QuoteReplyTopic: Black to Brown Hair? Posted: October 31 2010 at 4:57am
Okay, so I've been reading a lot about hair color, and what people have said, and I still don't understand, so I thought I'd ask here. My hair is 100% black, and I thought "hey, it's Halloween, so I'll try a different color for the fun of it!" so me and my mom went to the local CVS and bought some "for woman" hair color. I picked a color, similar to like..chocolate brown. It was called "Black-Brown" on the box, so yes. Anyway, my mom applied it, as she's always done it for herself, so I thought "well, my mom has been doing this for years, so I'm sure it'll turn out right" and ..it did not. I thought it was going to be noticeable, like "wow you really DID change your hair color!" But to me, I don't see any difference, no change. I just see my usual..black hair.
In short ---- Is it possible to change from dark hair (black) to brown hair ( like any brown color? ) ....
Yes, brown boxed dye likely only contains 10 or 20 volume developer. This is like 3% or 6% peroxide, and it isn't going to be strong enough to lift black hair as many levels as it needs to get to brown.
You will probably need to use hair bleach to lift it to a medium orange shade (dark hair will lighten to orange, then yellow), then dye over it with a brown shade with a green base. You'd want to test strand everything. If you accidentally lift it to yellow, you are NOT going to want to use a green based brown dye over that, you'll get green hair. So, the test stranding of both the bleach, and the dye will be very important. Testing the bleach in advance will help you get the timing right so you don't lift more than you need to (it may not take very long to get it to a medium or dark orange color). You don't want to go to yellow because your hair will be more damaged than it needs to be, and getting it back to brown and staying brown will be harder. Testing the dye on your bleached strand will also be important to help make sure you don't get any funky colors.
If you don't want to do bleach, you could try 40 volume developer for the lifting, but I'm thinking bleach will be the best option for your hair, as it might take several applications of the 40 volume to get it to orange, and this may wind up more damaging in the long run. So, if you try that, test strand that too to make sure it doesn't wind up too damaged.
You've also got dye in it, which may or may not get in the way of things. You can try removing it with Colorfix, (it may be hard to tell if it worked since you can't see it though). Another reason test strands will be good.
Edited by Susan W - November 01 2010 at 4:46pm
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