QuoteReplyTopic: dyed black hair ... how to lighten? Posted: January 17 2006 at 12:59pm
Hi,
Many people have had the same problem, including me.
What you need to do rather than bleach your hair is get a colour
remover, one that only removes oxidative tints (won't take the pigment
out of your natural hair) like Colorfix or Goldwell System. It's
actually surprising how well these can work, and they're much gentler
than bleach. This will probably get your hair to a dark brown
with one application, so you may need to do it a few times. It
may work better on some parts than others, but trust me it works more
evenly than bleaching it would do.
Because your hair so porous like mine, if you bleached it, it would
probably hold onto the black at the front and at the tips, and bleach
the rest dark orange/yellow. I tried bleaching the black out
before I used colour remover, and it was a mistake - it left my hair
incredibly muddy and dry.
It's better to do do it as soon as you can after dying it, because the
longer you wait, the harder the dye holds on to your hair, and you
won't be able to get all of it out to your exact natural colour.
So, when you've removed the colour you'll be left with a nice shiny
canvas to paint on! (I found the removal of black leaves your
hair looking healthier because it gets all it's shine back that years
of dying black can get rid of.)
To get it a nice warm deep brown, it should be pretty easy with a nice
dye. I assume you want red tones in if you want it warm?
That's good because you'll have a lot of red left in your hair when
it's stripped.
Be very careful if your hair is porous. Choose a shade of dye a
couple of levels lighter than you want, and make sure you do a strand
test, a few if you can from different parts of the hair.
And this is where I leave it to my more experienced HairTalk friends , I'm sure they'll want to put their two cents in soon.
(I, too, can't afford the salon and have a lot to thank these guys for - here's my situation, very similar to yours:
I'm new here and to put it frankly, a little overwhelmed at the sheer amount of information there is here! That's a good thing, but I do have a question that hopefully someone here can help with.
I have long hair. It sits just above or at my bra strap on a normal day, and about an inch past if I straighten it. It's wavy, thick, dry, coarse, and frizzy. I try to take good care of it ... I rarely blow-dry or otherwise heat my hair, I rarely brush it (I tend to comb it wet and leave it alone), I wash 2, maybe 3 times a week and NEVER skip conditioner. My hair doesn't like to straighten OR take an artificial curl, is VERY porous, and at times is my arch-enemy lol.
In the summer of '03, I dyed it the darkest brown I could get my hands on (actually called soft black, it was L'Oreal Creme, but I'm not sure they still make it). Then, a couple-few months ago, I went darker, at the behest of a friend who thought it would look nice, to Hydrience's Black Pearl. Then, about 2-3 weeks ago, I went to a salon for the first time in YEARS and had my roots touched up (natural medium blonde) and bright red highlights put in.
So now I have jet black hair with highlights that have faded to a shade of auburn that is actually quite nice. While dark hair is more becoming on me than I ever thought blonde was (and WAY better than the abusive relationship I had with red a few years ago!), I feel like it's too dark and I'd like to go with a warm, rich mink brown, with golden and/or red highlights. My conundrum is that I want to do it myself, since I can't afford another expensive salon visit so soon after my last one, and I'm really done having hair so goth-dark when it doesn't fit my personality. (I did want to get used to it before changing though, which is why I kept it so long.)
So the meat of my question is ... how can I lighten my hair a few shades, enough that I can get a nice, deep, warm brown shade in it? I expect it to take about a week of multiple treatments to do it properly ... lighten, wait a day or so, dye brown, wait a day or so, and do highlights (and even low-lights in red if I want). I have a good friend who loves to do hair who said she'd help me foil it when I'm ready (and I've done it before, it's fairly fool-proof). Is that the way I'd have to do it, with days in between treatments so that my hair and scalp don't just panic and go into shock? What product should I use to get my hair lighter? I really want to avoid bleach if I can, but my hair has been this color for so long that I'm not sure if a color-remover would do any good. If bleach is recommended, how should I use it just to lighten a few shades? Would a very short set time be adequate?
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, I'm sure they'll want to put their two cents in soon.
