How to strip hair of red?

[Lejli]

Hi guys, since my dyed red hair always fades very quickly especially my ends, Ive decided to go back to my platinum blonde hair. How do I do this? My hair fades quickly and right now I have a rather light ginger color. Underneath this ginger I have my bleached blonde hair. I really liked the red but its too much maintenance... so Im going back to blonde.

[lapushka]

I'd recommend going to a hairdresser. I wouldn't risk doing your own bleaching, especially not if it's been bleached before.

[Nellon]

But... if you like the red why not maintain it with a colour bomb or some semi dyes inbetween actually dying it? That way you can keep the red looking good.

However if you really want it out washing with dandruff sulphate schampoo, oiling it, baking soda can pull dye out but is very! drying beware, or using colour oops are ways that I know to get rid of dyes. Then you can use a ashy semi, or some purple schampoo to get rid of remaining reds. This way you won't damage your hair any further.

Or, follow lapushkas advice and go see a good hairdresser if you have someone you know and trust!

[Anje]

Look up soap-cap bleaching, where you mix bleach powder and peroxide in with shampoo. It's supposed to be relatively gentle and easy to manage. I've seen several people say it's good for removing the last bits of semis.

If you're going to do more straight-up bleaching, two methods of minimizing damage are popular around here. One is to request Olaplex treatments (or purchase for yourself if doing it at home). The other is to saturate your hair with coconut oil a few hours before bleaching, then do the bleaching process on the oily hair. Apparently this doesn't interfere with the effectiveness of the lightening at all, and hair reportedly comes out far less damaged than without the treatment.

ETA: Products like Color Oops and Colour B4 are useful for permanent box-type dyes. Just be sure to rinse and rinse and rinse, and be prepared for the fact that they're pretty stinky in a sulfurous sort of way. Drying but not really damaging, which is always welcome.

[kittenattack]

Hi. I hit my breaking point with hair maintainence almost exactly a year ago. My experience growing out fire engine red on dirty blonde hair. I wanted to transition my maroon hair to a more natural dirty strawberry blonde in my usual box at home routine. Gigantic failure my hair turned fire engine red. I looked like I was wearing a wig, just all of a sudden I couldn't deal with it anymore. I just stopped. grew my hair out for two months and got an inch of hair so the hair dresser could see what she was working with. had her baby foil and blend the red into strawberry hightlights, then two months later I did it again. Its really all about blending the colors. Next week is exactly a year since I've dyed hair, I've got 6 inches of super heathy hair, and the blending doesn't look bad at all. Actually, i can't remember ever being this happy with my hair. It looks like balayage or hombre.

[sumidha]

I'd try a color corrector and then blue/purple toner, rather than more bleach.

[irishsapphire]

I'm seconding the hairdresser recommendation. I'm natural blondette/ash brown with salon copper red over it. Rather than bleach or die it brown, my stylist is toning the red out. Looks great so far, no bleach or ammonia, and since the base is a glossing/deep conditioning treatment my hair feels nice and soft afterwards. Will take a few tonings to get the right shade, and I'll probably have to do some maintenance on it, but better than bleaching or attempting color correction on your own.

Eta: tablet can't spell

[Adorkable One]

The bleach + oil method is my favorite fading method. It's like a bleach bath, without the peroxide, so it's very gentle. Just drying. Lol.

[Nadine <3]

I found out the hard way that oil pulls out my manic panic really badly. I did not expect the shower cap to be full of red dye when I took it off after my DT lol