Hello!

I have medium to light golden brown hair (level 5 or 6?) and I would like to color my hair a coppery red color (level 7 or so). I'm looking for a natural looking shade that doesn't have any burgandy, wine or bright red in it.

BUT, I also have very long hair; it is down past my waist on my 5'1" self and is naturally lighter at the ends than at the top. To get my hair the color I want, I know I need to do two things: lighten it, and deposit the color. If a non-ammonia/peroxide dye is used (such as color by Robert Craig), it is only the lightening part that causes damage, right? So I would like to minimize the damage by only lightening my hair once. In Jr. high I lightened my long hair with Sun-In once (naively not thinking about roots!), and grew it all the way out, and I didn't have a problem with damage then so I know my hair can take it. So I would like to color my hair in two steps:

1. Lighten hair -- what should I use for this? Just plain 20 vol peroxide? Or a box hair color?

2. Color hair -- I'll be using color by Robert Craig or a semi w/o peroxide or ammonia.

Touch-ups: only lighten new growth but add color to all my hair.

Do you guys think this will work? I'd use a box color, but I'd be using peroxide for refreshing my color that way and that would be too damaging for my long hair.

Any advice is most appreciated!  Thanks for reading.

There's seriously no need to double-process esp. if u get it done professionally, trust me on this one, if u don't want any unnatural purpley or burgandy tones perhaps the best choice would be a prof colorists who can then analyze ur hair and then she'll prob use 30 vol. with the color to act as a high lift. But if u really wanna do it alone then always strand first, i can't stress that enough. Anyways the reason i said no need to bleach first is becuz i take my naturally black hair to a bright red using igora royal w/ 30 vol. by schwarkopf and the first time i ha it done in a salon and it took me there in 45 mins without using bleach. I now use that to touch-up my roots...although abt a month ago i was in chicago and didn't have my regular dye with me so i bought loreal excellence blonde supremes and used that to make my roots reddish orange, which it did, and then i put a color gloss over that to give it more definition.

Anyway, I have tried quite a few red shades in between when i didn't use igora, such as koleston perfect and indola with 30 vol. and they both lifted adequately. And in any case, if u buy the stuff from sally's and u don't like what u see on the strand test u can always return that and get bleach if u must.

But seriously, any prof. line even from sally's can help u get the desired lightness in the red shade of ur choice.

I reccomend wella color charm or clairol complements with 30 volume developer and one/two shades lighter than the target color is prefered but with ur hair i'm sure u can get away with the exact shade u see on the swatch. It would also be a good idea to get a color gloss from there which always spices up the color but with this be sure to get two shades lighter than desired cuz glosses come out waay darker than expected.

Remember to also strand test with the gloss just to be sure!

Anyway i hope u follow thru with my advice cuz even if it didn't work i know that sally's accepts refunds or exchanges.

Good luck and tell us how it goes!

Thanks you so much for the product advice, Veronica! I'm not familiar with the brands at Sally's, so that was helpful.  And I will definitely do a strand test.

And oops, I thought bleach and peroxide were different! I don't think I need to bleach my hair, I just wanted to apply the peroxide to lighten my hair separate from the red color when I do touch-ups. Since red color needs refreshing, I can't just dye my hair once and expect the color to last, but once you've lightened your hair it stays lightened. And my hair is long so I only want to use peroxide on it once.

So I was thinking of coloring all my hair using 20 vol developer (peroxide) mixed with a warm color 3-4 shades lighter than my hair, and then coloring my hair red with color by Robert Craig (no ammonia or peroxide). Then for touch-ups, only apply the color with peroxide to the new growth, but use the red dye all over to refresh my color.

Does this sound like it would work? TIA!