Used traditional dyes to go from Very Blonde to Dark Brown. Miss my Blonde, Help?

[Sara_Smiles]

Hi Ladies,
First I'd like to say thank you for such an amazingly helpful website and such friendly, sweet ladies and gents :) I really appreciate all the help.
I have a pretty specific problem. For several months I have been tining my lovely, light blonde locks a rich chocolate brown. The colour was very flatteringy, but I miss my blonde now. What is the safest way to go back to my natural? I did try colour fix, and it lightened it to a chocolate milk shade, but not near the colour I'd been hoping for. I haven't dyed it in about 4 months, and the roots are looking pretty fierce. What can I do?

[Riot Crrl]

What exactly happened with the Colorfix? Did it lighten more at first and then redarken? Or is the color now the lightest it ever got?

[amaiaisabella]

I guess you could try baby shampoo, but I'm concerned it would become muddy, rather than lightening to a natural looking color.

[Sara_Smiles]

I used the colourfix twice , about two months ago. This is a bit darker than it was initially. It was firsta pretty medium strawberry blonde, but in a few days redarkened to chocolate milk.

[kwaniesiam]

If you want to keep your length, the best advice I can give would be to go to a very skilled stylist and have them match the color to or as close as possible to your roots. Something like that is a job best left to professionals when so many variables are involved and you will need chemical dyes to achieve this.

[Riot Crrl]

OK, here's the deal with Colorfix. It works in two ways. One is by temporarily blasting the scales of the hair open, and the other is by actually temporarily shrinking dye molecules so they can fall out from underneath the open scales.

Lighter at first and then redarkening is common with it. It means the dye molecules shrunk, but they didn't manage to leave the hair before eventually bloating back up again.

You could try to Colorfix again, but this time load up and lather up with some harsh-o sulfate shampoo while the Colorfix is still active.

You can strand test this before you try it on your whole head, too.

It probably won't be the most pampered your hair ever felt, but way better than trying to bleach it out.

[Sara_Smiles]

Thats a good point. I'm a bit concerned though just because of the extreme color disparity between what I gave myself and what I was born with. If I were to take this to a stylist, about how much do you thnk it would run me? Would my hair adjust better if I gave it a few months before damaging it so much? Do you think the honey/cinammon treatments could be effective for me?

[Riot Crrl]

I disagree with that. Dark dye removal is the one situation in which I would personally stay as far away from stylists as possible. Their solution will be comprised of bleach. I would rather Colorfix my hair ten times than bleach it once.

[suicides_eve]

ive never tried color fix but when i went from 3 years of black dye to blonde i used color zap found at sally's beauty supply to give me a huge shade jump before the bleaching

Everyone is probbly tired of seeing be rave about it and my fancy little page but i love to spread the word about something that has worked for me and hopefully work for others take a gander if you wish read the guest book to i think there are some sucess stories floating around there
http://www.colorzap.50megs.com (http://www.colorzap.50megs.com/)

[Sara_Smiles]

Hmm , I will have to look into that color zap, especially with how distrustful I am of stylists in general. May I ask how you got the red tones out?

[spidermom]

The absolute safest way would be to grow out the blonde while trimming/cutting away the brown. Several people around here have gone back to natural color exactly that way. That's the way I did it in the past.

[alys]

I like Riot Crrl's ideas and suggestions, and can agree with some. But if I may add, having been there myself a time or two in the past, you can try a stylist rather than doing it at home. Its your choice. At home will save you money. However looks like you already tried the Colorfix 2 times at home and not a lot of sucsess. A SKILLED colorist can work wonders if you find the right one. You spend more, however your own unskilled human error would be removed from the equation were you to visit a colorist. I say colorist becuase not all stylists can color hair. In fact in my experience maybe one in every salon is worth a damn, and they are always booked:)!
If you are considering a colorist, may I suggest -an Aveda colorist. I know from a friend of mine that the training and continuing education that Aveda provides to it's colorists it phenominal. Probably some of the best out there, and she would know. She's a trainer for the company and gets to travel all around training and re-training. I'm sure there are some other great color salons out there, but I have no experience with any but Aveda.
Hair color really is a sceince that I think is best left to a trained professional. But thats just me :)
(not meaning to generalize that last statement, however after going from blonde to dark and then back again this situation goes beyond simple at-home henna or dye job)

[chloeishere]

I've used colorfix in the past with pretty good success (the last 4-6 inches of my hair right now is color-treated, then colorfixed)... however, I only went one shade darker (from dark blonde to light blonde), and I only dyed my hair twice total. If you have any left (I still have half a package sitting around here somewhere), I would definitely try it again, and leave it on for a while. I think I left it on 2 hours or so-- check makeupalley.com in the reviews section for more experiences. And yes, you should definitely use a strong shampoo to clean it out, and hopefully remove the dye molecules.
You could also try the color zap.
However, in my experience, unless you totally want to destroy your hair with bleach, you will almost certainly have red tones left afterwards. My hair was a gross orange color after colorfix-- it gradually darkened (over a few months) to a shade close to my natural hair color. I did a few honey treatments, and now I think my dyed ends are a bit lighter than my virgin hair!

The honey and/or cinnamon treatments may work well, but it will be a very gradual process. It does not damage hair AT ALL, though. So it's also worth a try, if the condition of your hair is important to you-- which it does appear to be.

Trimming away the dye gradually is also a good suggestion-- it will stop your hair from getting any more damage from trying to change the color, but it will also take forever, and you'll have to deal with two tone hair.

Here's some pictures from my LHC album, which demonstrate my dying and colorfixing experience:
Natural color:
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k152/chloeishere/IMG_0835c-1.jpg
After dying:
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k152/chloeishere/IMG_0879c2.jpg
After colorfix:
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k152/chloeishere/IMG_1156c.jpg
A few months after colorfix:
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k152/chloeishere/IMG_1260c.jpg
After second honey treatment:
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k152/chloeishere/IMG_1702c.jpg

Hope that's helpful. The honey did have a big effect for me-- I posted about my recipe in the archived honey thread, before cinnamon was known as a lightening agent.

[Curlsgirl]

What kind of dye did you use? I ask that because when I went from my really light blond to brown, I used a semi-perm and it actually sticks really well to very light blond porous hair, especially if you used it several times. One other suggestion is to get highlighted/lowlighted as it grows out. That way it wouldn't be as hard on your hair as a total bleaching and it would blend in eventually. Of course this would cost more than doing it yourself but if you do it yourself you could easily ruin your hair too. Just my 2 cents :)

[justgreen]

My advice comes from the professional standpoint. I colored my blonde (highlighted for years) with a medium dark brown about 3.5 years ago, to give my hair a rest. I kept it that way for almost a year, then went to my hairdressor and had her give me highlights all over, with the exception of my underneath panel. Haven't looked back since. Didn't cost that much either, as my hair was only a little longer than bra strap. Here's the final outcome, my first LHC picture.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b168/justgreen_/LHCSiggy.jpg

Here's what it looked like close up, with the dark panel underneath.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b168/justgreen_/MyFirstHairSTickBun.jpg

You can see my siggy pic for what it looks like now, 3.5 years later, getting roots done every 4-6 weeks.

Let a professional do it. A good colorist is worth her/his weight in gold.

[KajiKodomo]

I used color removers to try to get the black out of my hair (I believe I tried both brands mentioned here). I think I used 3 boxes total, and my hair turned out to be a fried, multicolored mess! I had chunks falling off, mushy spots, and it wouldn't take any dye. That's when I buzzcut mine all off.

I'm going to agree with everyone else about going to a professional (just make sure it's at a nice salon, because sometimes you get what you pay for!).