Red (plum) to Blonde - Any help appreciated

You can use a color remover like Color Fix.  They have peroxide, but not that much.  It will be the least damaging way to pull the red dye out so you can redye.  Doing what you're about to do may do more damage to the bleached hair, that is why the salon didn't want to be responsible.  I'd suggest that if you do what I say below, test strand first to make sure none of these steps get your hair to the breaking point because of the previous bleach.

After you use Color Fix (you may need to use it once or twice), your hair will come out orange or bright yellow.  Since you want to be dark blonde, its best to do it until your hair is all yellow (you can redo any orange parts alone until its all yellow).  Then use a dark blonde dye, one shade darker than you want to end up with (still choose a dark blonde), with a violet base.  It HAS to be a violet base to counter the yellow.  Use it with 10 volume developer.

The reason you pick one that is one shade darker than you want to end up with is because your hair is porous after previous dyeing and color removal, dark blonde will come out one shade lighter on light yellow hair in this case (it will also fade a little in later washes because of your hair's porousness).

Another reason to test strand, your bleached highlights may come out too gray if the colorfix makes them white instead of yellow...you'd want to see if this will happen before you do any of this to your whole head.

Oops I didn't realize you were in England.  I have heard its difficult to get this stuff over there because you can't shop in beauty supply shops.  You may have to get this stuff online.  If not, you may want to try to convince the girl at the salon to use Color Fix on you and nothing else to strip your hair, and to do test strands on you and let you decide for yourself if there's too much breakage...she might agree, and that might be easier.





Edited by Susan W - April 14 2008 at 8:40am

Do u have any pics so I see it? I can help better that way.Whatever u do,do go & do just anything.Be very careful on what u do.I'll help u if I can.

Be aware that ash brown and ash blonde are not the same thing basewise usually.  If you had chosen an ash shade of dark blonde, chances would have been pretty good that it had a violet base, but an ash brown will likely have a green base, and may make those white or yellow highlights come out greenish.  (It is what you'd need to counter reddish hair, but test strand if you can before doing your highlights with it - I know its hard to find a highlight that is a hidden piece of hair).  

Edited by Susan W - April 21 2008 at 7:15am

Thanks!  But no, I'm not a pro.  Just an avid do-it-yourselfer.