Color removal disaster :(

[LemonEyes]

So I feel pretty dumb having to post this seeing as I'm a licensed cosmetologist and should "know better", but, here I am.
A little background...I have been coloring my hair for over twelve years (since I was 11 or 12). For the past few years it has always been pretty dark...either black, blue, or black and blue. Now, for many reasons, I would like to get back to as close as I can to my natural hair color, which is a light brown (if I remember correctly!) Maybe somewhere between a level 5 and 6. I most recently had my hair at about a level 3 with some gross blue/green hues coming through from my old "funky colors". I didn't really want to deal with weird demarcation line as I grew out my hair. I decided I would use a color remover, then tone to as close to my natural as possible, and then stop coloring all together, growing out naturally.
Big mistake.
After using L'Oreal Effasol today my hair is at LEAST five different colors, ranging from brassy yellowish to still black. I also have swampy green, coppery browns, and dark red browns in there. Yuck. I knew my color wouldn't be pretty after the removal, but I didn't think it would be so VARIED. Each strand has multiple bars of color. I guess years of changing up my color really took its toll.
Now I'm stuck wondering what to do next. Do I try the Effasol again, trying to only hit the darker spots (which are mostly in the middle of the strands)? Do I do a bleach wash? Do I cut my losses and just throw a darkish semi over everything and let the slow painfuk grow out process commence?
I've always been one to keep my color in tip top shape; I have a hard time seeing it be less than its best. But after spending the time and money on the color removal (and mildly damaging my hair in the process) I'd hate to go back to black and have it all be for nothing. I know my best bet would be to go to a salon and have them fix it (I'm perfectly knowledgable, but have a hard time doing the back if my own hair, lol! It's still pretty short.) but I just cannot afford it at the moment. One of the reasons I wanted to stop coloring was to save money.
I'm so stressed out about this; what should I doooo !?!

[spidermom]

I am no expert on color so can't be of a lot of help there. My thoughts are that if you cover up your disaster with a dark color again, you are only going to add to your problems. I truly think it best to pause where you are, give your hair a deep conditioning treatment or two, and reevaluate. I have seen people jump from one bad outcome to another, desperate to do something, ANYTHING, only nothing works. A deposit-only color might help you close the gap between where you are now and the point at which you can cut away the dyed, stripped, and damaged length, then proceed with growing out your own color along with hair in excellent condition. You could also experiment with various styling strategies that might make the color variation a nice accent to your style. I think braids, for example, look awesome with multiple colors.

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck.

[LemonEyes]

Ohmygoodness I wish I could edit...that was most DEFINITELY supposed to say "painful" :oops:

[lithostoic]

I'm so sorry! I'd use a vegetable dye in the most natural color I could find. Many brands make black semi dyes, maybe you could mix red and black to make a nice auburn.

[LemonEyes]

Oh I definitely can't let this go. Not only is it hideous, but I'd be fired from my job in a hot second if I walked in looking like this, haha. It's like something out of a horror movie :shake:
Also my hair's too short to really "hide" anything; I'm only at mid-neck.
Thank you for your kind words though!

[LemonEyes]

Yeah I think a nice gentle semi may be the way to go. Thanks!

[lithostoic]

If you go the semi route, I'd suggest:

1. Deep condition with your favorite deep conditioner or oil overnight (many people like coconut oil).
2. Rinse it out without shampooing and apply a bleach bath to towel dried hair. Apply more heavily to darker areas and do them first!!!
3. Once that's all done and gone from your hair (whether you rinsed or shampood) blowdry on warm. Your cuticles will stay open and ready for dye!
4. On COMPLETELY dry hair (very important that it's 100% dry and still warm) apply the dye.
5. Let it sit for as long as possible (unless the bottle warns against going over the time limit) and then RINSE with COLD water! Best bet is to tip your head into the shower stream while standing outside otherwise you will freeze.

That's what I used to do when I used semis and they lasted forever c:

[Acid]

you can use colour b4 (Uk and Europe) or color oops (USA) up to three times to remove permanent colour - just make sure the remover you buy doesnt contain peroxide as thats a colour stripper and is more damaging, id use those then put a semi permanent light brown over the top or even buy some temporary black hair sprays (theyre aerosolized chalk so they wash out instantly in the shower with no trace) for a few weeks to give the remover time to be completely scrubbed out of the hair (they can reoxidise and unshrink the colour molecules in the hair if not rinsed out properly and introduced to bleach which then turns the hair back dark) then follow through with some bleach baths and a light brown dye depending on the shade youre left with. (leave a week between bleach baths to minimise damage).

[sumidha]

Honestly if your hair isn't even past your neck yet, and it needs to be presentable for work, I'd just bleach it all out, then dye it back to 'close to your natural color' and wait for it to grow out, while gradually trimming off the damage.

Alternatively, you could try more rounds of color remover, or try to maintain a dark color with a temporary vegetable dye while the weirdness grows out, then wash out the veggie dye in a year or so.

ETA: I'm assuming you work regular weekday hours, and have a relatively small window of time to figure out what you're doing with your hair, if you have more than a day or two to come up with a solution, I'd personally try more rounds of color remover, like Acid suggested.

[Obsidian]

Isn't the L'Oréal basically a weak bleach? I would try color oops, I've used it plenty with no damage. It does dry your hair some but a good conditioner will fix that up.
It's not very affective on fun colors but it will remove everything else. For really dark color, you might need more then one treatment.

[Adorkable One]

The L'oreal one is terrible I've heard, because it basically works like bleach. I love Color B4 instead, but it barely works on dark or stubborn colors, and it smells putrid.

There's a homemade recipe for using oil, shampoo, and bleach powder (No developer) that works wonders without lifting your natural color. I'd look up the recipe for that, because it works so unbelievably well. It's sort of like a bleach bath, but more gentle. I think it's work it to give that a shot. You have to cover the color eventually anyway, right? I see it as low risk.

[VersLaLumière]

I am not a professional but I have some personal experience with this as I dyed for about 12 years and then endured absolute hell while stripping out old color by myself to get to my natural color. My experience with going back to natural was a) I could not ultimately complete the process without the help of a professional and b) over time I was able to cover an uneven bleach job with layers of semi-permanent dye (leaving roots alone) to mask the unevenness.

I wouldn't recommend at-home color stripping for anyone, but I happened to have done it. My natural color is something like a chestnut and I took it from black. It was a disaster and I had unevenness too. I decided to *extremely* carefully reapply the bleach concentrating on the darker parts. The pieces that were already much lighter I left alone. This time that I did it, I checked my hair like every few minutes during processing time by rinsing out a couple of very small locks to make sure I wasn't leaving the bleach on too long or too little, then I reapplied on those locks. I did this until I could see all my hair color was at minimum no longer black. It was still uneven, sure. I then put a semi-permanent box dye on over that, which was just slightly darker than my natural color. It did not turn out great, but at least I didn't look like a complete clown.

A few days later I went to the hair dresser. I told her my goal of growing out natural and that I'd bleached the crap out of it. At first she put a semi-permanent dye over the whole thing. Because the red/orange hue from the bleach disaster would show through as it faded, I asked for a shade with some ash in it to hide those undertones. I went back as soon as it started to fade which at that point only took maybe only three weeks, and since she could now just barely see my roots she could get a more accurate match to my natural color. She still added some ash tone in the mix to address the red/orange undertone. I went back about every five to six weeks after that and each time she applied the semi-permanent dye only to the dyed parts, leaving my roots alone. We continued to cut my bob too, until all the old hair was gone.

The good news is, your hair is short! Great time to go back to natural color. I had a very short bob when I went back to natural color so there was less hair to process and grow out. It actually ended up growing out looking pretty good, but it took a couple of months after the initial bleaching for that to happen.

Good luck!!! If you're committed to going back to your natural color, it will happen and this will all be worth it :)

[LemonEyes]

If you go the semi route, I'd suggest:

1. Deep condition with your favorite deep conditioner or oil overnight (many people like coconut oil).
2. Rinse it out without shampooing and apply a bleach bath to towel dried hair. Apply more heavily to darker areas and do them first!!!
3. Once that's all done and gone from your hair (whether you rinsed or shampood) blowdry on warm. Your cuticles will stay open and ready for dye!
4. On COMPLETELY dry hair (very important that it's 100% dry and still warm) apply the dye.
5. Let it sit for as long as possible (unless the bottle warns against going over the time limit) and then RINSE with COLD water! Best bet is to tip your head into the shower stream while standing outside otherwise you will freeze.

That's what I used to do when I used semis and they lasted forever c:

Thank you for the suggestions! I slathered my hair in coconut oil overnight, haha! :)

[LemonEyes]

Honestly if your hair isn't even past your neck yet, and it needs to be presentable for work, I'd just bleach it all out, then dye it back to 'close to your natural color' and wait for it to grow out, while gradually trimming off the damage.

Alternatively, you could try more rounds of color remover, or try to maintain a dark color with a temporary vegetable dye while the weirdness grows out, then wash out the veggie dye in a year or so.

ETA: I'm assuming you work regular weekday hours, and have a relatively small window of time to figure out what you're doing with your hair, if you have more than a day or two to come up with a solution, I'd personally try more rounds of color remover, like Acid suggested.

You're right. I should get all the damaging stuff over with while my hair is still short. I think I'm gonna do one mild bleach bath today, re-color, and then LEAVE IT ALONE! :)

[Hay_jules]

The L'oreal one is terrible I've heard, because it basically works like bleach. I love Color B4 instead, but it barely works on dark or stubborn colors, and it smells putrid.

There's a homemade recipe for using oil, shampoo, and bleach powder (No developer) that works wonders without lifting your natural color. I'd look up the recipe for that, because it works so unbelievably well. It's sort of like a bleach bath, but more gentle. I think it's work it to give that a shot. You have to cover the color eventually anyway, right? I see it as low risk.

Yes to all of this. Search "Katie's fading treatment" and you'll find the shampoo/oils/bleach fading technique Adorable One mentioned. The recipe itself is further down in the article. On the creators fb page (I can't seem to find said page at the moment but I swear it exists lol) there are a ton of before and after pics, many from people who removed dyes that wouldn't budge with any other removal method. And the results are usually much more even than can be expected.

[LemonEyes]

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I did a bleach wash (with 20 vol for about 20 mins) and it didn't do much at all. I don't want to mess with it much more. I've decided to suck it up and shell out the money to see my stylist at the end of this week. Hopefully she can get me close to my natural and then I can leave it alone for a while!

[Zebra Fish]

Hope it all goes well and keep us posted!

[kidari]

Isn't the L'Oréal basically a weak bleach? I would try color oops, I've used it plenty with no damage. It does dry your hair some but a good conditioner will fix that up.
It's not very affective on fun colors but it will remove everything else. For really dark color, you might need more then one treatment.

I agree... I think the Effasol is more of a bleach than a gentle color remover. When doing color correction, it's always a time consuming process. I think you may have to repeat the color removing process one more time and then go over the darker spots with a lightener and then begin toning to correct the inevitable brassiness. Best of luck to you... maybe you could ask a friend you trust or perhaps a coworker to help with your hair for free or cheaper price?