How to try a haircolor without commiting?

[Asequui]

Hey yall, figured I would ask this here since I've yet to figure it out myself. I've been considering dying my hair either darkest brown or black for a few months but I'm a little scared that I'll hate it. I would love to try it without having to commit to it and then end up having to strip it if I don't like it.
To give you some background, I'm a natural light to medium blonde (at least I think...haven't seen it in a decade so it may have darkened) with permanent medium to dark brown dye.
Is there a way to try the darker color temporarily, other than a wig?

[mira-chan]

Hey yall, figured I would ask this here since I've yet to figure it out myself. I've been considering dying my hair either darkest brown or black for a few months but I'm a little scared that I'll hate it. I would love to try it without having to commit to it and then end up having to strip it if I don't like it.
To give you some background, I'm a natural light to medium blonde (at least I think...haven't seen it in a decade so it may have darkened) with permanent medium to dark brown dye.
Is there a way to try the darker color temporarily, other than a wig?
For that big a change, wigs are the only non-permanent options. You can temporarily darken a couple of shades with things like rosemary and sage or redden with hibiscus or beets but otherwise everything is pretty permanent.

[jane53]

Since your hair is light, a temporary dye like Clairol Loving Care will wash out after a few shampoos.

Going from dark to light would be harder.

[Beatrice]

Some members here use Elumen, but it's a little pricey. On porous or colored hair, it can be permanent.

Clairol makes the temporary rinse Jazzings and the "Beautiful Collection" temporary color. They don't last for more than a few washes at most, but they're supposed to be non-damaging. The downside is they can leak and stain.

If you don't mind a little more damage, you can use a demi-permanent color, which involves 10 volume peroxide. It sticks around for about 20 washes, though darker colors can stay much longer. If your hair is already colored, they might leech faster.

I think your best bet might be the rinse or temporary color, but I defer to those with more actual experience in coloring. My knowledge is mostly theoretical. :twocents: Oh, and you probably want to try a medium-dark color, rather than a dark-dark one. On hair that's darker than blond, those dark temporary colors can come out flat black.

[dropinthebucket]

On light hair, even semis and demis can turn out to be permanent. Depends on the hair, lightness, and etc. I wouldn't absolutely count on a black demi or semi completely washing out, though. It might, it might not.

[Juneii]

I second what Mira-chan said, wigs are the only non permanent options. Since your hair is a light color it is likely it will still keep some of the color even after it fades away and probably won't look as nice :(
you can probably do strand tests to see how well your hair takes in the color and see how it looks against your complexion.

[Beatrice]

Since your hair is already colored brown, I wouldn't be so worried about the staining, unless you have a lot of root showing when you use the temporary. Plus I hear that porous hair tends to lose color (Elumen being a possible exception). But I agree, you never can be 100% sure that a dark color won't stick around longer than you'd like.

[Fractalsofhair]

Manic panic, punky colors, etc all make black shades. Manic panic also makes 2 browns you could mix. Those tend to wash out fairly quickly for most.

[Asequui]

Thanks for all the advice yall! I think I'm going to see if the next town over has a place where I can try on a wig. Since it's already colored medium/dark brown (dark brown hair color + fading) I'm leery of putting anything darker on it in case I can't stand it. Lol, I'm looking for dark chocolate to espresso, not goth black. Granted, I did the whole flat black hair when in high school but I was much paler then and it took forever to strip it out of my hair.

[Asequui]

BTW, Mira-Chan, thanks for the tip on the sage and rosemary. After doing some more research (My mama loved and swore by essential oils and herbs so there's tons of research material around here), I'm currently making an herbal APV rinse for my hair that consists of:


Sage - For the color and to strengthen weak hair
Rosemary - For the color and to stimulate growth and add luster
Catnip - To stimulate growth
Parsley - To enrich the color and add luster
Lavender oil - promote growth (and I really love the smell)
Myrrh oil - treatment for dry hair and to help strengthen rootsNever tried APV before so this should be interesting. I'll let yall know how it goes. Lol, as a side note, my roomie is gonna be disappointed when she comes home for lunch only to discover the wonderful herby smell permeating the house is just from another hair potion. :D

[Aurielle]

Thanks for all the advice yall! I think I'm going to see if the next town over has a place where I can try on a wig. Since it's already colored medium/dark brown (dark brown hair color + fading) I'm leery of putting anything darker on it in case I can't stand it. Lol, I'm looking for dark chocolate to espresso, not goth black. Granted, I did the whole flat black hair when in high school but I was much paler then and it took forever to strip it out of my hair.

Another thing that you could do is use a photo editing program on the computer to change the color of your hair to what you're aiming for. You would not get to "experience" it in real life, but you could get the general idea. If you don't have a program to do this, I'm sure someone here might be able to help like they do on the Photoshop to your goal length thread.