I wanted to share how I ruined my hair and how I am slowly recovering it. I also want to thank this forum, since I have been lurking for sometime and the tips I got from here - really worked. I hope my story helps someone.

I am a natural medium to dark blonde, I say medium because it gets lighter in the summer, with fine thin hair and for years I had got full head highlights and good cuts from a salons and was able to sport shoulder length hair with relative body and a good amount of shine.

That was until I became unemployed and decided I could do it myself. BIG MISTAKE.

I decided that since Sun-In had worked so well for me as a teenager, it would be a quick and inexpensive way to maintain my blonde look. After using Sun-In for several months, my hair became horribly damaged and I had to cut most of it off. I went from shoulder length hair with no bangs - to hair I could barely put into a pony tail.

I decided to stop using the Sun-In and to purchase clip on pony tails and wrap around hair, darken my hair to its natural color or close to it and I vowed to wash my hair only twice a week and condition it regulary.

What was hard was to find these kind of wigs that were high quality and in natural colors and colors that I could match well enough to my natural hair and/or with the aid of OTC coloring products. I eventually found Hair-U-Wear wigs which are rather expensive but they are great.

After buying several of these, I was then left with task to darken my hair and to darken it to match the wigs. This took a lot of trial and error. I tried several Nice-n-Easy dyes which just didn't work. I then tried a Loreal Excellence color that brought out the red/orange pigment in my hair. Also, the color wasn't going on evenly - because my hair had become so porous. I was very distraught and I was fearful that all my experimentation was going to further ruin my hair.

After reading this board ALOT - I figured it out. I went to Sally Beauty supply and bought: a package of color fix, a bottle of protein filler and then bought Nice-N-Easy in Medium Neutral blonde. The medium neutral blonde was lighter than the wigs and my hair, but all that I read told me that after removing the color, I needed to use a dye that was a shade or two lighter.

It worked. I used the color fix, than applied the protein filler and then applied the Nice-N-Easy. It came out perfect.

Now for the recovery. I wash my hair only once a week now with a gentle shampoo for color treated hair. Everyday I rinse it, and lightly condition it. As far as styling I gently towel dry it and pull it back into a pony tail and then I clip on a pony tail or a wrap around wig.

My hair has now grown a few inches and it will take another year before it will be long enough to get a good hair cut - but the wigs make it look like I have great hair and the low mainentance allows me give my hair the rest it needs.

For anyone who is in the situation I am and was in - I hope this helps. And I want to thank all of the people on this forum becasue it was reading your tips that taught me how to fix my hair.

Gahh, I need to fix my hair somehow.

It's terrible, look for my other thread on "Im going to shave my head" in this section - I really need help.

I'm glad you fixed yours though!!