Stay blonde or go brunette?
Printed From: HairBoutique.com
Category: Hair Talk
Forum Name: Hair Color
Forum Description: The tricks and tribulations of changing your hair color
URL: https://talk.hairboutique.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=59499
Printed Date: January 22 2025 at 4:43am
Topic: Stay blonde or go brunette?
Posted By: vixen12
Subject: Stay blonde or go brunette?
Date Posted: March 04 2008 at 10:03pm
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I've been blonde for a while now and I LOVE being a blonde, but lately I've just been so frustrated with my hair that I am considering going brunette. Naturally I'm a dark ash blonde, and I've achieved my current color gradually through a series of heavy hiliting (at the salon). Now I do my own roots and tone every 3-5 weeks (I also use purple shampoo weekly to maintain the tone) but I'm always feeling like my hair is either too brassy or too ashy. Ideally I would like the color to be more of a pure platinum, but I don't think my hair will ever be blonde enough for me :). I've made an appointment with my hairdresser on Saturday for heavy hilites, which I'm hoping will help to brighten things up, but now I'm considering possibly changing the appointment and having my hair darkened instead. Here is my hair now:  This is the color that's been tempting me to go darker (I just love the way her blue eyes pop!):  How do you think this color would look with my skintone and eye color? (I have the "Posh" bob which is much shorter in the back, if that helps you to visualize). Do you think it would suit me better than the blonde? Any other color ideas? I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!! Nikki |
Replies:
Posted By: Bambilee
Date Posted: March 04 2008 at 10:19pm
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I wouldn't darken it unless you really REALLY want to, and you are willing to live with it. If you love your blonde so much stick to it. I know about wanting it lighter and it either bing too brassy or too ashy. I think that comes with blonde territory. It's a big change and it's something you can not really go back from very quickly... (and it'll cost your hair.) You are rather pale, I personally wouldn't go that dark. You'd just get washed out, but the cool thing is you have very pretty blue eyes which would pop with darker hair... I dunno how dark I would tempt to going, maybe ask the hairdresser for a semi-perm color, that would fade out and try somethign not so dark like the Chocolate that Niki is wearing. I saw her newer color andit's kinda light caramel blonde, which looks good on her. I like the darker hair on her cause the blonde washes HER out. :) GOod luck with your dec. I went black about 2 years ago... I tell you.. that is HELL getting out and specially to the lightness I got. So think hard and long... I know it's only hair color but unfortunetly it's a pretty harsh change. ------------- ~* Bambi Lee *~ |
Posted By: Quadratic
Date Posted: March 04 2008 at 10:42pm
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I second that about Nikki Hilton. I mean, both her and Britney Spears (when they decided to go brunette), went straight to Brownsville, but carried on a little too far. A little bit lighter might have been perfect. Also, here's the tough thing, once your hair has been taken that light, it can rather difficult to get that rich, luxurious color of brown since you're putting it back in over bleached hair. Typically, since the hair has been damaged/bleached, the redeposited color kind of looks a little more dull and without the shine. (I'm guessing your hair is bleached, please correct me if I'm wrong). You know what might looks super cute on you though, is getting some lowlights strewn through your head. This tends to be so much easier to pull off successfully when going darker, because if your hair grabs the color kind of muddy or blotchy (as bleached hair occasionally does), it's hard to tell since the strand blends in with your other hairs. And if it fades, it doesn't end up looking so dingy as an allover color. Right now your hair looks like an ash blonde, so maybe some reddish brownish lowlights would be perfect to offset the coolness of the blonde. Oh, and I'd recommend doing semi-permanent first, like a try before you buy. So if you don't like it, it can at least fade, or be a lot easier to get rid of, if you want to go back to being 'blonde blonde' like you are now. |
Posted By: Rebekah
Date Posted: March 04 2008 at 11:00pm
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"but I don't think my hair will ever be blonde enough for me" I wouldn't darken your hair simply because you said this. Seriously if it's not light enough now, and it's gorgeous!, going dark won't make you feel better.
Are you bleaching your roots? Try bleaching them to a pale yellow, inside of a banana color, then try different toners till you find the one you like.
Seriously, I love your hair right now! Looks AWESOME to me.
Rebekah
Check out these toners, although very temporary, might be very pretty. 301D or 323D.
http://www.clairolpro.com/dispensary/swatches/toners_swatches.html - http://www.clairolpro.com/dispensary/swatches/toners_swatches.html ------------- Check out My Hobby Shop! http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5372710 |
Posted By: Bambilee
Date Posted: March 05 2008 at 1:53pm
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The lowlights works too. I did that a while back and it looked HOT! I had about four different lowlight colors from carmaeal, darkblonde and almost a black... it looked good. Lowlights are a good option, but don't do them at home. I tried it and it didn't work at all... good luck ------------- ~* Bambi Lee *~ |
Posted By: vixen12
Date Posted: March 05 2008 at 4:33pm
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Thanks for the responses everyone!! I'm still undecided about what I'm going to have done at my appointment on Saturday. It looks like you all agree that Nicky Hilton's brown would look too harsh on me, so if I do opt to go darker I might try a lighter shade of brown. I'm also intrigued by the idea of lowlights, but I'm concerned that if I had lowlights it would be be more difficult for me to do my own roots (since right now I'm pretty much a solid color). I think I'm going to tell my hairdresser that I'm looking for a change and see if she has any suggestions. She knows what I like and always seems to know what will look good on me (cut as well as color) so I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever she comes up with. Rebekah, yes I do use bleach on my roots and I have no problem getting them to the pale yellow color, it just seems like the overall tone of my hair is never right. I use Wella White Lady toner which I've heard great things about and I really like it, but it's funny because I look at pictures of my hair from just a few months ago and the color looks so much better and more of a pure white than it is now. I haven't been doing anything differently so I don't know why the tone would change like that. Perhaps something to ask the hair dresser about. And perhaps I will try a new toner to see if that makes a difference. In any case, thanks for all of your advice!! So many things for me to consider! I will let you all know what I end up doing after my appointment on Saturday. :) Nikki |
Posted By: Bambilee
Date Posted: March 07 2008 at 3:34pm
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Here is what my hair looked like a few years back when I got the lowlights... see if you like it... it's half and half. ;)
------------- ~* Bambi Lee *~ |
Posted By: Bambilee
Date Posted: March 07 2008 at 3:35pm
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oh and the lowlights were put in every layer, apparently they usualy skip a layer... i dunno what they call it when they dothat, but that's what she did... ------------- ~* Bambi Lee *~ |
Posted By: fakeizme
Date Posted: March 07 2008 at 7:42pm
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Bambilee: I love your current hair AND the lowlights! Awesome.
I completely agree with ALL the advice you've gotten so far. I will say this: be careful of going dark --- blondes always think they want to go dark until they do. Then it's "oh my gawd, I'm too dark!" LOL.
If you notice the tone of your hair changing, you may need to clarify or do a deep conditioning to maintain the health of your hair. Blonde hair does fade and naturally darkens with daily pollution, etc. You need to do treatments and clarify the hair of product, so it does not get dingy. You may already do this, so forgive me if you know this already.
I love your blonde. Once you go dark, it will be a b*tch to get out! ------------- Love clip-ins and tape! |
Posted By: vixen12
Date Posted: March 07 2008 at 8:32pm
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Bambilee, your lowlights look AWESOME! I suppose since I can't make my mind up between blonde and brunette, half and half would be a logical choice, lol! How did you do your roots when you had the lowlights? Did you have to bleach and do partial lowlights in the root area? Whatever I do, I just want to be able to keep doing my roots myself - I'm in college and I'm poor so I would be broke if I had to go to the salon every time my roots needed to be done! And how difficult was it to get rid of the lowlights when you wanted to go back to all blonde? Sorry for all the questions! Fakeizme, I think you're right about blondes wanting to go dark until they do. When I was younger, I thought it was a great idea to get a perm on my stick-straight hair and it FRIED it and looked God-awful! I guess we can't ever learn to stick with what we know works :) As far as clarifying treatments, I do use apple cider vinegar to rinse every month or so but I've never used an actual clarifying shampoo. Do you have any suggestions? LESS THAN 24 HOURS till my appointment! :) |
Posted By: fakeizme
Date Posted: March 07 2008 at 10:34pm
Aaaaahhhh! hhaha. I understand your excitement and anxiousness. Apple cider treatments are great! I have read that they are better for closing down the cuticle after a chemical process (lowering the pH of the hair) and making it shiny. there are lots of great clarifiers out there. I regularly use Neutrogena Anti-Residue. I often mix a regular shampoo with baking soda -- you won't believe how soft your hair is after doing this.
Vixen, I think you should go for the lowlights. the good thing about them is you can grow them out without having to redo them every month. Or you can buy some semi-permanent colour and try to match your roots (yeah, this can be iffy!). Lowlights often wash out quickly anyway, so something tells me they will be gone before you get tired of them anyway!
Let us know how it turns out! You will be gorgeous either way. Good luck! ------------- Love clip-ins and tape! |
vixen12 wrote:Posted By: Ally<3
Date Posted: March 08 2008 at 3:51am
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Why not get low lights the same colour as your natural hair and just bleach around them when doing your roots? This would be hard if you had tons, but if you just had a few, using a mirror for the back, would be fine.
------------- |
Posted By: Bambilee
Date Posted: March 08 2008 at 10:42am
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I never actually kept the lowlights for a long period of time, sadly. I got rid of em' as soon as my roots were to noticable. The hairdressser had done it so that my roots wouldn't be so noticable after a while. She had told me to just come back and have them done, but I never did. I got a deal on it from some promotional thing and then I couldn't afford to go back.
Getting rid of them was easy enough, they just bleached out like the rest, of cousre the stay a shade darker but that's fine.
Lowlights are really good options.
I miss the hair, but I still like my hair now! ;)
------------- ~* Bambi Lee *~ |
Posted By: Bambilee
Date Posted: March 08 2008 at 10:46am
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[/QUOTE] Aaaaahhhh! hhaha. I understand your excitement and anxiousness. Apple cider treatments are great! I have read that they are better for closing down the cuticle after a chemical process (lowering the pH of the hair) and making it shiny. there are lots of great clarifiers out there. I regularly use Neutrogena Anti-Residue. I often mix a regular shampoo with baking soda -- you won't believe how soft your hair is after doing this.
Vixen, I think you should go for the lowlights. the good thing about them is you can grow them out without having to redo them every month. Or you can buy some semi-permanent colour and try to match your roots (yeah, this can be iffy!). Lowlights often wash out quickly anyway, so something tells me they will be gone before you get tired of them anyway!
Let us know how it turns out! You will be gorgeous either way. Good luck! [/QUOTE]
I didn't know you could use Baking soda or apple cider! I need todo that, my hair is getting a bit... bah. I'm going to try that! ------------- ~* Bambi Lee *~ |
Posted By: PerfectBrunette
Date Posted: March 08 2008 at 5:16pm
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Hi Vixen, I like your hair the way it is now. However, if you want to "try" the lowlights without comitting to them, you could always use a semi-permanent color. It won't wash out on hair that has been lightened like yours but if you use a color remover like Color Oops or Color Fix your hair will look the same underneath taking you back to what you are at now. I went darker recently and it didn't take me long to want to go back to my original color. I'm glad I didn't use a permanent color as that would have lightened my hair considerably underneath, not to mention the extra unneeded damage. It's always good to have a back-up plan. |
Posted By: ammonia
Date Posted: March 08 2008 at 6:33pm
| i say, dont do it! blonde looks so good. watch i just hope you dont regret it afterwards because alot of us who have made that change, did. |
Posted By: vixen12
Date Posted: March 08 2008 at 9:16pm
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Well I got back from the salon, and unfortunately we didn't do a thing to my color. :( The appointment was originally for a cut and hilites, but my hairdresser didn't realize when I made the appointment just how light my hair has gotten, and she said that she was concerned about putting bleach on top of my already bleached hair. I asked about lowlights and she didn't think this was a good idea either - she said that my hair is so bleached/porous that the darker color would probably come out muddy and would likely fade very quickly.
I'm a bit disappointed because I was looking forward to leaving with some kind of change, but I guess I'd rather stick with what I've got than risk having the change turn out badly. She did make some suggestions about correcting my tone though - She said that I've got some toner build-up and that a bleach rinse (or whatever it's called - the bleach mixed with shampoo and left on for a short time) would help. She knows that I bleach my own roots and didn't want to charge me for something that she knew I could do myself, so I'll give this a try next weekend when I do my roots. I also think I'm going to check out some different toners because it seems like the White Lady leaves my hair too ashy. Thanks for all your suggestions guys! If I keep on being bored with my blonde and decide that I REALLY want to try the low-lights, my hairdresser said that we could do a strand-test and try to find something that would work, but I'll wait until I'm 100% sure I want to go that route before we try that. For now it looks like I'm staying all-blonde. :) Nikki |
Posted By: PerfectBrunette
Date Posted: March 08 2008 at 10:12pm
| It sounds like your hairdresser is really looking out for you. You should be grateful to have someone who cares about you as a client rather than just pouring more bleach on your head. |
Posted By: Ally<3
Date Posted: March 09 2008 at 1:05am
Gosh I completely agree. Also about not charging you for what you can do yourself. It's really good to see. ------------- |
Posted By: vixen12
Date Posted: March 09 2008 at 1:46pm
| Oh I'm totally grateful for her. I've been through lots of not-so-great hairdressers and she's the best I've had. A keeper for sure! |
Posted By: Bambilee
Date Posted: March 09 2008 at 2:09pm
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I totally agree too! Your hairdressers sounds awesome! Everytime I've gone in to a hairdresser they've bashed me for doing my own hair and tried to make my hair darker.... but she seems to care about your hair and what you want. I want her! Hahaha... I think the white lady is too much for you too, it is to make the hair white but used to often it makes it grey/ashy, see if you could find one with a little color in it... like golden. I applied light golden on mine cause I was having ashy area's too... it worked, btu sadly does wash out quickly. :) Good luck Vixen! ------------- ~* Bambi Lee *~ |