Decisions Decisions Decisions - Help?

[Oraien]

Chemical dye is bad for hair, but it's not as permanent as henna and I like that. Does anyone have suggestions for ways in which I can darken my hair without it being PERMANENT, and without totally frying my hair in the process?

Since I've gone natural with my hair (mostly thanks to these boards!), I've really been liking the body, the movement, the waves that my hair apparently naturally has. It's always been stick straight, when longer, or had one or two terrible waves at awkward positions on my head and I used a lot of chemicals/heat to tame it over the years. Now it's healthier, has body and volume, has *waves* that actually look nice...

I use Burt's Bees shampoo and conditioner, ever two days or so. I have coconut oil for the ends, I'm very gentle with it, let it air dry, usually wear it up. It's shoulder length. I'd like to dye it before this coming weekend and I have box dye I'd like to use, but I'm afraid of undoing all the good I've done for it.

Would a deep conditioning treatment with EVOO help, after dying? Is there something I'm missing? Please, Long Hair Comm, help me!

[McFearless]

What is your current colour and what colour do you want to achieve? Semi-permanent dyes are less damaging but it builds up over time.

[celebriangel]

Use a semipermanent dye - I mean one of the 6-8 washes ones, not one of the 6-8 weeks. If you have to mix it, it's a *demi*permanent - and might as well be permanent, except they are low peroxide. I used demi permanents, and the darkening never reversed (the last few inches are hennaed now).

But if you really want dark hair, I'd say go for one of those demi permanents. Stay away from Feria, it fries. I have heard good reports from Garnier hair colours.

If your hair dye is a demipermanent - that is, not permanent, but you do have to mix two bottles together - then you can lightly oil your hair with coconut oil for an hour, then put the dye onto dry (but still oiled) hair to prevent peroxide damage. But low peroxide dyes are much better than permanent ones anyway.

What one have you got now? If it's permanent, please don't. The only real reason to use permanent dye would be to lighten your hair colour; demipermanents like L'Oreal Casting creme etc will work beautifully to darken your hair, and will minimise damage.

[Deborah]

If you want to stay 'natural' with your hair, then any form of dying is going to be contrary to that. I think part of having natural or virgin hair is learning to allow your hair to be the color that your own body produces. I honestly think that our bodies are wonderfully designed to produce just the right color of hair to best complement our skin, eyes, teeth; basically all the rest of our look. I know that many feel differently, but most will admit that your hair will be in its very best condition when not tampered with too much.

I'm an all-natural sort, so take my opinions with that in mind. Most people probably don't think the way I do about such things.

Whatever you choose to do, I hope you are happy with the result. :)

[Simonsmama]

If you want to stay 'natural' with your hair, then any form of dying is going to be contrary to that. I think part of having natural or virgin hair is learning to allow your hair to be the color that your own body produces. I honestly think that our bodies are wonderfully designed to produce just the right color of hair to best complement our skin, eyes, teeth; basically all the rest of our look. :)

Yes, this.

If you want to go natural, I would do nothing. If you HAVE to do something, go for the henna.

[ladyfey]

totally with Deborah on this, I love natural colored hair! But this kind of thing is indeed subjective, eye of the beholder and all that. As Rick Nelson said: "you can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself."

[spidermom]

Deposit-only dyes can be fun. I like Punky, but most of the colors are not natural. I know there are deposit-only natural colors, but I'm not as familiar with those.

[growingpains]

Ya go for a semi perm and go a shade lighter than you think you want (you can always go darker after). It won't come out completely over time but it'll fade such that you won't have a super noticeable demarcation line.

DON'T use permanent. No reason to when you can achieve great results that are slightly less permanent and with no damage. (ETA: less damage anyways, virgin is probably still better for your hair health).

[jojo]

Id suggest a semi too and EVOO is known to lighten some peoples hair!

[annieangel149]

If you want to stay 'natural' with your hair, then any form of dying is going to be contrary to that. I think part of having natural or virgin hair is learning to allow your hair to be the color that your own body produces. I honestly think that our bodies are wonderfully designed to produce just the right color of hair to best complement our skin, eyes, teeth; basically all the rest of our look. I know that many feel differently, but most will admit that your hair will be in its very best condition when not tampered with too much.

I'm an all-natural sort, so take my opinions with that in mind. Most people probably don't think the way I do about such things.

Whatever you choose to do, I hope you are happy with the result. :)


i think the way you do! :D
just last week my hairdresser cut the remain ing damage out of my hair! now its virgin natural hair again and it feels good!!

but back on topic.... you need to do what makes you happy! DONT USE PERMANENT THO :(

[Oraien]

If you want to stay 'natural' with your hair, then any form of dying is going to be contrary to that.

Thank you Deborah. I agree with you on the one hand, but on the other hand, heh... I think it would be a little easier if I had had all the chemical processing cut off early on in the growing out process, but there's only a few inches of my hair that are completely natural at this point. I've only been doing the natural, taking good care of my hair thing for a very short time and my hair is healthier, but it still looks like a wreck, as far as colors, brassiness, etc.

Which is why I'm looking for some potential solutions that I can live with. I haven't decided to do anything, and I've been dragging my feet for a couple months now on coloring it at all, coloring with henna, etc...

I'd like to alter the color, but I'm really concerned about the damage I might do. I appreciate your view point and really thank you for sharing your thoughts.

[torrilin]

Is it just the color that is pissing you off, or is the general condition making you miserable?

Color can usually be disguised. Braids and updos will tend to register as the color nearest to your face, so even if your hair is markedly two tone, the natural undamaged hair will be noticed first. Hair also tends to naturally lighten from roots to the ends, so unless the roots are black and the ends platinum blonde, it won't be terribly obvious. Even if it's a more obvious situation, like black ends and blonde roots, updos like French twists and tucked French braids will still let you soften the impact.

Damage... some of the same tricks work. But damage IME leads to tangles, and tangles lead to misery, and misery leads to a desire to chop it all off or "fix" it. And you cannot fix damaged hair. Really. So if your hair is damaged enough that you're facing that cycle, recognize that you are going to have to cut it off at some point. That means the only question is when and how much at once. And only you can answer the question.

For me... dye would not be an issue. My hair is a rather odd "color" in that it isn't just one color. I often describe it as brownish blondish reddish, and while the brown ranges from medium to dark ash brown, the blonde sections range from platinum to gold and the reddish tones are all decidedly warm. So even if I use a Level 3 dye that contains peroxide, pretty much anything the peroxide can do ends up looking natural. And since most of the multicolor nature is due to my hair sunbleaching very easily, it is tricky for dye to damage my hair more than it normally is. This is definitely not how all hair reacts tho!

(that said, I treat dyeing more than once every 3-4 months as frequent)

[Mesmerise]

It is a tough decision to make, but if you are dyeing your hair to make all your hair the same colour (which is sometimes a good idea if you want to grow out dye) then just choose the gentlest colour possible.

Even though dyeing is damaging, if the healthinest few inches of your hair only have one layer of dye, I highly doubt that there will be a great deal of damage. The ends of my hair feel fine (not 100% but not awful) and they've probably been dyed 20 times (and I used Feria lots of those times too, and since joining LHC I've read in a number of places how bad it is).

I think it depends on your reason for dyeing your hair, and I totally understand why someone with two toned hair would want to get a regular color. It is best though if you color to your natural color, or at least one that will easily fade to natural.

If you use a semi permanent colour, you may find it "sticks" better to the damaged parts of your hair rather than the virgin parts (I never got semi permanent to do much at all for my hair when it was virgin... I mean... yeah, not much at all and you could barely tell I had one in). But it might work for you, so it's worth a shot. It will certainly be less damaging overall than a permanent color or even a demi-permanent that has some peroxide in it.

[Oraien]

Use a semipermanent dye - I mean one of the 6-8 washes ones, not one of the 6-8 weeks. If you have to mix it, it's a *demi*permanent - and might as well be permanent, except they are low peroxide. I used demi permanents, and the darkening never reversed (the last few inches are hennaed now).

But if you really want dark hair, I'd say go for one of those demi permanents. Stay away from Feria, it fries. I have heard good reports from Garnier hair colours.

If your hair dye is a demipermanent - that is, not permanent, but you do have to mix two bottles together - then you can lightly oil your hair with coconut oil for an hour, then put the dye onto dry (but still oiled) hair to prevent peroxide damage. But low peroxide dyes are much better than permanent ones anyway.

What one have you got now? If it's permanent, please don't. The only real reason to use permanent dye would be to lighten your hair colour; demipermanents like L'Oreal Casting creme etc will work beautifully to darken your hair, and will minimise damage.

The one I have now is permanent, but after reading your recommendation, I went looking for something with no peroxide and I found Clairol's Beautiful line, which has no ammonia and no peroxide and is a semi-permanent color, which I might give a try.

I used Feria color in college and I do remember it being seriously bad for my hair but their one color came out somewhere between magenta and violet and I loved it so at the time!

I'm just not as willing to take chances damaging my hair as I would have in the past. I really appreciate your input. The more questions I've asked, the more answers I get, the more things I think about.... it's a vicious cycle! :)

[Firefox7275]

I haven't noticed colouring my hair darker as a one off means obvious damage, but going over the same area with dye every time does. My lengths are more damaged now with red plus mechanical damage than it was blonde and permed or blonde and blow-fried. I suspect part of the problem is I only ever touched up the roots with the blonde, red fades so has to be redone. :( Maybe save some hair from your shower plughole and do a strand test with the permanent?

[Oraien]

Is it just the color that is pissing you off, or is the general condition making you miserable?

Actually, considering the fact that last time I colored it (about... eight months ago now) I used a high-lift color, my hair is in remarkably good shape. It's really just the color, which is natural for a few inches from the root, then there's a place that the high-lift obviously lifted more on than the rest of the length and then the length which is a third color. It's probably not as healthy as some people, who have been babying their hair for years, but I'm slowly working my way towards a level of healthy that I feel I can live with.

I want to be able to like the color it is as well as how healthy it is. Just trying to find a way to do that without sacrificing ALL the good work I've done so far!

[summerjade]

I agree, don't use permanent, it will take years for it to grow out, and it has the most ammonia in it. Have you thought about using one of the hair glosses. They come in dark colors and they wash out very quickly. I don't remember the brands that are available, but there are a couple or maybe three out there.

[Oraien]

Have you thought about using one of the hair glosses.

You mean like L'Oreal Healthy Look or something different?

I was looking at Clairol Beautiful, which says it is no peroxide, no ammonia, as far as a semi-permanent color.

I'm open to pretty much any suggestions :D

[UltraBella]

I like Demi color personally. Semi color washes out so quickly that it's just not worth slathering my head in it. Demi color washes out on me over a three month period, on my daughter it is quicker. The last box kind I used was Garnier Herbatint if I remember correctly and I really liked it. That was months ago, it's all faded out now but I like how gradual it is and no line of demarcation. My favorite is Matrix ColorSync, a professional line of color. LOVE IT !!!
I have put demicolor on my lengths about 15 times in the last several years and my hair is super healthy. I know it's not for everyone, but it's my suggestion.
Whatever you do, post pics !

[Oraien]

I have put demicolor on my lengths about 15 times in the last several years and my hair is super healthy. I know it's not for everyone, but it's my suggestion.
Whatever you do, post pics !

Thank you for the suggestions, I will definitely check them out. Your hair is beautiful!

When I finally end up figuring out what is the best option, I will definitely post before and after pictures!