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maryva
September 15th, 2008, 04:26 PM
...hello, I'm new here and would really like to get my dry, faded hair back in good condition. I've been coloring/highlighting it for years and it just seems very dry and the color seems to fade very quickly. I tried doing oil treatments with jajoba, which I think helped some, but also seemed to fade the color more quickly. Is there any sort of natural haircolor rinse that would help with the color? Like Henna maybe, but not so red. I'd really appreciate any ideas. I tried taking a close-up of my hair below. It is about 5 inches past my shoulders in length, has always been very fine strands but lots of them. It used to be straight, but lately seems to have gotten some natural wave to it. I'd really appreciate any suggestions. Thank you!

How do I add my photo? I don't see anything that says attach photo?? Thanks.

Kirin
September 15th, 2008, 06:11 PM
You should probably try cassia, which has a yellow (faint) dye molecule, not red.

melikai
September 15th, 2008, 06:14 PM
You can find a lot of answers in the articles section, and it shows how to add photos in the "New - Start Here!" thread, I believe. :)

BlndeInDisguise
September 15th, 2008, 06:21 PM
Welcome to the forum! :)

I'm think that henna and indigo together will dye your hair black. I don't know about if it fades easily or not. I'll see if I can find the info I'm thinking of.

ETA: This has some info: http://www.hennaforhair.com/indigo/index.html

maryva
September 15th, 2008, 07:49 PM
Okay, I figured out how to add the photo of my hair to my avatar at the left. My hair seems very porous and the color fades quickly, and my hair is very dry. The strands are fine, but there are a lot of them. I'm interested in the cassia -- is that something that is also good for the hair? My hair was naturally dark brown, but I've highlighted it a lot over the years and it fades easily now. I'd really appreciate any suggestions. Has anyone tried Goldwell Kerasilk conditioner? I used to use it years ago and liked it a lot. Thanks so much!

Katze
September 15th, 2008, 11:43 PM
hello almost-hairtwin!

Hopefully, you've stopped dyeing completely for a while and are giving your hair a rest. Fine hair doesn't do well with dye, period.

As someone who was in the same boat not so long ago, it has taken me a very long time to heal my hair from the years of bleaching and dyeing. SMT (Snowy's Moisture Treatment) was one of the things that saved my hair, but I have also had to cut a lot of it off. Your experience might be different, but bleach plus thinning layers have meant I've cut almost as much off as I've grown...that's the bad news.

The good news is that you can improve the temporary appearance/feel of your hair, but I would suggest first trying as natural as possible - no 'cones, things like SMT, oiling, misting. Maybe CO or WO washing would work for you?

As for natural hair dye, Nightshade has some great information and articles, you might want to check out what she's written. The site www.renaissancehenna.com has a lot of information on natural dye, with before and after pics, and Sabrina is very nice, too.

Personally Cassia didn't do much for me but many people like it; I'd suggest starting with the Cassia threads in the Natural products section.

feel free to PM me since we have almost the same hairtype and a very similar story of damage and growing out dye.

peace

Katze

maryva
September 16th, 2008, 09:01 AM
Thanks Katze aka "hair twin!" Do you really think color is very bad for our hair type? Mine is so faded that it needs something. Any ideas? Does cassia give a yellow tint? I'd really appreciate any suggestions on what has worked for you.

bunnii
September 16th, 2008, 09:12 AM
Hello and welcome to the forum :)

Dying when your hair is overly dry is just going to make the situation worse, if hair isn't in good shape it won't hold on to dye in my experience there are some natural things you can do that won't damage so much and you can do them more often, while caring for your hair and giving it time to heal a bit. Lemon juice or honey can lighten, the honey will moisturise at the same time. I believe the is honey in the SMT but i've never tried it. When i've needed to darken my hair between dying i've used tea, just black tea, normally PG tips or Tetley :D camomile tea can make hair lighter and I think there's a tea that can make it red.

maryva
September 17th, 2008, 03:37 AM
Oh, I'd never thought of using something like tea. Would I just make a few cups of very concentrated tea and put it on my hair? How long would I leave it there? Do you know if those color conditioners I see sometimes are good or bad for the hair? Thanks so much.

Arctic
September 17th, 2008, 03:48 AM
Some members use regular molasses rinses to keep their hear a lovely brown (end result depends on your own colour). It has to be done repeatedly since the colour doesn't last.

Some herbal teas have mild dying power, they as well must be used regularly.

Some indian herb might have dying/ colour enchanging properties, I personally don't know much about them but look for buxus and amla and such.

Cassia might make your hair less porous, but I have no personal experience of it.

Henna is wonderful but it premanently dyes your hair red so it's not for everyone.

Give your hair lots of pampering, moisture, gentle care and love, and most of all time. Good luck!

Arctic
September 17th, 2008, 03:50 AM
Do you know if those color conditioners I see sometimes are good or bad for the hair? Thanks so much.

I guess if the ingredients of the conditioners are OK they can't be no harm. You can always try them :)

Katze
September 17th, 2008, 04:07 AM
Maryva, Cassia only made my hair slightly yellowish, dull and dead looking. It was a lot of work for results that weren't very special or exciting, so I stopped using it.

Fine hair needs more gentle treatment than other hair types. Hair dyes, bleaches, etc - except for things like henna, cassia, indigo, other "herbal" dyes - damage the hair from the inside out. Since the individual strands of our hair are each thinner ("finer") than those of M or C type hair, our hair gets damaged more easily. At least, that's how I understand it.

In your avatar pic your hair looks like it's dyed black. Black dye is very hard to get rid of, and, depending on what your natural color is, you might want to consider salon options just to dye back to a color closer to your natural color, or henna-indigo ("henndigo") might work for you, or you might want to just "tough it out" and have two-toned hair.

Hair dye does fade over time, in my experience no matter what I did to my hair! So my last corrective dye - from June 06, if you look at my profile it's the pic with the horse - faded out within a matter of months and I had orange - again. Eventually, I just decided to stop dyeing and let nature take over.

It IS hard to stop dyeing your hair. But if you want healthy hair, and especially if you want long hair, your best bet is to stop all kinds of chemical and heat treatments. At least, in my experience, that's what works best for my fine hair. Until I stopped cold turkey, I was never able to grow my hair past shoulder length.

hth!

QueenBea
September 17th, 2008, 12:29 PM
I was in a similar boat last year--quit highly bleaching/highlighting my medium brown hair. Cold turkey. Well, I dyed it med brown, but it quickly faded out to bleached and damaged hair.

I just dealt with it for about a year, and tried to be nice to my hair, stopped blowdrying and straightening. Now it's been about 15 months and it's BETTER, but the only thing I could do to fix the color was to henna--

I waited a year so I had 5 or 6" of natural growth at the top (wore my hair up ALL THE TIME so it wasn't so noticable, the two-tone), then I did henna on just the old dyed part this spring or summer. It has stuck for 5 or 6 ? months now, and although I would LOVE to have my hair be all one color, I do have to admit that flamey-red ends look much better than faded bleached dyed ends. The henna seemed to help the damaged hair thicken- and silky-up a little bit.

I don't plan to henna again, just grow it out--but if it fades too much, I would just do the ends again. I've done cassia twice and I can't see any difference in color, and it didn't improve the texture--so I'm not sure if I'll try it again.

At this point, I could get a shortish shoulder length cut and be almost all natural, but I'm about 3" from BSL--I'm trying to aim for cutting about 1" off every 4 months. I'm up for a cut in October, and maybe next summer, when I'm a solid BSL, I'll do 2" cuts every 4 months and keep it at that length until all the henna is grown out.

Anyway--this is the best solution for me of the others I tried and considered. With my hair color, the henna ends are obviously a different color but they do blend somewhat--it's not like blonde- and red. Medium brown with flame red ends isn't too bad. And I still wear it up all the time--pony tail, braid, (getting too long) peacock twist, and that helps blend it better.

One thing you might want to try with the damaged hair--I just discovered kimberlilly's defrizz spray--search on that. It's aloe gel, jojoba or coconut oil, glycerin and water. I tried it again last week, and it works WONDERS on the damaged parts to soften- and smooth them out.

Bea

spidermom
September 17th, 2008, 12:44 PM
Dye damaged hair becomes porous and won't hold onto color. Therefore, if you want to have a more natural-looking, non-faded color, you could use temporary, deposit-only colors and re-do as needed. They aren't going to give you much more damage, if any, than you already have. Trim regularly. Eventually the damaged hair will be gone, and you can gain length slowly while you're trimming. Just ask Nightshade.

Nightshade
September 17th, 2008, 12:49 PM
Dye damaged hair becomes porous and won't hold onto color. Therefore, if you want to have a more natural-looking, non-faded color, you could use temporary, deposit-only colors and re-do as needed. They aren't going to give you much more damage, if any, than you already have. Trim regularly. Eventually the damaged hair will be gone, and you can gain length slowly while you're trimming. Just ask Nightshade.

*chuckles* Thankee sai, spidermom.

Recovering from an excess of hair dye isn't easy, but it's possible. I'd recommend spidermom's suggestion of a deposit-only dye (the 8-24 washes stuff is perfect) and in that time period you can evaluate some natural dyes.

There's a few links in my siggy that may be of interest to you, one on dying hair with henna/indigo, and a second about using other herbs to dye hair. The third and most recent one is my damaged hair article, and it detailes how I grew out trashed BSL hair (nuked it with dye) to a reasonably healthy tailbone length.

Best of luck, and welcome to LHC, maryva! :flowers:

maryva
September 17th, 2008, 10:15 PM
Thanks Ladies! Which 8-24 color would you suggest? One of the regular drugstore ones or are there any professional lines that are good? Or any natural ones? I've seen hair color at the health food store but haven't paid much attention to it.

Thanks for all the other suggestions too. I just received some camellia oil in the mail, which I read about on another thread, so hopefully that will help some. It's good to hear that some of you have gotten your hair back in good shape after having it fried like mine. Thanks for the encouragement!

Katze
September 17th, 2008, 11:27 PM
Maryva, don't use drugstore color on your hair. If you do want a corrective color (see my, QueenBea, and Spidermom's comments on continuing to dye) then please, please do your hair a favor and go to a salon.

Otherwise, henna might be for you if you like red. Do check out Nightshade's links; she has done a lot of research, and has also had the experience of having overdyed, damaged hair. She really knows her stuff!

EvaSimone
September 18th, 2008, 12:40 AM
I used to use this ammonia free dye from Sally's when I was first trying to get off the coloring band wagon. It always made my hair feel very nice and added enough color to get me through the tough times.

It's deposit only color and it's by Ion basically it comes pre-mixed and you squirt it through your hair and then leave it on for half an hour.

maryva
September 18th, 2008, 12:47 AM
EvaSimone -- thanks for the tip about Ion; I'll look out for it.

Does anyone know how to use tea to add some color to hair, as some of your suggested? Would I just brew some tea and use it as a rinse? Or would I brew some extra strong tea and leave it in for a while? Any ideas? Thank you all so much!

maryva
September 18th, 2008, 05:13 PM
Does anyone know how to use tea to add some color to hair, as some of your suggested? Would I just brew some tea and use it as a rinse? Or would I brew some extra strong tea and leave it in for a while? Any ideas? Thank you all so much!

Nightshade
September 18th, 2008, 05:29 PM
Does anyone know how to use tea to add some color to hair, as some of your suggested? Would I just brew some tea and use it as a rinse? Or would I brew some extra strong tea and leave it in for a while? Any ideas? Thank you all so much!

Check out the Herbal Dye article in my siggy :flowers: It has tea rinses in there.

bunnii
September 18th, 2008, 05:29 PM
Oh, I'd never thought of using something like tea. Would I just make a few cups of very concentrated tea and put it on my hair? How long would I leave it there? Do you know if those color conditioners I see sometimes are good or bad for the hair? Thanks so much.


Does anyone know how to use tea to add some color to hair, as some of your suggested? Would I just brew some tea and use it as a rinse? Or would I brew some extra strong tea and leave it in for a while? Any ideas? Thank you all so much!

Oh poo sorry I missed your post :doh: I get a measuring jug and put about 10 teabags in around 2 litres, After rinsing I pour it through my hair then rinse my skin but leave it in my hair, only problem is it does seem to be a bit drying so loads of leave in conditioner would be a good idea.

I used to use a red shampoo when I dyed red that left red deposits in my hair, it did help the colour stay longer, but I don't know how good it was for my hair, but that was before LHC. I think the conditioners have alot of cones in that will coat the hair making it look better than it is.

maryva
September 18th, 2008, 07:42 PM
Thanks so much -- I'll give it a try. I'm wondering if herbal teas would be less drying? I just received some camellia oil that I read about on another thread, and that would probably be perfect to put on after the tea -- it is super light but seems to hydrate well without oiliness.

maryva
September 18th, 2008, 11:20 PM
Nightshade -- thank you so much for the articles! I read the one of herbal dyes and am planning to try a couple. At the end of the article cinnamon was listed -- any idea how much/how to add this? I guess it would work as a rinse or to mix with conditioner -- any idea how long I would need to let it sit? Have you ever tried cinnamon or molassas for hair dying? Thank you so much!

Nightshade
September 19th, 2008, 12:03 AM
Nightshade -- thank you so much for the articles! I read the one of herbal dyes and am planning to try a couple. At the end of the article cinnamon was listed -- any idea how much/how to add this? I guess it would work as a rinse or to mix with conditioner -- any idea how long I would need to let it sit? Have you ever tried cinnamon or molassas for hair dying? Thank you so much!

I've never tried it, but I'd imagine you could treat cinnamon just like tea or sage... simmer it for an hour, keeping it covered, strain and pour through your hair :)

Starr
September 19th, 2008, 12:45 AM
I just want to add that if you do choose to use cinnamon, please, please, please do a patch test. . . the stuff has been known to cause some nasty skin reactions.

maryva
September 19th, 2008, 02:11 PM
Oh, thanks for the warning about the cinnamon. Has anyone tried the molassas? It sounds so sticky! Is it supposed to be moisturizing like the honey? Thank you!

maryva
September 19th, 2008, 08:27 PM
Has anyone tried those liquid leave-in temporary colors that are sold at the drug store? I can't remember the name of them, but am curious if they are drying or any other feedback. Thanks!

Elphie
September 20th, 2008, 06:31 AM
I haven't tried any of these, but you may be interested in them.

http://www.chagrinvalleysoapandcraft.com/coffeerinse.htm

Arctic
September 20th, 2008, 06:35 AM
Oh, thanks for the warning about the cinnamon. Has anyone tried the molassas? It sounds so sticky! Is it supposed to be moisturizing like the honey? Thank you!


Our member Blueneko uses molasses. Try the seach function to find her posts about it, or her blog :flower:

bunnii
September 20th, 2008, 06:51 AM
Thanks so much -- I'll give it a try. I'm wondering if herbal teas would be less drying? I just received some camellia oil that I read about on another thread, and that would probably be perfect to put on after the tea -- it is super light but seems to hydrate well without oiliness.

I've never tried it but it's always wortha go :) I just use EVOO now for pretty much everything :D


Has anyone tried those liquid leave-in temporary colors that are sold at the drug store? I can't remember the name of them, but am curious if they are drying or any other feedback. Thanks!

I have a couple of Wella ones that you've just reminded me of lol I used them when I was a teenager but can't remember if they were drying or not. I think you use conditioner after anyway.