A BIG, BIG mistake...HELP [long]

[abritta3]

Hi all. Some of you may know from my recent posts that I had been wanting to color my hair back to [close to] my natural hair color and then let it grow out...
Well, my roommate and best friend convinced me to dye her hair with chem dye (Ion from Sally) and while we were there she begged to dye mine. I caved in and said yes because we used to dye each other's hair all the time back in our high school and she said "It's the last time I'll get to do it if you're just going to let it grow out now..."
So I caved...
Her hair turned out great.
My hair turned out B-L-A-C-K
My natural hair is dark but not black and worst of all, it's spotty...some of the blonde is still there. She said we didn't have enough color.
I bought Color Oops and used that and it worked okay but that was just *more* damage...
I am so DEVASTATED. I should have just done henna!:(
I coconut oiled my hair [drenched it!!!] last night and left it on all night then shampoo-ed my hair again this morning because it was still a bit dark then I applied VO5 CO and oiled it again.
Currently, it is air drying and it is going to be left UP for the next 8176152 years :'(
I am so disapointed in myself. I have worked so hard since January to get my hair healthier and I feel like I just took 5million steps back.

1) When can I henna dye my hair to a brown without hurting my hair anymore? (It looks TERRIBLE right now and I do not want to chem dye it again)
2) What should I do from here to keep my hair from just totally breaking off??

[HeatherJenae]

Okay, I'm not that experienced in hair dye but I know that when I ruined my hair with dye back in high school, I went to a hair stylist with YEARS of experience and he told me the best way to fix it and not damage it further. I'm so sorry this happened. But just try to focus on the fact that it's done, you can't change that now, you just have to take care of it the way it is. I would wait a bit before doing any more dyeing with the henna. I'd just give your hair a break, let it stabilize and see a professional. Hugs!!!!

[Nyghtingale]

I am here for moral support, cause I have no knowledge that can help. So sorry. hugs!

[Unofficial_Rose]

If it's still a little too dark, I would not hit the henna just yet.

Overnight oilings and deep conditioning for a few weeks if you can bear it, these might help lighten some of the colour as well as help the condition.

Once it's a little lighter, a light henna and indigo gloss will be able to even the colour up a bit without making you too dark. Say one spoonful henna to one spoonful indigo in enough conditioner to cover your hair, leave for an hour then CO out. It won't go too dark, and you can always do it again if it isn't dark enough.

Then when the gloss fades, you can redo it. All the while, this will be evening the colour out. Henna and indigo are very good at that sort of thing. ;)

[Iylivarae]

Generally, you should wait about 10 hair washes until you can dye with henna over chemical colour. That, of course, doesn't mean that you should run to the shower and wash it 10 times. If I were you, I'd wait for 2 or 3 weeks and do it then.

Pamper your hair, maybe do a protein treatment, give it a lot of moisture... I don't think your hair will be destroyed by this single incident!

Good luck :)

[rach]

one thing to say about henna is it has conditioning properties which might help greatly and make sure it body quality henna(the pure stuff).
cassia might help temporally (neutral colour) till you know what you want to do on colour (but the it's conditioning properties are more short term (week) from what i've tried) .
henna is a very permanent direction to go so make sure you want to do it.

keep with the super oiling.

:grouphug:
i hope it all works out

[ReddishRocks]

Pamper your hair, maybe do a protein treatment, give it a lot of moisture... I don't think your hair will be destroyed by this single incident!
I tend to agree. :) It'll be okay! If the color is really bothering you, I'd go see a pro to get it evened out. I don't have any experience with coloring, but I seem to recall that Aveda salons use chemicals that aren't especially harsh - it's perhaps worth a look into?

Otherwise, I'd go with the henna/indigo glosses in a couple of weeks. That sounds like a sane and healthy response. :)

[Crysania]

i have found that condtionner+honey+lemon treatments on dry hair works very well at fading hair thats been dyed

and that treatment doesnt dry out your hair like oil treatments ( leave it for one hour at least and shampoo it out )
use a light conditonner like vo5 or suave

also the sun helps a lot at fading dye, if you can go under the sun

My hair has been bleached before and i have put a 'permanent'' dye over it ( a dark ash brown dye) well the so called permanent dye has faded completly ! like if i never put it

so dont worry permanent hair dye does fade,(if you dont reapply it monthly )
give it some time
use a shampoo with sulphates

[Thila]

I am so sorry that happened to you. I used that same Ion brand from Sally's a few years ago and I remember that it started out dark but faded fast. I would just keep doing the deep treats with oil but maybe add a little heat? I remember when I had a hair coloring disaster that I would apply the conditioner of choice mixed with oil then throw a shower cap on my head THEN put a winter/snow cap on top of that for an hour. It always pulled quite a bit of color. You can do it multiple times too and I felt like it didn't damage my hair as much as shampooing over and over. Hope that helps.

[Toadstool]

BAQ Henna will save your hair condition IMO, or at least it did mine.

[Cherry_Sprinkle]

Honey will fade chemical dye.. Its always pulled a bit of color from my dye jobs but I do it every now and again because I like the highlights I have.. so I would second the honey + lemon + conditioner (and if you have it some oil and aloe) and let it sit on your head wrapped in a bag + towel or heat cap if you have one. I wouldn't do anymore to your hair for awhile, breakage can happen really easily with some of that stuff.

Try wearing your hair up in some pretty buns and look into some more natural ways to lighten... if it feels too dry, skip the lemon and use the honey only, it will still pull some dye color out.

[Speckla]

I'd say give your hair a protein treatment first and then leave in a bit of oil. See if that makes your hair feel better and than go see a professional. They can help you restore color and maintain your length.

[shadowclaw]

I don't have any experience with damage from dye. In fact, my hair loved it the few times I permanently dyed it. I went red for a little bit, and then jet black, and finally blue-black. My hair was so shiny and soft after going black, although there was always a little bit of dye coming out whenever I shampooed. As you can see from my signature, I no longer have black hair. Going from black to the color you see took lots of chemicals and tears.

Enter my experience with chemical damaged, first from attempting to bleach the color out (which resulted in bright orange hair with dark patches) and finally from stripping the color out with a product from Sally Beauty Supply, followed by coloring the stripped hair blonde. My hair was absoluting digusting after I did that. Anytime it got wet, it turned into a tangled mess that no conditioner would penetrate. I couldn't comb it while it was wet. Instead, I had to wait until it was dry and carefully comb it with a very wide-toothed comb. It was very dry and not too pleasant too look at or touch.

How did my BSL hair survive? I used a wonderful product from Sally's called Ion Effective Care Treatment. You might be cursing Ion right now, but that deep treatment was a life saver! It comes in little packets that they usually have by the register, and you can buy a bottle/tube of it. It smells kind of weird, but it has protein and an assortment of other stuff in it. I used it twice a week, along with an Ion shampoo that also comes in a packet, and my hair became pretty normal after a month or so.

So, I highly recommend that stuff. The people at Sally's swear by this stuff, and so do I. I like to use a little of it whenever I do a SMT. Eventually, I did have to cut off the part that was damaged because it got very brittle when it aged, but it survived nicely for quite a while.

[abritta3]

A great big thank you to all who posted advice, moral support, etc...I am very grateful :).
Also, I wanted to add that I have conditioned about 5times since the "incident" yesterday and my hair seems to be in the same healthy condition as before (just darker...and spotty).
The dry state my hair was in yesterday horrified me because normally it has such shine but I guess that is typical after chem dying...:(
I am happy to say that aftering COing and oiling with coconut oil that my hair is back to the shiny and soft state...I am sure it still has some progress to make ;)
When I noticed the spots, I did a protein treatment. I think I will leave my hair alone for a couple weeks. I ordered some henna today and I will do that once the time is right.

I am just so thankful that hair (although weak) can also be extremely resilient.

[Shadow]

I had a similar experience to this when I attempted to highlight my own hair using a box kit from the drugstore - big disaster :o! I found that treating my hair gently and packing in lots of moisture (with oils and deep conditioning treatments)helped but my saving grace was really a product called Biolustre that I stumbled upon on an internet search. I've read mixed reviews (and watched some on youtube) on it and I know that it doesn't work on everyone but it really helped me a lot. I only bought the treatment and not the shampoos or anything else in the line, since I already owned a deep treatment and a clarifying shapmoo.So if you have the money to spare you might want to give it a try. Just my :twocents: :)

http://www.biolustre.com/index.html