I have been lurking...

[sunnydays]

I have been lurking on here for a while and I now look at people's hair and I can see the difference between dyed and un-dyed hair, before I would never have known, but so easy to tell.

I had a dye disaster which involved bleach, which then involved covering up the mess with a brown dye, which of course due to the bleach left me with ALOT shorter hair, can wait to start growing again, before I started messing around I was at bra strap length curly highlighted hair, I am now curly at shoulder brown hair which is fading slowly, but am determined NOT to dye and hopefully have virgin hair in 2 years!!!

[Sundial]

Welcome and all the best in your hair growing journey! :flower:

[sunnydays]

thank you, I really think some hairdressers should be educated on how a colour change can really affect the way you see yourself, and I also think that hair box dyes should really have warnings on them, if i had known that dying my virgin brown hair lighter with a box dye would have made it go orange i would have saved my £5, there is never any warnings, just teh adds you see in the magazines, it is so fustrating that really that is not what it turns out like.

[ewhalin]

I started lurking for a little bit and recently joined, too. I can't aaaalways tell when someone dyes their hair, but lots of times I can. I've been chemically dying my hair for about 6 months now, and would like to try and get away from it. Henna it is! I actually used to henna my hair a few years ago, but it's so time consuming.... Going back to it, tho; I don't want all those chemicals in my hair. :)

[BabyRay33]

Congrats on your commitment to grow with less dye and healthier. good luck!

[racrane]

I hope your hair gets to be the way you want it. Good luck! :)

[sunnydays]

I have been dying mine for probably about 8years now, first i used a box kit which went orange when i was about 14, then i dyed that over brown, then i had highlights grew out for a year a hairdresser then dyed it all brown, i then had it highlighted and stuck with the highlights for about 5 years, they were great and i loved being blonde, i started growing it out for about 8months as my ex-partner wanted me to, after 8 months i dyed it dark but i didnt anticipate what a shock it would be went to have more highlights as thought i wanted to go lighter only for it to go a really wierd yellow/white colour and completly dried my hair out that was about a month ago, then 10 days ago i decided to go back dark to mainly cover the wierd colour, its starting to fade but ive said nope, i am not going to dye as it will just be a continous cycle.

[KittyLost]

Welcome and good luck growing out your dye!
Check out this thread for support and others who have also give up hair dye :)
http://www.forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?p=1607639#post1607639

[growingpains]

Hey! Welcome! Yes virgin hair is a treat insofar as it is healthier and easier to care for! So much less effort. I dyed my hair all the time, every color for years and the hardest part was trying to keep it nice looking and having dyes change color. I found that as I grew out my reddy dye on my brown hair a nice thing to transition with was a very light brown semi permanent. This covered up the red but since it was lighter than my natural it didn't much affect the natural. Eventually I quit cold turkey once the demarcation line wasn't severe and now it's been two years two months since using demi and over three years since permanent:)

[jojo]

thank you, I really think some hairdressers should be educated on how a colour change can really affect the way you see yourself, and I also think that hair box dyes should really have warnings on them, if i had known that dying my virgin brown hair lighter with a box dye would have made it go orange i would have saved my £5, there is never any warnings, just teh adds you see in the magazines, it is so fustrating that really that is not what it turns out like.

but you made the choice; like you didn't have a gun held to your head:D

We all have made dye mistakes, we thought it was right at the time. It will grow out and this will be a distant memory!

welcome to LHC and good luck with your growth journey!:flower:

[Alvrodul]

Welcome to LHC! :flower: I am sure most of us here have some stories to tell about their hair's meetings with dyes and bleach. Not all of those, needless to say, are happy stories. :p
It is some years since I quit using chemical dyes, and the chemically damaged part is mostly grown out. My hair is certainly much happier now!
I still dye my hair, though, but now I use henna. :D

[sunnydays]

but you made the choice; like you didn't have a gun held to your head:D

yes that is true, poor 14 year old me though if only i had known about colours lifting etc, if only i had the internet then

[Alvrodul]

Well there is the story of how I found out that my hair doesn't like bleach - and I wanted really blonde hair!! :blueeek:
The results were ... not exactly the best. :rolleyes:

[sunnydays]

Well there is the story of how I found out that my hair doesn't like bleach - and I wanted really blonde hair!! :blueeek:
The results were ... not exactly the best. :rolleyes:

Whats your story? would like to hear it if you dont mind sharing it

[Alvrodul]

Well, I was young, and wanted really blonde hair. Easy-peasy - go to the store and buy the blondest haircolor you can find. Mix, put on head, wait the prescribed amount of time and rinse out. Repeat when the roots start bothering you. :shake:
My hair soon became really awful - a cottony mess. And I had really short hair at the time, too! After less than half a year I dyed it back to a color close to my natural color, but it was still fried. Fortunately it did not take much time to grow out the damage then.:rolleyes:
Since then I have tended to dye my hair slightly darker than my natural color - every time I have had highlights put in, I noticed that the lightened hair seemed to be more frizzy and generally unhappy than the rest of my hair.
But I have tended to use even the dyes with colors close to my own more sparingly over the years - mainly because I was worried about developing allergies, but also because my hair doesn't really like those either. My hair is very fine, and chemicals tend to affect it strongly. It is several years since I used chemical dyes last, and I certainly don't miss them, especially since I discovered henna. :D