Dilemma

[Arctic_Mama]

So everyone, I need an opinion.

I am stuck with dyed hair. I henna'd for awhile and chopped most of that off (had slightly longer than BSL henna'd curls) and then did the chemical dye route in reddish tones, with highlights. My hairdresser did a new color that was a closer color value to my base shade, but still red, and now I am growing out. I don't have a ton of damage, just a little more dryness than I'd like because of the chemicals. But I am not sure I want to commit to being a hennahead for life, so to speak, with growing classic length hair.

I would love to LOVE my natural color, even though its mousy, or at least have a chance to love it by being able to grow it. But I can't deal with SEVERE two-tone, I struggle enough with friends and family being very critical of ANY length on hair and how 'unkempt' it looks (even if its stunning). I don't really care what they think, deep down, but I know it would really bother me to look like a 'WIP', so to speak.

So here's the question - should I chemical dye my hair one last time to get the shades as close to my natural as possible, so that the outgrowth will be less noticeable (this might include *gasp* stripping the color! I am cringing even saying it!)? Should I just bite the bullet and try going two-toned without any modifying? Should I just accept that I love red and henna over the outgrowth, which would make the colors very visually close?

HELP! I just need some opinions. How bad would a dye/strip be on my hair? It's done very well with chemical dye so far, and good care would minimize the noticeable damage, but if I'd be shooting myself in the foot in terms of trying to grow length by damaging it extensively more I'd like to know!

AHHH!!!

[ReadingRenee]

Im growing out Henna right now and I do have two toned hair. It was really hard for the first month or two when my roots were still short in length. I wore a lot of wide headbands so the contrasting color against my face didn't drive me insane. But once my roots got a lot longer its really no big deal. I like the contrast of my hair against my natural color. It makes braids look really neat, and buns look almost fake! I am having fun.

I did go the route of dyeing my hair to match my natural color back when I first joined and due to the damage I had to cut every single bit off over a period of time til I got back to virgin. Of course if you are going to cut your hair anyway because its a different color than maybe it would be less painful for you to just go ahead and get it close to your natural color.

I wouldn't henna it though if you have already had henna and cut it out to get rid of it. As we all know Henna is there to STAY! :)

[Euphony]

If you have no desire to upkeep henna, I think you'd be better off with two tone. But I'm a fan of two tone, especially when it's a huge difference. My hubby teases me that eventually I'll have white hair to my hips then red hair to my ankles - he could very well be right. I henna for the qualities it imparts, the color is a bonus for me. But with my natural color the sun bleaches it horribly and it looks like I chemically bleach it so henna is very much for me.

Synthetic colorants are just so harsh, I would really be hesitant to do anything with it. But your hair is far from your goal (I'm assuming), so now would be the time to do something drastic if you so choose, then if need be you can cut, if you waited you could have several more inches of hair and knock yourself back much farther than you'd like (I'm not feeling well, did that make a lick of sense?).

[Elenna]

IMHO to redye as close to your natural color as possible.

The reason is because your hair still has a lot of growth potential and you want to start doing TLC for your hair. Dyes are very harsh on the hair and many have to cut the dyed hair off to get any decent growth.

Two-toned hair keeps hair dressers in business. The roots show up awfully fast and it's off to the hairdresser.

[spidermom]

It depends. You say you would love to love your natural color, but I'm assuming that you don't. Why don't you stick to the color you love and have touch-ups? Or you might consider streaking the color into your roots, not covering all of them, letting your natural color show more and more. You'd still be two-toned, but there wouldn't be a sharp line of demarcation between dyed and not dyed.

Have you ever done research into the ingredients in your hair dye? Some of them probably come with the warning that they should not come into contact with the skin. How do they expect anybody to dye their hair and not get any on their scalp?

If it were me, I'd ditch the dye from this day forward and let the natural color come, maybe glopping on a bunch of blackberry juice cooked down thick from time to time (my current experiment). But then I like my natural color, silvery whites and all.

There are natural dyes on the market, such as Aveda and Vegetal (or something like that). You might look into them.

[Jemoiselle]

Hi there!

I'm new around here, but I just wanted to reach out and say for what it's worth, I've always thought women with two toned hair like you describe look so beautiful. A long time ago, I struggled with a similar scenario. I decided to go back to my natural self, cut short so that it was healthy, pampered it, and now it is tailbone length and wonderful. I applaud you for having the courage to do what is right for you despite those other people, whom btw sound like they are not the kind of cheerleaders I'd want for my team so to speak. Your hair is stunning, whatever you decide...it's got to be the decision that you and you alone feel is best. That way, you'll look even more beautiful because you will have that glow about you that says "I love myself and there's nothing that you can do to change it".

Jemoiselle

[Arctic_Mama]

See I just HATE chemical dyes, I don't want to do them. I cut off the henna not because I didn't love the color (I got compliments all the time) but because I felt I needed a drastic change after my first daughter was born and I was frustrated with the curly hair care routine that just wasn't what my wavy hair needed - it was too matted and messy, I need a style I can heavily comb to keep my hair looking nice and between cold/wet weather and some dryness I was ended up with dreadlocks of sorts! It still looked pretty, but I wanted something more polished. I had pretty bad post-partum depression with my daughter, too, so chopping off my hair seemed like the change I needed to 'snap' myself into a better place. It didn't work, of course, and I was quite depressed with losing all that healthy length. When I got it cut (razored) they dyed it too - seemed like a good idea at the time but I HATE the upkeep and the textural changes to my hair.

I've had to redyed once since then, trying to find a color/cut that satisfied me, but I came back to realizing that I just like my hair best with low upkeep and natural beauty. But now I am stuck with the dye.

A HUGE part of me wants to re-henna, it's so EASY and looks nice, my current color would blend right in (it's super close to my henna shade) but the indecisive part of me rebelling against anything more permanent done to my hair. It would be so great if I could just get to my natural color, grow a few more inches and see how I'm liking the shade (I can ALWAYS henna later, I can't undo it once its done!).

But it's just not worth it to try for my natural shade if it's going to kill my hair right now. While it'd be ideal to strip it and dye it a nice, medium brown that I could gradually trim off as my hair got to a length I liked (classic is my goal but I'd most likely start trimming inches off at BSL before proceeding longer with damaged hair) but I am clueless as to how bad stripping the dye would be.

I will ask my hairdresser all about it when I go (appointment is October 7th), she's very good and very knowledgeable, but YOU ladies are the ones specifically versed in the care and handling of long hair and hair intended to grow long and healthy.

Is stripping dye from a few months ago terrible? It's fairly close to my natural shade, the highlighted pieces are small. But my hair IS slightly porous, being wavy. Would stripping cause me terrible breakage further down the road? If it would I'd rather be stuck with my henna, which is still a nice look, than kill 20-someodd inches of hair because I'm too self conscious to be stripey for a bit!

[manderly]

Don't strip your hair. Didn't you say your dyed color is close to your natural color?

I say let it grow for now, and if your roots get really irksome go ahead and find a dye that is close to your natural color. You may have to go asher than what you normally are to tone the old red down.

That's what I'm doing now, growing out old stripped dye and henna while dying to try to match and blend the roots. I just did a Naturtint box dye and like the results. No noticeable damage.

[ladyshannonanne]

Even if you dye your hair as close as possible to the natural color, when the toner fades, you're still going to have two toned hair. There's really no way around this. I grew out red hair once, and I know it's tough, but I kept it up as much as possible and I tried to ignore it.

If you want to stop coloring your hair, I'd say the sooner, the better.

[Arctic_Mama]

Manderly, I think I am leaning towards that. Stripping just scares the crap out of me, I'm a wimp!

LadyShannonAnne - I am thinking because the tones, themselves, are so close, I might have luck with overdyeing. I am still not sure what that will do to the texture of my hair. Here's some shots - does this red look like a color that could be toned close to the base, at least *somewhat* close? I know it will be somewhat two-tone, even with the henna, but if it's not noticeable from 500 feet in the air I think I can deal :grin:

(sorry for the poor quality - first is with flash, second without)

http://www.aurorafiberarts.com/data/phoo/2008_09_04/medium/two-tone.jpg

http://www.aurorafiberarts.com/data/phoo/2008_09_04/medium/two%20tone%202.jpg

The more I look at it the more I think I really could get them pretty darn close, because my hair was lightened, ever so slightly, in the first dyeing and my hairdresser purposely gave me a red tone close to my base. You're right - I think maybe if I go really ashy I could manage? Fading doesn't scare me too much - I know how impossible red is to get out! (and sorry for the greasy look, I haven't washed in three days :p)

[rhodochrosite]

My advice would be if you want to try one more time, grow out at least an inch of your roots so that a haircolorist can see and match your natural color to a color he/she would have. Then, the colorist can match your natural color as closely as possible so you will not have to color with chemical dye again. I'm not sure coloring it one more time would have such a terrible outcome, and if you trim regularly, the chemical coloring should eventually disappear from your hair without much bother. When I grew out my chemical color, it just looked like I had sun-lightened ends (my hair is brown, the color was a dark red that faded to almost my natural color).

Also, if you've just recently had your colorist color your hair, my advice would be to wait awhile to see how much the red fades. Red color seems to come out quickly. It might blend into your roots better after some time (a month or two).

Also, ashy box dye can turn colored/lightened brown hair greenish brown. Happened to me when I used to color my hair.

[Arctic_Mama]

Yes, my colorist had mentioned when she was doing it last time that she wanted *some* red in the browns to keep the greeny color from happening. My appointment isn't for another month so that should give me time to get a good two inches of roots. Think that will be enough for them to match to?

The last time it was colored was gosh, three months ago? It faded quite a bit initially, but not since then.

[rhodochrosite]

I wonder if you could ask her about more golden brown tones rather than reddish brown tones? I mean, either way you'd have roots to grow out, but you might be able to get the reddish color down without risking the green.

Two inches of roots sounds like it would be a good amount to try to get a more accurate match. :)

Oh, I forgot one more thing--if you really don't like the idea of having roots, having subtle highlights can disguise that slightly (instead of coloring the whole head of hair). I had highlights for awhile and it was very much easier to grow out. I grew the highlights out as I grew the color out. Hope that makes sense.




Good luck!

[Arctic_Mama]

Gosh, you're full of good ideas! You know what's so bad - I did that when I was younger and it worked well for transitioning between my color and the toned blond. DUH!

Thank you for reminding me of my brain, it's been a bit rusty since having children :grin:

I bet weaving in a little shade in between those two would help immensely!

[Martha]

Dear Arctic Mama,

I'm not sure if I understand this right, but it sounds as though you have darkish brownish hair that goes quite red with henna. Is that right? So the photo at the top which is red hair is you with henna. And the photo below is you with natural color?

Okay, if it were me, I'd go for the red. It's gorgeous. But you are not me!

If you wish to darken the red to match the growth, it's not so hard even using henna. What you'd do is use henna but make sure you use the body art quality henna, not that boxed stuff that contains all sorts of other ingredients that will -- almost certainly -- make your hair green. After the henna, you then use either buxus or indigo.

I've never used buxus. I have used indigo. A few minutes -- like 5-10 depending on your hair and the colour you want -- dramatically deepens the red to something like brown or brownish red. The longer you leave it, the darker it goes. It can go BLACK, however, so be careful!

Before you go and do this, visit www.hennaforhair.com and ask for help there. They've got a lot of excellent people giving good advice.

You may have already thought of all this!

Good luck

[Samikha]

Oh, I forgot one more thing--if you really don't like the idea of having roots, having subtle highlights can disguise that slightly (instead of coloring the whole head of hair). I had highlights for awhile and it was very much easier to grow out. I grew the highlights out as I grew the color out. Hope that makes sense.

This! I love the two-toned look on other people but I'm a wimp myself though, so not for me, although I wavered when I saw this girl with the most beautiful two-tone today. If you want to decrease the colour impact some highlights or striping would look lovely, I think. I always figured that if I started dying to cover the grey (don't plan to, but a contingency plan is nice) I would for a time stripe the new growth in an almost zebra-ish style, although less dramatic, so it looked planned rather than, well...growing out grey.

Since your colours are fairly close together I think you could easily get away with this, and it would create some lovely colour. If not, and you don't wanna deal with two-tone, I'd just say go and dye the damn hair. One more time is fine as long as it isn't two more, three more...good luck, whatever you decide!

[manderly]

I sent you a PM.

[Xandergrammy]

I don't have any advice, but I wanted to tell you that I have two tone hair and have no intention of trimming or dyeing. I have photo albums and a blog full of pictures in case you want to take a peek. :blossom:

[*BelievingAgain]

Gosh this is tough for you, and I know what it feels like, I've been there/am going through something similar.

All the things I had thought up in regards to your hair have already been mentioned by others, so I won't repeat, I really just wanted to stop by and wish you all the best with your decision/s, just hang in there. I think everyone here will lend a supporting hand no matter what your ultimate decision is. And if that ultimate decision changes a few times as well, lol.

BTW, your hair, from what I can see in your siggy, is absolutely gorgeous IMO. That might not be much help to you right now, but I just wanted you to know :flower:

[Arctic_Mama]

Dear Arctic Mama,

I'm not sure if I understand this right, but it sounds as though you have darkish brownish hair that goes quite red with henna. Is that right? So the photo at the top which is red hair is you with henna. And the photo below is you with natural color?

Okay, if it were me, I'd go for the red. It's gorgeous. But you are not me!

If you wish to darken the red to match the growth, it's not so hard even using henna. What you'd do is use henna but make sure you use the body art quality henna, not that boxed stuff that contains all sorts of other ingredients that will -- almost certainly -- make your hair green. After the henna, you then use either buxus or indigo.

I've never used buxus. I have used indigo. A few minutes -- like 5-10 depending on your hair and the colour you want -- dramatically deepens the red to something like brown or brownish red. The longer you leave it, the darker it goes. It can go BLACK, however, so be careful!

Before you go and do this, visit www.hennaforhair.com (http://www.hennaforhair.com) and ask for help there. They've got a lot of excellent people giving good advice.

You may have already thought of all this!

Good luck


LOL, I love Mehandi, that's been my henna source for years. The red dye is actually chemical, but it ended up being JUST liek the henna color. I DO love the henna red, though, so if I dyed it red I'd just overdye with the henna and it wouldn't be very noticeable. I am just hesitant to commit to henna all the way down to classic length, you know?

Sorry for being so wordy I am confusing people! Brevity is not my strong suit ;)

[Arctic_Mama]

Gosh this is tough for you, and I know what it feels like, I've been there/am going through something similar.

All the things I had thought up in regards to your hair have already been mentioned by others, so I won't repeat, I really just wanted to stop by and wish you all the best with your decision/s, just hang in there. I think everyone here will lend a supporting hand no matter what your ultimate decision is. And if that ultimate decision changes a few times as well, lol.

BTW, your hair, from what I can see in your siggy, is absolutely gorgeous IMO. That might not be much help to you right now, but I just wanted you to know :flower:

Thank you so much, I LOVE my hair since I decided to make the best of its texture instead of fighting it. Straight hair just isn't in my cards without HOURS of styling abuse and a whole lot of hair serum.

This is KILLING me. I am SO indecisive. I have a package of mehandi henna from last year just sitting there in its foil vacuum pack, STARING at me and asking when I'll use it. GAH! I WANT to go au naturale, so to speak, along with the length... I really do. But I fear I am a hennahead for life. I love red and I HATE outgrowth. The henna on my roots, especially, is subtle enough I can go a long time between touching it up with no problems. I still am no closer to a decision, but thanks to all of you I at least have some good starting points for either decision.

I am still amazed how close my chemical dye is to henna. My siggy picture is CHEMICAL dye, but it's the SAME shade as my henna. I think, deep down, I just yearn for that red a little too much :P

[Deborah]

This may go against the current, but I really like the natural color of your hair. It shows up well in the first photo you have posted. It seems to me that dying to match your own color would probably be good. Keep in mind that I never advise dying, but in this instance I think it's a good idea. If you add color streaks you might feel that you have to keep coloring them, and you can't get out of the cycle that way.

If you match the roots, you will then be able to grow and grow without having to do anything more about the color. I'm sure the match won't be perfect, but it should be good enough to carry you through growing out until you, over time, trim off all the unnatural color. And you will maybe grow to like the color that emerges naturally from your own head!

[Martha]

But what about trying to use henna type products (buxus or, probably more likely, a short spell of indigo -- 10 mins?) to get to your natural color, I mean, and then you'd discontinue, obviously!

I thought you'd probably heard of hennaforhair/mehandi!!! But I thought I'd write it anyway. :)

[Arctic_Mama]

Deborah, thank you so much! It means a lot to hear my natural color looks okay because really, I've been told that when it's not sun-bleached it looks horribly boring and mousy :(

Martha, I VERY much appreciate your input! I hadn't thought of trying to use an indigo mix to overdye.


But alas, it's moot now. My husband, who is VERY reserved with opinions on my looks (he just cheerleads everything I do) weighed in on this. The last time he weighed in was BEGGING me not to cut my henna'd curls off, going so far as to threaten to cut his OWN long hair off in retaliation (he knows I love it). I should have listened, as I regretted it!

He expressed that he really loved the red on me and that it suited my personality. Since he NEVER expressed strong opinions on things like this I guess it's pretty important to him and I am growing my hair out as much for HIS enjoyment as mine! So since I was FIRMLY fence-sitting with indecision this has put me over the edge. It does neatly solve my current dilemma with the only problem being if I decide I don't want henna down the line. But honestly I was quite satisfied last time with it, so I think I'll be okay.

I always worry about the burgundy shades looking unnatural, but I had SO many people tell me how beautiful and natural my hair was with it! They were shocked when I informed them it was dyed. These are people who stared at the back of my head in church for two YEARS :grin:. So I am thinking the red will be just fine, in the end.

This forum has SERIOUSLY made me over-contemplate my hair decisions ;) I think it will look fine either way, so I'll please hubby on this one. I will just do a henna gloss on the whole thing in a few months when more has grown out. That way the color will really graduate away from my chemically dyed ends. I've transitioned chemical-to-henna before, so I am an old hat at this part.

Thanks SO much for your input, everyone! :flower:

[QueenBea]

How dark is your natural hair? ETA: I went back and looked at ALL the posts; your hair looks almost exactly my natural color!

You sound a LOT like me with my hair; I dyed it for years and years, and decided last summer, after discovering LHC, to grow out the length and color.

I dyed my highlighted hair back to medium brown thinking it would make the growing out easier--but as always, after a month or so, the haircolor faded out and I was left with brassy orange (the color my hair lightens to with ammonia/peroxide). That's the point where I would normally freshen up the color because it looks absolutely terrible.

So anyway--if your natural color is darker than a light brown/dark blonde, you might not be able to color it and expect it to stay that way as it grows out; at least that's what I have found.

What I did end up doing is to henna over the ends this June--about 5 or 6" from the roots down is natural color, so I left that alone, and I just applied henna from my chin to the ends. I decided I would rather have dark red ends with medium brown roots than bozo orange with medium brown. If I wear my hair down, the two-tone isn't terribly noticable (but I don't usually wear it down because that bottom half is so damaged from previous dyeing, blowdrying, straightening, etc). If I wear it in a peacock twist or pony tail, the "up" part does look red, but it looks interesting rather than tacky, I think.

Hang in there! If you can commit to a year of growing out hair color like I did, and keep it pulled back, it does pass :) I re-committed this year to another year of trying to get this color and damage grown out, and it's not so bad-- I'm planning on getting an inch cut off every 4 months or so, so it can still grow longer, but also slowly get the damaged-with-henna-over-it cut off and let the natural come in . . .

Good luck--
Bea

So everyone, I need an opinion.

I am stuck with dyed hair. I henna'd for awhile and chopped most of that off (had slightly longer than BSL henna'd curls) and then did the chemical dye route in reddish tones, with highlights. My hairdresser did a new color that was a closer color value to my base shade, but still red, and now I am growing out. I don't have a ton of damage, just a little more dryness than I'd like because of the chemicals. But I am not sure I want to commit to being a hennahead for life, so to speak, with growing classic length hair.

I would love to LOVE my natural color, even though its mousy, or at least have a chance to love it by being able to grow it. But I can't deal with SEVERE two-tone, I struggle enough with friends and family being very critical of ANY length on hair and how 'unkempt' it looks (even if its stunning). I don't really care what they think, deep down, but I know it would really bother me to look like a 'WIP', so to speak.

So here's the question - should I chemical dye my hair one last time to get the shades as close to my natural as possible, so that the outgrowth will be less noticeable (this might include *gasp* stripping the color! I am cringing even saying it!)? Should I just bite the bullet and try going two-toned without any modifying? Should I just accept that I love red and henna over the outgrowth, which would make the colors very visually close?

HELP! I just need some opinions. How bad would a dye/strip be on my hair? It's done very well with chemical dye so far, and good care would minimize the noticeable damage, but if I'd be shooting myself in the foot in terms of trying to grow length by damaging it extensively more I'd like to know!

AHHH!!!

[FrannyG]

I think your natural colour is lovely and from the photos, the two tones don't look all that drastic.

However, I remember how blah I felt when my hair went a mousey shade, in my late 20s. You can really liven up your natural colour with honey lightening, chamomile tea, and other methods discussed in the Recipes and Herbal Haircare forum. Check out the Honey Thread. A lot of people have successfully rid themselve of the "mousey" look naturally.

I suggest just hanging in there for a while with your two tones. A lot of people here have done it successfully.