tigress86
October 26th, 2015, 01:50 AM
Some of you may know that I have wanted to grow out my natural color for a while, but it was hard and all of my attempts failed. I was coloring my hair darker and the lighter roots coming in were just too awkward for me. So I took the risk of some potential damage and decided to remove my hair color.
My hair was previously dyed medium brown:
http://i59.tinypic.com/t0nwaq.jpg
A couple of weeks ago I dyed over the brown with Manic Panic Purple Haze:
http://i61.tinypic.com/52cmdh.jpg
The Manic Panic over the brown had recently faded to this:
http://i60.tinypic.com/15cdhfm.jpg
First I used vitamin C powder mixed with clarifying shampoo to fade the purple as much as possible. It faded quite a bit. Then a few days later I used a color remover (reducer). I applied the reducer three times. The result was quite light, but the color was a little bit ashy/muddy, so I applied a bleach bath. I mixed bleach powder with equal amounts of 20vol developer and shampoo and left it on for about 10 minutes.
This is the end result:
http://i62.tinypic.com/28l9gg0.jpg
I am quite pleased because this should be very close to my natural ashy, sandy dark blonde/blonette. I didn't expect to get such an accurate match. My hair is quite dry right now, but I don't think there should be significant structural damage. The ends are a bit darker, like a caramel or dark wheat blonde, but it shouldn't bother in the growing out process and if I want to and if my hair can handle it in a few months, I could bleach bath the ends once more.
Be careful using color reducers though. It may pull up all sorts of underlying tones. For instance, the very ends of my hair turned bright green! I had some old bleach underneath my color at the very ends of my hair, like the last inch. The reducer lightened the hair to a yellow on those parts, which reacted what was left of the purple dye that had a blue base. Yellow+blue=green! I used a purple toner on the ends to neutralize the yellow, no yellow=nothing to react with the leftover blue pigments! Some strands still had a weird hue at the very ends, but I managed to point cut those pieces out without losing any length.
I am excited to be able to grow my hair color out now without an awkward demarcation line and the risk of damage was worth it at this point :)
My hair was previously dyed medium brown:
http://i59.tinypic.com/t0nwaq.jpg
A couple of weeks ago I dyed over the brown with Manic Panic Purple Haze:
http://i61.tinypic.com/52cmdh.jpg
The Manic Panic over the brown had recently faded to this:
http://i60.tinypic.com/15cdhfm.jpg
First I used vitamin C powder mixed with clarifying shampoo to fade the purple as much as possible. It faded quite a bit. Then a few days later I used a color remover (reducer). I applied the reducer three times. The result was quite light, but the color was a little bit ashy/muddy, so I applied a bleach bath. I mixed bleach powder with equal amounts of 20vol developer and shampoo and left it on for about 10 minutes.
This is the end result:
http://i62.tinypic.com/28l9gg0.jpg
I am quite pleased because this should be very close to my natural ashy, sandy dark blonde/blonette. I didn't expect to get such an accurate match. My hair is quite dry right now, but I don't think there should be significant structural damage. The ends are a bit darker, like a caramel or dark wheat blonde, but it shouldn't bother in the growing out process and if I want to and if my hair can handle it in a few months, I could bleach bath the ends once more.
Be careful using color reducers though. It may pull up all sorts of underlying tones. For instance, the very ends of my hair turned bright green! I had some old bleach underneath my color at the very ends of my hair, like the last inch. The reducer lightened the hair to a yellow on those parts, which reacted what was left of the purple dye that had a blue base. Yellow+blue=green! I used a purple toner on the ends to neutralize the yellow, no yellow=nothing to react with the leftover blue pigments! Some strands still had a weird hue at the very ends, but I managed to point cut those pieces out without losing any length.
I am excited to be able to grow my hair color out now without an awkward demarcation line and the risk of damage was worth it at this point :)