I want to Dye (my hair)

[Stardreamer]

Okay, so my Dad told me I can dye my hair if I want to. I have my own ideas - I'm thinking of colourful hair. The colours I have in mind are purple and blue. Lilac purple, dark purple, neon purple, ice blue, and neon blue. Those are the colours I'm considering. Not natural colours tbh. I have no clue about how to do this. Never had dyed hair, I tried once with red hair chalk - no result, my hair's brown. (By the way, I'm 17, not a little kid but my parents still have some restrictions)

1) What is the process of going from brown to coloured hair?
2) What do I need to know/find out beforehand?
3) What's your own experience?
4) What are the pros and cons of dyed hair?
5) Why do many people on the LHC want to grow out their dyed hair?
6) What style should I go for? eg. ombre, streaks. What styles are there?
7) Are there any general tips you can give me?
8 ) What are the best brands?
9) Which are your least harmful recommendations?
10) How great is the damage to your hair?

- That's all my questions for now. Thanks :flower:

[Corvana]

1) What is the process of going from brown to coloured hair? Bleaching, and then the color is deposited.
2) What do I need to know/find out beforehand? That bleaching sucks a lot, and the colorful dye will probably bleed on everything you own.
3) What's your own experience? I used to have purple hair, and purple and pink hair!
4) What are the pros and cons of dyed hair? Pros: looks GORGEOUS and AMAZING! Cons: Bleached hair is more fragile, and the color fades some, and it bleeds some. Upkeep is more work, but worth it to many!
5) Why do many people on the LHC want to grow out their dyed hair? Likely because of the damage factor. It's harder to grow to very very long lengths with bleached or color damaged hair.
6) What style should I go for? eg. ombre, streaks. What styles are there? Whatever floats your boat!
7) Are there any general tips you can give me? Patience is key! Gentle handling, patient detangling, lots of deep treatments.
8 ) What are the best brands? I liked my Special Effects dye, but I haven't used a ton of different ones.
9) Which are your least harmful recommendations? Special Effects is just a deposit dye, no bleach. For best effect you'd need to bleach. But go slowly, and preferably to a professional.
10) How great is the damage to your hair? For mine? It was awful. I had a lot of breakage, especially wherever my hair would rub on the pillowcase etc. My hair is on the darker side, so to get enough lift to get bright colors it took quite a lot of bleach!

[milosmomma]

I have no person experience with manic panic or the like but I thought they worked for darker hair and were not damaging because they are temporary? Which just means you can try more colors! :) Oh course it wont be as vibrant without bleach but I also had bad damage from bleaching, both professional and home diys.

[Simpscone]

1) What is the process of going from brown to coloured hair?
If you want bright unnatural colours, or "fashion" colours, you need to lighten your hair using bleach to a light blonde (how light depends on the shade of colour you want) and then use a semi-permanent hair dye over the top

2) What do I need to know/find out beforehand?
I would always always always recommend having your hair bleached professionally if you don't know what you're doing. It's one of if not the most dangerous processes to do on your hair and can go wrong really easily! Search bleaching fails on Youtube to see what can go wrong. Besides that scary warning though - you will need to baby your hair for a while afterwards, with protein and moisture treatments! Bleach strips these things from your hair so you need to actively put them back in. But if bleached correctly and if you aren't using heat etc then it's honestly not that bad, I've had bleached hair for 6 years and the ends don't feel super dead or anything.
Also, regarding the bright colours - expect comments. Expect stares. Expect weird reactions. Some people love it and can't stop telling you, other's think you're crazy! I loved having bright hair and it was 100% worth it for me.

3) What's your own experience?
I've had every colour under the sun (check my Rainbow Gallery!) and both bleached my own hair and had it bleached professionally. I've had extremely healthy bleached hair, that was thick and completely retained it's curl pattern and people couldn't believe was on my head, and I've pushed it too far and had bleached hair that has snapped off to a few inches, causing me to give it up and do a big chop.


4) What are the pros and cons of dyed hair?
Pros are that it looks AMAZING!!! For me at least it felt really freeing, I felt like I was expressing myself and loved myself more than I ever had! You also stand out and get loads of comments, from friends, family, strangers in the street, literally everyone. That could be a con if you don't want attention though! Cons are that the bleach is damaging, no matter what you do, but can definitely be managed. Another con is that you can stain everything you own with dye! And upkeep is a pain in the butt, I never let my hair fade out so I touched it up almost weekly.

5) Why do many people on the LHC want to grow out their dyed hair?
I had to cut my hair up to my chin and still didn't give up on bleach, and after a year of growing it out again (still bleaching - just the roots) it started snapping at the crown when I wasn't even doing anything to it. The bleach just took it's toll. I decided I want to grow my hair long and see my natural colour and how healthy it can be without messing with it at all. I'm not sworn off dye forever but I've learnt my lession in doing things in moderation.
I think a lot of people on LHC want to grow theirs out because they are more interested in the condition and length of their hair - it is possible but a lot of work to have extremely long hair if it is dyed because damage hair needs trims.

6) What style should I go for? eg. ombre, streaks. What styles are there?
This totally depends on what you want! I would start with a streak or an ombre if you are happy with that, because it will dip your toe into the world of bright colours without potentially damaging all of your hair. You'll be able to see if you like the colour and how much bleach your hair can take without it being all the way up to your roots.

7) Are there any general tips you can give me?
Do a strand test!!!! See how your hair reacts. Invest in deep conditioners and protein treatments and don't use excessive heat on your hair.
Take it slow and do your research. I've already overloaded with advice I think haha! There are loads of tips on LHC for damaged hair, so I would make sure you are deep-dived into those threads and babying your hair. Even if you are as kind as you can be to your hair, there will be damage. It's unavoidable. All you can do is minimise the risk of it all snapping off your head!

8 ) What are the best brands?
For semi permanent bright colours I love La Riche Directions - a lot of my colours were by them - and near the end of my dying Arctic Fox. Arctic Fox smells amazing and really lasts. I'd recommend checking out their Instagram's and stalking all the people on their page with the shade you want!

9) Which are your least harmful recommendations?
Get it done professionally by someone you trust if you can - at least the bleaching. The bright hair colour doesn't damage your hair, so you can do that yourself 100% safely.

10) How great is the damage to your hair?
It varies for everyone, and it varied for me. When I had just bleached it all over once, it wasn't that bad. My hair has always been super dry and I didn't notice a massive difference. The problem for me came when I bleached more than once, and continued to heat style etc - my hair just couldn't take it anymore. Some people bleach their hair once and it snaps off, some people bleach it 5 times and it... kind of lives :lol: I 100% recommend doing a strand test!


I'm sorry if this is a lot!! Dyed hair is amazing and was a passion of mine for many years, it can be done with minimal damage and be the best thing you've ever done in your life - you just have to be super careful.

[Beeboo123]

1) What is the process of going from brown to coloured hair?
Depends on the color you plan to get, you might need to bleach your hair.
2) What do I need to know/find out beforehand?
Not much that is really important to me, except for a patch test. Always, ALWAYS do a patch test to make sure you are not allergic to any of the ingredients.
3) What's your own experience?
Every color except blue and green.
4) What are the pros and cons of dyed hair?
Cons: Even when I used a weak developer (not even bleach!), I lost my wave pattern. My hair frizzed all the time, I looked awful. I didn’t experience any breakage or nasty split ends though. Having visible roots is a HUGE con to me, I hate it. Be prepared to deal with that if you dye a color significantly different from your natural color
Pros: I didn’t have boring black hair.
5) Why do many people on the LHC want to grow out their dyed hair?
Undyed, undamaged hair always looks better. Dyed hair just isn’t as shiny. Also, it’s harder to grow long when you have dyed hair.
6) What style should I go for? eg. ombre, streaks. What styles are there?
Personally, I like an ombre that makes regrowth as unnoticeable as possible.
7) Are there any general tips you can give me?
Go to a professional if you are getting your hair bleached. Use a color-safe shampoo and conditioner, it will make your color last longer.
8 ) What are the best brands?
I like ManicPanic for deposit-only dyes.
9) Which are your least harmful recommendations?
Sorry, I have none.
10) How great is the damage to your hair?
Other than the frizz and loss of curl pattern, I was mostly fine. No breakage, no split ends etc. Admittedly, I had regular trims back then and was only at waist length. I went from black to nearly platinum blonde, so I expected it to be much worse. Asian hair is more resilient to damage, so I guess I got lucky.

[lapushka]

If you are that unsure about dye, and have never tried it, I would consider dyeing the tips of the hair, and having a professional do it for you. If you have never been near dye or bleach, this is a difficult process that can go wrong fast! And if you dye the tips only, no need to worry about having to touch it up, and it might be a good way to try out color!

[LadyCelestina]

Undyed, undamaged hair always looks better. Dyed hair just isn’t as shiny. Also, it’s harder to grow long when you have dyed hair.


I'm going to be blunt: crazy colours often look better in pictures than IRL, unless meticulously maintained - and meticulous maintenance might be difficult, esp. financially, since you're 17.

Not saying that to discourage you, but I do suggest looking at IRL examples. I also wanted to have crazy coloured hair. Then I moved to a bigger city for uni, where unnatural hair dyes are very common, and realised I don't like the look at all. The colour is often quite patchy and washes out quickly, for example a redhead friend would dye her hair orange and in a little over a week, it would be back to strawberry blonde, so she eventually resorted to dying it fire engine red and dealing with it until it washes out into desired shade of orange. Plus when you want to change the colour you often have to strip the previous colour off your hair.

If you're okay with this kind of maintenance, then definitely try it! :thumbsup: Or try just an ombre or a streak, which is easy to hide/trim out.

[Shadri]

I would look into deposit dyes/hair "stains", as others have mentioned. No bleaching required. Of course, it won't be as bold on darker hair, but it would definitely be healthier. Manic Panic, Splat, and Arctic Fox are brands I've heard of that you could look into. Recently I learned about a brand called Overtone, which is a deep conditioner that also deposits color. They have several colors that they sell which specifically show up better on dark hair. :)

[dollyfish]

I wanted to reply to this as someone with dark brown hair who currently has it bleached & dyed to pink. I love fun colors. After growing out my virgin hair couple times, with many big chops, I decided I wanted to go back to playing with color like I did as a teenager. My hair is bleached to about a level 8, and over that I have a mix of pravana rose quartz and pastel pink (the original dye I used), which I maintain with arctic fox virgin pink diluted with conditioner. By now it's been long enough that it's mostly arctic fox.

Heads up, this will FRY YOUR HAIR!!! My hair is naturally fairly coarse, dry, and tangly, so I was kind of like f*** it I don't have much to lose lol (I bleached/dyed a LOT from 14-18 so I knew what it would be like). My hair is now just even more coarse, dry, and tangly than usual. My sig pic is a good example of a regular day; I don't have any product in my hair in that photo, and it's been a while since a did a (much needed) deep conditioning treatment. My hair also now "grows slower" because I need trims more frequently (I never get split ends, never have, but the ends just get kind of...frazzled...with damage).

Basically it is super fun and totally worth it (FOR ME) but the things you will sacrifice are TEXTURE and GROWTH.

PS: it's expensive af to get this kind of thing done at a salon regularly so I do it myself. I got frustrated with having to bleach my roots so often so I'm working on a gradient where the roots are a darker pink than the rest to make my dark brown roots less accidental looking.

PPS: I see people recommending just deposit dyes with no bleach. If your hair is as dark as it is in your profile picture, this will do basically nothing at all, just fyi. My hair is dark brown also and the most I can get out of direct deposit dyes without bleaching my hair is a slight tinge (if that). Basically if you don't want to bleach your hair, there's no way to get colorful hair except by wearing a wig.

[Suortuva]

Does you dad know you are considering unnatural/fashion colours? I mean, if you need his permission... From the way you wrote it, I couldn't figure out that. Just thinking it can be quite a shock if you both have different ideas about what dyeing hair means...