What to do with blonde to dark root hair grow out?

[lilangelske13]

Hello Ladies (And Gentlemen, okay) :)

What are some options to keep my hair healthy as in no dye or using any unnatural damaging techniques to blend in my dark roots with the bleached part of my hair?

It looks really tackey now as I have not had a professional trim in a few years. and I chopped like 4 inches of damaged ends off about a month ago. So it's kind of doin it's own thing right now. I just Rarely ever bring an iron any where near it, and I never use blow dryers.

Imagine what happens when you get me in the hair dye section while I am out with the bf shopping. lol

So... what could I do? you can see a pic of my current length and the color it is on right now. It's in my profile. Any ideas please... I am almost desperate to not screw up my hair again, again this time!

Thank you!! :pumpkin:

[Curlsgirl]

If I were you I would go to a GOOD salon and have a semi-permanent/demi-permanent color on to match your roots. Tell the colorist you want it to match your real color and you want to stop dying/bleaching. You may have to get it done 2 times or so but it will stick better than permanent and not be so damaging.

The other thing you could do is get lowlights several times as the new growth comes in to transition. I would not try this myself if I were you. It will be well worth the money to get it done by a reputable salon.

[LutraLutra]

Well, you could henna and or indigo your hair to a brown, red, or black tone to blend in with your roots. There are many, many threads and articles on how to do this on 'Recipes, Henna, and Herbal Haircare' section of this site. I would suggest you read around the subject a lot before making a decision though. Let us know how you get on! :)

[Curlsgirl]

Yes keep in mind though if it does not match your roots you will have to maintain it with touchups.

[MsBubbles]

I had this dilemma earlier this year, and found myself spending ages in front of the hair coloring displays at the stores, getting completely overwhelmed. In the end (this past October) I ended up going back to my stylist/colorist who had been my regular stylist/colorist for about 15 years. She's about the only person I've met yet whom I trust with my hair. I got her to put lowlights on the bottom 19" of my hair - the worst bleach-damaged parts. Everybody (non longhairs) said to me "ooh it's hard to go back to brown once you've been blond", but I just wanted to get rid of the obvious roots demarcation line which was now about to my chin. A few days afterwards I found I missed my cute blond ends, but after about a week or two the darker lowlights faded and now I absolutely love the overall color. I had to go a bit darker at first to get it to settle into the color it is now.

In the end I was too chicken to do the coloring at home myself because I didn't want to turn my lower 19" green by accident, or have it otherwise look worse than 6" of dark roots.

[Katze]

I would advise NOT to dye. I went to a salon and had my hair dyed dark in June 2006 (see horse pic in profile) and it washed out/faded within several months, giving me even more two-tone, and taking me farther away from growing the roots out.

That's the bad news. The GOOD news is that if you are willing to put up with the two tone look for a while (I did a lot of halfups and French braids), it WILL start to blend and fade as new virgin hair grows in.

The last 5 inches or so of my hair are still bleached, and when my hair is 'dirty', or when I have an updo where you can see the ends, they look very orange and fake in comparison with my roots. But when my hair is down (how I prefer to wear it) it really looks pretty natural by now.

There is no way (in my experience and 15+ years of bleaching my hair) to transition from light to dark easily. This time, because my hair's health is important and I do not want to bleach anymore, I just stuck it out, and am glad I did! My natural color is really quite nice on its own and I don't have that fake look any more.

There are a lot of us here - check out the 'two toned' group and the many threads on growing out bleach!

And feel free to PM me - I've been there, done that. :D

[Curlsgirl]

I would advise NOT to dye. I went to a salon and had my hair dyed dark in June 2006 (see horse pic in profile) and it washed out/faded within several months, giving me even more two-tone, and taking me farther away from growing the roots out.

That's why I said it may be necessary to go to the salon a second or third time because it can fade and probably will at first. Missy60 had success with this type of thing and so did I actually. In my case I just missed my blond and ended up having highlights put back in. Of course it is an individual choice and if you can stand it is always better not to use another chemical process I admit!!! Also fine hair is more fragile and more prone to breakage and damage from coloring. My hair seems to be able to "take" a lot.

[amaiaisabella]

That's why I said it may be necessary to go to the salon a second or third time because it can fade and probably will at first. Missy60 had success with this type of thing and so did I actually. In my case I just missed my blond and ended up having highlights put back in. Of course it is an individual choice and if you can stand it is always better not to use another chemical process I admit!!! Also fine hair is more fragile and more prone to breakage and damage from coloring. My hair seems to be able to "take" a lot.


I would advise NOT to dye. I went to a salon and had my hair dyed dark in June 2006 (see horse pic in profile) and it washed out/faded within several months, giving me even more two-tone, and taking me farther away from growing the roots out.


Curlsgirl, I was able to do this as well. My ends were a faded reddish/blonde, and my roots were growing in medium brown, my natural color. My stylist put a dark brown demi-permanent on my hair, and it gradually faded over a few months to end up a medium brown. I ended up doing henna after that, but it wasn't because of any obvious fading or need to even out the color :)

[spidermom]

I'd ignore it and let it be two tone.

[TheBlondeApple]

I bought a shade darker of the dye (bleach) that I'd been using to see how it would match my own colour. I didn't get roots with that one, so that was the last time I had to use dye and didn't have to live with roots forever.

I did have to snip very damaged parts that didn't even take dye anymore, I would've been glad if I knew how to trim my own hair, at the time, but I didn't, so I went to the salon every 4-6 weeks to maintain my length until those horrible ends were gone. So, with what I know now, the only thing I would do differently would be trimming at home rather than at the salon to save some money and to achieve exact ponytail-length and be rid of those ick-ends, sooner.

Lowlights sound good, too!

Anja

[Anje]

In addition to having a corrective dye done to match your length to your roots, you might want to look into a combination of henna, indigo, cassia, and buxus/katam that could match the two. Unfortunately, of that list, henna (and blondish cassia) are the only ones that are permanent, so you'd be stuck using these as long as you're trying to keep all the hair matched. Additionally, with herbal colors, there are no guarantees of what color you're going to get, though strand tests will help.

My vote is herbal colors or being two-toned, unless you want to make a few last trips to the chemical colorist (risking more damage), to get things matched.

[goodenough]

I can tell you what I did four years ago--I did a box of loreal preference in soft black (faded very quickly to dark brown--my natural color) This actually seemed to fill in and protect my beached strands. I had no disernable roots, and I managed to keep my shoulder length hair and grow to waist, triming off the dyed bits along the way. I'm at waist now with the dyed parts cut off. It was better for me than sacrificing the long hair I wanted sooner, not later. i didn't have to repeatedly dye it--just that once. I've done this a total of three times throughout the years to cover up and grow out bleach. Twice on my own with Loreal, and once at a salon. I was happy with it each time, and forgot it was even colored.

[MsBubbles]

I can tell you what I did four years ago--I did a box of loreal preference in soft black (faded very quickly to dark brown--my natural color) This actually seemed to fill in and protect my beached strands. I had no disernable roots, and I managed to keep my shoulder length hair and grow to waist, triming off the dyed bits along the way. I'm at waist now with the dyed parts cut off. It was better for me than sacrificing the long hair I wanted sooner, not later. i didn't have to repeatedly dye it--just that once. I've done this a total of three times throughout the years to cover up and grow out bleach. Twice on my own with Loreal, and once at a salon. I was happy with it each time, and forgot it was even colored.

Just curious...did you put a 'filler' on first? Otherwise if you had bleached/highlighted hair, how did it not turn green? Was it a really red/warm color you used?

[Oskimosa]

I agree with others here about dying the bleached out portion. If you feel experienced enough, I'd get a deposit-only color from the beauty supply shop and use something like 10 vol with it. If not, go someplace you trust and get them to do deposit only. It might fade, but then again it might not. Personally, I found that Clairol Second Nature did a GREAT job for me when I was growing out at one point.

[Katze]

That's why I said it may be necessary to go to the salon a second or third time because it can fade and probably will at first. Missy60 had success with this type of thing and so did I actually. In my case I just missed my blond and ended up having highlights put back in. Of course it is an individual choice and if you can stand it is always better not to use another chemical process I admit!!! Also fine hair is more fragile and more prone to breakage and damage from coloring. My hair seems to be able to "take" a lot.

Not only that, but if she keeps dyeing, she will always have a demarcation line "roots" and will just have to keep dyeing. I think even with multiple dye jobs the color will fade and leave a brassy color behind - at least, that's what's happened every time I dyed my hair darker. I ended up back at square one.

The other problem is the damage. Dyed hair, no matter what, has some damage. Salon dye is better than drugstore dye for sure, but I think if you really want healthy long hair you have to not dye at all, or dye very minimally...

[Jeni]

I had/have the same issue- growing out blond dye (see left sig pic). My natural color is a dark blond/light brown but I was dyeing to a light ash blond. The first few months sucked when it came to the roots, I wont lie. My hair is on the thin side of normal and fine so it already laid rather flat, the dark roots kind of made it look dirty (I think it was mostly noticeable to me though). Once the roots got to be longer (2") it didnt look as bad. I thought about dyeing the length to match my roots but (a) I couldn't find a color that matched (I am the queen of at home hair color) and (b) I wanted to go cold turkey with the chemical dyes.

I ended up being drawn into the evils that is henna (mixed with cassia) so that has darkened my hair which has made the roots less noticeable (you can still see them though). The longer they get the less they bother me though.

Whether you dye your hair to match your roots or not is up to you.
-On one hand dyeing it darker would make new growth less noticeable

- On the other hand: Its really hard to get dye to match natural color, even if you pay someone to do it. If you have to keep redoing it because it fades which seems a bit silly, you could just keep dyeing your roots blond...

Its up to you, both options-just letting it grow or dying it to match the roots- has its pros and cons.

I fear I have said a lot and been absolutely no help...sorry.

[KiwiLiz]

How much darker are the roots? and would you still like to be blondish?

I'd get down to LUSH and by Marilyn treatment and the blonde shampoo, they have natural lighteners in them -like chamomile. You won't get a dramatic result straight away, but if you keep using the shampoo and doing the treatments you notice subtle results as it does lighten you a little and helps to blend the two tones as grow you roots out. But that depends on how much contrast you have between the bleached length and dark roots.