Color damage.... help!!

[tiffxcii]

Thanks to the lovely ladies on this forum I was able to grow my hair from ear length to waist length in 3 years :)

However, I got a wee bit cocky and dyed my hair (balayage)

Now I hate the lighter color as I fell in love with my natural locks and want to dye it back it am worried to continue dying and destroy my hair growth process


So my question

Do I dye my hair one color similar to my natural color and allow to grow from there or do I leave my current balayage alone and let it grow out?

Any one have similar experience with this?

Any advice is appreciated thank you!

[Stray_mind]

Thanks to the lovely ladies on this forum I was able to grow my hair from ear length to waist length in 3 years :)

However, I got a wee bit cocky and dyed my hair (balayage)

Now I hate the lighter color as I fell in love with my natural locks and want to dye it back it am worried to continue dying and destroy my hair growth process


So my question

Do I dye my hair one color similar to my natural color and allow to grow from there or do I leave my current balayage alone and let it grow out?

Any one have similar experience with this?

Any advice is appreciated thank you!

I would just leave it alone and grow out natural, while slowly trimming away the dyed bits.. It actually depends on what your natural color is. Is the contrast more striking or does it blend with your dyed parts more?

A picture would be nice :)

[lakhesis]

If it blends nicely I would just keep growing :) Around a year ago I actually got balayage just to get rid of demarcation line, it really helped to merge my natural hair with bleached ends. I've been growing it out since then without coloring or touching it up.

[spidermom]

My vote - let it grow. There's no guarantee that you'll get your natural color if you dye it. Just slowly trim away the bleached bits.

[Purpleaggie05]

If it's not too drastic, I would just grow it out (balayage is supposed to be blendy). If it's too drastic of difference from your natural roots, I would wait at least a couple of months until you start getting a fair amount of growth in (to see the contrast), and I would get a few low-lights to blend it better with your natural hair, then leave it to grow out.

[lapushka]

Do I dye my hair one color similar to my natural color and allow to grow from there or do I leave my current balayage alone and let it grow out?

Any one have similar experience with this?

Any advice is appreciated thank you!

Is it highlighted from the root? Then maybe have a hair stylist (don't do this yourself) dye it back to your natural color. If it is down the root somewhat, I'd grow it out, it's easier than growing out from the root if it's halfway down the strands for instance.

[Dark40]

Leave the color alone and let it grow, and trim away the bleached parts.

[ursaV]

I vote let it grow as well. Since balayage is subtle you'll probably get an ombre effect as it grows which could be nice too.

[anafauna]

Well the good thing about balayage is that it looks very natural and blends in extremely well so you can grow it out without it looking weird.The balayage will just look like natural highlights (i.e. from the sun) that have grown out. Don't dye it because dyeing your hair permanently changes the underlying pigment. The chemicals in the dye and developer lift your hair to a lighter shade even if the dye you're using is darker. So when you dye your hair, it may look the same as your natural color at first, but over time it will fade and will look lighter and brassy. This has happened to me before. Then you'll end up having to dye your hair over and over again to tone out the brassiness and to make it darker again like your natural color. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it correctly so I hope what I'm saying makes sense.

[akurah]

Well the good thing about balayage is that it looks very natural and blends in extremely well so you can grow it out without it looking weird.The balayage will just look like natural highlights (i.e. from the sun) that have grown out. Don't dye it because dyeing your hair permanently changes the underlying pigment. The chemicals in the dye and developer lift your hair to a lighter shade even if the dye you're using is darker. So when you dye your hair, it may look the same as your natural color at first, but over time it will fade and will look lighter and brassy. This has happened to me before. Then you'll end up having to dye your hair over and over again to tone out the brassiness and to make it darker again like your natural color. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it correctly so I hope what I'm saying makes sense.

There’s a number of dyes that don’t use developer and won’t cause further damage....

[LittleHealthy]

It’s all well and good to try and dye it back to your darker natural colour, but often people experience fading anyway. I’d just leave it alone and grow it out. I feel your pain, I’m currently down to chin length with a pretty obvious demarcation line haha.

[Bryndhildr]

If you want to minimize damage while growing it out, simply mix a direct dye (e.g. Joico Vero Kpak, Crazy Color, etc) in with a conditioner, leave on for awhile, rinse. You could do that as the colour fades, as needed.