Color won’t take after Colorfix

My 17-yr-old daughter decided to change her hair color from blonde to med. aub. brown.  She has natural light brown hair and had been coloring it for a year.  (I tried to talk her out of this but.....you know teens.)

Well, her hair ended up pretty dark w/red highlights (...like I knew it would) and she hated it.  Enter Colorfix.  We used the Colorfix exactly like the instructions only 1 time.  It took her hair back to light ash brown.  We did deep conditioning and 2 days later, she tried to go back to her orig. blonde color.  This time, the color didn't take.  Her hair remains the ash brown color.

Does anyone know why her hair won't take the blonde color?  Has she overprocessed to the point of no return?  I think she needs to leave it alone....HELP!!!

Overprocessing usually means that color fades.  The problem your daughter seems to have is removing that last bit of brown so she can go back to being blonde.

Sorry, I'm a little confused.  What is her natural color, blonde or light brown?  If it's naturally blonde, then try another round of colorfix first.  If it's naturally brown, has colorfix taken her back to her natural color?  If so, did you then use a permanent blonde dye and it didn't lift to blonde?  It may be that there is enough pigment left that the blonde dye can't remove it.  Color generally doesn't lift color...it works best on unprocessed hair when it comes to lifting.

To remove the last of the brown pigment, you can try colorfix again, but the odds are it won't make a difference.  A little bleach is needed to remove the pigment.  Please don't try this at home if you and she do not feel confident.  The risks with bleach are much greater than dye.

However, if you choose to do this at home, you need bleach and 20 volume developer.  The brown has to be lifted to yellow to be able to go blonde (or very pale yellow for light blonde).  Once it's yellow, the bleach needs to be rinsed out and a toner (violet-based) needs to be applied to neutralize the yellow.  She can go back to using just dye when it's time to touch up her roots, as virgin hair is much easier to lift.

eKatherine:

If we try the protein filler idea, would we want the neutral filler or a color?

 

you need to use a product like seventh stage by clairol to lift her blonde; you have to bleach and tone. color doesn't lift color, and even tho you used a color remover the alteration of the cuticle is still there. bleach her hair to pale yellow (do NOT bleach past pale yellow) and apply a toner (from sallys) with a blue or violet base. that will get her blonde, fast. go to goblonde.net they have great directions on how to go blonde. good luck, i hope it works out.