was happy with it, then I went into the bathroom at work under the fluorescents and was shocked by yellow crayon looking hair!  So I went over it again with 20 volume and another miss clairol shade with a violet base (it wasn't the high lift that time, might have been arctic blonde or something, if I remember right it was level 10).  I'm glad I switched to the 20 volume because I think my hair would have been a lot more fried if I had just gone for white with 40 (always so tempting!).  So, later on I will just use the HLB for the roots, then after a month or two when enough roots are there to look yellow, I'll go over them with something violet (this time probably 20 volume with HLV because I have a bunch of bottles of that in my closet).  I put up some shots of the back of my head if you want to see it (at the bottom): http://www.geocities.com/thespookstress/hair3.html

what project:  It sure was slimified!  I use coconut, or jojoba oil, and sometimes I use an oil/butter mix (jojoba with mango butter, or shea butter. I melt these together on the lowest heat on the stove and they cool to a solid.  Butter mix is great for air travel, less leakage - I have brought this only on some trips instead of conditioner.

Thanks so much!  I really am enjoying my hair a lot more now!  Your bun should do it, the trick to getting the ends to curl is just to do your bun with the ends damp and with the ends wrapped tighter around the base of it so they have tighter curls, then leave it up as long as you can.  I sleep with mine in, its still not dry in the morning though so the curls tend to fall out after awhile.