Should I bleach my hair one more time??? :/

[indifference]

Hey! So a few months ago I coloured my dark blonde/light brown hair black, now its growing out and it looks awful. The temptation to just bleach it and let it grow out looking good is so great. Please help me? I don't wanna screw with my hair too much but is it worth it to just bleach it back to my original colour? Or let the black grow out and eventually cut it?

[divinedobbie]

How long is your hair right now and how much of your natural hair has already grown out? Would you be willing to cut it short in order to chop off all the dye? You say you coloured your hair a few months again so I'm assuming you probably have anywhere between 1-3 inches of new growth. In that case, if your hair grows at the average 1/2" per month, you're probably looking at waiting at least another year for it to grow out enough to even be cut into a bob, unless you want to get a pixie or something short like that.

I, personally, would be cautious about using bleach. I accidentally dyed my light brown hair black as well and didn't like it. I grew it out all the way to my nape (1 1/2 years) and then had the hairdresser carefully bleach only the dyed bits below. It was very damaging to my hair though and I am now dealing with split ends, breakage, and the bleach went very brassy. I wouldn't have done it at all and kept growing it out except that I had grad coming up in a month and I had already bought extensions in my natural colour so I needed to match them. If you are really miserable with the way it looks, then perhaps bleach is the best option for you. Also keep in mind that the black should fade over time and will probably become more of a dark brown.

[CurlMonster]

Could you try to remove the black dye without bleach, with a product like ColourB4? I have heard that those colour removers are much less damaging than bleach, and if you just fade the dye a bit it won't be as hard to grow out.

[lapushka]

Hey! So a few months ago I coloured my dark blonde/light brown hair black, now its growing out and it looks awful. The temptation to just bleach it and let it grow out looking good is so great. Please help me? I don't wanna screw with my hair too much but is it worth it to just bleach it back to my original colour? Or let the black grow out and eventually cut it?

It's worth it to have it done at a salon. Seriously, don't mess with removing dye yourself. Black dye is hard to just bleach out when you're new at this. It's much different than bleaching a natural black. Be prepared for mushy hair, because this is going to take the strongest of bleaches if you're going back to a quite light color.

I second divinedobbie when she's talking hair lengths and time to grow out, and whether it will be worth it to cut it out gradually.

[Firefox7275]

Collect shed plughole hair and strand test, strand test, strand test. Do not use your whole head as a laboratory unless you are willing to 'big chop'.

Blacks do not always lift however much chemicals you bathe your hair in: you can fry it first. Try a couple packs of *peroxide free* colour remover such as Color Oops or Colour B4 Extra: I got from burgundy with heavy build up to strawberry blonde with this BUT I had cuticle staining so the last auburn tints would not even lift with box blonde.

Follow the pack instructions to the letter and DO NOT try bleaching right after, you risk the colour molecules redarkening. Wait a few weeks and shampoo the molecules out. These colour removers are not supposed to be damaging as such but do leave your hair in a vulnerable, dry and tangly feeling state. Baby your hair with intensive conditioners, hydrolysed protein treatments and penetrating oilings (ideally coconut).

By all means get a salon to do any final lightening and colour correction, but most don't seem to use colour removers. They tend to do the whole lot with bleach which is hugely damaging. These products won't mess up your colour only reveal what is underneath: if you get say three toned hair that is what is hidden by the black dye molecules.

[RancheroTheBee]

Bleaching out black usually results in bright orange, not blonde. As others have mentioned, colour removers work better at lifting colour, and the amount of bleach you'd need to remove the black would probably result in you having to trim it out anyway.

And as Firefox mentioned, bleaching immediately afterwards results in redarkening. Believe me. It happens in seconds, and it becomes much, much harder to remove after that. I managed to blend mine after the fact but it took months and I've gotten some puffiness, even with a lot of precautions and waiting.

Honestly, if I were you, I'd consider waiting it out. Once you get to three or four inches, it just looks like you've had your ends tipped black.

[ErinLeigh]

I have always had great success with color removers in the past (few years ago). No damage at all and it took some really dark colors out. An eggplant and a muddy brown ash were removed IIRC

That being said I used Color Oops a few days ago to try and remove a green tone that my hair picked up last coloring. It always worked so easily in the past i thought nothing of it. Well this time it fried my hair. 3rd time was not a charm. Hair went bananas.. It is so dry, tangly and feels like cotton. Not sure what happened. It was fine before. I can barely get a comb thru it now. I had finally gotten hair super soft and shiny and it took all that within 20minutes. Scared me a bit. I am hoping it bounces back but i am not so sure it will.
If hair is in good condition color removers will help but take time to think about it. I don't know why this happened to me this time but just thought i would put it out there as something to think about.

Once you strip the color you could be left orange or just a dark golden brown. It could go either way. If there was not a lot of peroxide in the old dye, or if you haven't used bleach before then it shouldn't go too orange. More like a golden brown. I only lift orange/yellow on the parts of my hair that were used with higher lift colors. Everyone hair is different, this is just my experience from the last 3. My base color hair was left actually a nice light auburn/brown this time. Only orange/yellow was the front where it had been bleached.

Keep in mind if you do this and redye it is best to wait a week or 2 no matter what the box says. Hair is very porous after color remover and will grab that color. Additionally the peroxide can mix with the remover chemicals and darken hair instantly.
Also.. make sure you rinse as instructed. If you don't the hair will darken back over the next day. I am speaking about Color Oops. I haven't used any others. I heard Sally's has a better one but I don't know about it.

There are also "soap caps." This is bleach mixed with developer and shampoo. It is washed into wet hair and left on about 5-7 minutes. This will lighten you a few shades but it comes with bleach damage.
If you do use bleach I would try doing it over coconut oil. Anything helps and coconut oil does seem to prevent some of the damage from bleaching.

I wish you the best of luck figuring this out. I know personally my hair color greatly effects how I feel about myself. Its hard to just grow out color. There is a support thread in Mane forum maybe you can browse thru to see if that is something you can consider. All the hair over there looks lovely. Some of them have amazing looking ombres. I think the first few inches of growth would the hardest. If you can get past that you well on the way. If you want to grow hair or keep it long this is the least damaging way to go about it for sure.

Whatever you decide, I hope it goes well and you are happy. Sometimes we risk damage to correct something that really bothers us and that's ok if that's you choice. Nothing wrong with asking questions and making an educated decision. It really just comes down to what your needs are.

[Wildcat Diva]

Honestly, if I were you, I'd consider waiting it out. Once you get to three or four inches, it just looks like you've had your ends tipped black.

I'd go this route. Maybe you can get to where you can fade your natural color into several inches of darker ends. You can even use a color like manic panic to get blue-black ends if you want to, or maybe a red tint over the black ends.