Newbie...lurker...coming out of hiding with a ? on hair dye removal

[genlilliana]

Hi there! I've been lurking around for a long time...mainly because you all have answered and assisted me through your various forums and questions so I haven't really needed to ask anything. I've learned a TON about how to care for my long hair, in ways I never imagined. So, first off - THANK YOU ALL! You have made my long hair care routine easier and much more beneficial. I've never had better, healthier hair.

But...

I've been getting white hairs on my head since age 13 - white - not gray. I'm now 41 and I've been dying my hair for 20 years or so. It's time to stop. But, I'd like to tone down the line of demarcation a bit. Not a ton - just a bit...I heard about a dye removal product that may help initially so I can then just leave the rest to grow out.

Have any of you had any experiences with this product? I'm a 2B, low porosity, medium width hair - my hair is long enough to reach the middle of my back now and is generally healthy.

I am okay with having a line of demarcation (it's unavoidable) but I'm hoping the dye remover would just tone it down a bit.

Thoughts? And thank you in advance.

[lapushka]

Welcome. :)

What color is your hair?

[genlilliana]

My hair color is a medium auburn, the closest to my hair color that I could get...

[Anje]

It's certainly worth a try. Those dye removers (Color Oops, Colour B4, things like that) are supposed to work pretty well on permanent dyes. If they're totally successful, the hair underneath the dye is typically lighter than your virgin hair, because the peroxide in the developer lightens it to some extent. As I understand it, the real key with the color removers is to rinse and rinse and rinse some more.

I've heard of people getting highlights or lowlights to help blend the demarcation line. Might be worth considering once you've got some significant roots. Best of luck!

[meteor]

Welcome to the boards, genlilliana! :cheer:

I agree with Anje.
If you are pretty experienced in doing your own color, I'd recommend looking into peroxide-free color removers like Color B4/Color Oops, but make sure you read the instructions very carefully (long or thick hair requires more than 1 box and darker dyes (or layered dyes) may need 2 or even 3 applications) and definitely always do a strand test first! These products are drying and may be damaging. And the lifted base may be pretty brassy from peroxide (and need toning), after the dye pigments are removed.

If you aren't sure about how to do this, it's probably safer to go to a salon, but they tend to use peroxide-based color removers or simply bleach and color hair again with high/low-lights for achieving better blending with roots - so do you research first and do a consultation with the colorist about the products they plan on using.

There are other ways of growing it out, for example spacing out, "diluting" dye applications to give it lighter and lighter appearance and a bit of a reverse ombre from virgin roots to dyed ends, or using only direct dyes on roots, in the hopes that by the time it fades the demarcation line will be low and easy to grow out... There are many different ways to approach it, a lot depends on your tolerance of demarcation line, on your time frame, desire to avoid dyes, current condition of hair, readiness to trim ends, etc... :)

[lapushka]

Or, you could use a semi permanent instead of permanent dye, match your dye to your lengths if your roots are lighter than the lengths, or match your dye to your roots when the roots are darker than the dye on the lengths. It's as easy as that. And this way, you can see the progress every time the dye is gone from the hair, before you recolor. I grew out dye like this once, very easy this way - and no demarcation line to worry about (and no gray for a while yet either)!

[genlilliana]

Thanks ladies! I bought color oops and will strand test. If that's a fail...I'll try the semi-permanent route to mellow the line. The last time I grew my hair out it was in that brown to gray mucky looking color phase but now it appears I have much more gray and white - at least the roots look more balanced. Crossing my fingers...

[Horrorpops]

Good luck with the colour oops! :o
I second the suggestion to rinse and rinse and rinse. Those colour removers work by shrinking colour particles but you still have to rinse them out of the hair! I've had friends who've had colour 'come back' because they didn't rinse enough.
Let us know how it all went for you!:)

[meteor]

Good luck with the colour oops! :o
I second the suggestion to rinse and rinse and rinse. Those colour removers work by shrinking colour particles but you still have to rinse them out of the hair! I've had friends who've had colour 'come back' because they didn't rinse enough.
Let us know how it all went for you!:)

^ Definitely! :agree:


Thanks ladies! I bought color oops and will strand test. If that's a fail...I'll try the semi-permanent route to mellow the line. The last time I grew my hair out it was in that brown to gray mucky looking color phase but now it appears I have much more gray and white - at least the roots look more balanced. Crossing my fingers...

Great! :D
Oh and if you do go the semi-permanent route, please double-check the ingredients to make sure that it's a *true* semi-, i.e. "direct dye", "deposit-only dye", without developer. So many people use dyes marketed as semis to tone, etc, only to find out later that it was actually a demi- and contained some peroxide (which damages hair and lifts the underlying natural pigment). AFAIK there isn't any international regulation that enforces this semi/demi nomenclature, and it's not always used the same way across different brands (also, lots of boxes simply do not provide peroxide vol. information on their packaging at all), so it's best to do your research before committing to anything. :flower: