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View Full Version : People's tips and experiences going dark brown to blonde



sunnydays
May 24th, 2011, 05:54 AM
I am thinking of going back blonde from a dark chocolaty brown as has faded in some places to golden brown.

Can I have people's tips on what they did, used or had done.

Thanks

celebriangel
May 24th, 2011, 06:28 AM
What is your natural colour? I personally wouldn't dye my or anyone else's hair blonde; bleaching is horrendous for your hair. You don't say what your hair texture is; if you're an M you may survive, but F's tend to have their hair decimated by bleaching to blonde from anything darker than very light brown.

I have never bleached my hair, so I have no experience on that front, but if you decide to use a home bleaching kit please see this thread for a method of using coconut oil to help protect against peroxide damage in commercial dye kits without preventing the stuff from working:

Oh, hell, my internet is ****ing up. Well, google "peroxide" or "peroxide damage" in the search bit - make sure to search for thread titles only - and it should be one of the first threads to come up.

If your natural colour is blonde, this might be okay as a one-time thing to restore your natural colour while you grow out your natural, undyed hair. You might, in this case, want to go to a hairdresser to match to your natural colour as closely as possible. There will be damage, but if you want to grow your hair very long you can slowly cut it out. At 16", your hair is not that long, and it will not take a horribly long time to grow back.

However, if you natural colour is not blonde and you plan on going blonde and maintaining...well, personally I wouldn't. Blonde doesn't shine nearly as much as any other colour, particularly if it's not natural, everyone and their mother has dyed blonde hair these days it seems, and in the long term bleach fries hair. But if you don't want your hair to grow to extreme lengths, you may be all right, so blonde away if that is what you want.

I'll leave more experienced LHC-ers who colour to talk about products and things.

kyandii
May 24th, 2011, 06:43 AM
I have bleached hair! My natural hairs lighter than yours is though, it's a mousey brown colour.
I recommend getting it done professionally, I've used box kits and it will 90% of the time go brassy ginger, professionally I find it doesn't.
The upkeep is horrendous I have to get my roots done every month and every time my hairdresser tries to trim the ends off.
It takes a lot of babying after wards as hair feels awfully dry, really heavy deep conditioning and no/ very very little heat.
but I love my hair blonde and although I hate the maintenance I don't want to go back natural.

hope this helps.

Kristamommyx3
May 24th, 2011, 08:27 AM
My hair is naturally dark blonde, light brown, and I've been bleaching my hair for most of my adult life. I live in FL and my hair bleaches out in tne Summer and then I'm left with darker roots in the winter, so I just touch up the roots every feww months. My mother and I are both known for our very shiny hair, too. We have absolutely no damage, either. This leads me ti believe that we would be considered dark blondes, because it lifts very fast and does not get damaged, unless we were to re bleach the older hair again. I'm sure that would ruin anyone's hair. Oh, and our hair is baby fine, and my ponytail is 3". I think I would take this to a color specialist and let them tell you whether your hair is a good candidate for what you want. Better safe than sorry.

sunnydays
May 24th, 2011, 08:56 AM
well it was blonde i accidently dyed it black and so had it highlighted twice but it went yellow/white and orange not what I wanted, so I coloured it back brown only a couple of weeks ago, but I still have the blonde calling my name, I am naturally dark, but as my hair is curly it lightens alot on its own and tends not to stay dark very long, especially in the summer. The hairdresser also coloured like every strand and there was none of my own natural colour running through like before and the highlights were done really bad, they were extremely stripy if that makes sense.

I am thinking maybe in a few months having some foil highlights around the top, and gradually going blonde like I did before so that it is more natural looking, thank block color and stripy

HairFaerie
May 24th, 2011, 09:07 AM
Color Oops takes out brown dye. I just recently used it. I was blonde (from bleach & toner) and got tired of the maintenance of the roots so I decided to used dye to try to get it close to my natural color. It didn't work. The brown was blotchy and started fading quickly. Looked horrible. So, I used the Color Oops and it brought my blonde back!

LoveMyLongHair
May 24th, 2011, 09:14 AM
I couldn't take not being blonde, so back I went. ;)

I have foils done in my hair every couple of months, the roots are done monthly and I have it professionally done. I tried it myself, and like another poster said, (sorry I can't go back, computer is &*#**'ing up. lol.) it will turn out brassy, ginger, yellow......not good.

the gal had to do MAJOR color correcting on me, took her 2 sessions but what I have not is gorgeous. My hair has not slowed growing with the color and last time I went in, she took my hair down and exclaimed, 'your hair is SO HEALTHY!!" what have you been doing? lol (Not the sulfate based shampoos you sold me......:eyebrows:)

My hair is at waist and I get a about 3/4" per month growth or more.

I do a lot of CO.....coconut oil.....no heat.......wear it up.....air dry.....baby it........and also use shea butter on it.

It is shiny and great......

*note to self* LEARN how to upload pics to postings and my profile.......that is next on my agenda.

:cheese:

ange1ito
May 24th, 2011, 09:16 AM
I would agree with celebriangel. Don't go too light unless it is close to your natural hair colour and don't plan on growing longer. If you are planning on bleaching it regularly to maintain roots you will inevitably overlapp and when growing it out you will start seeing damage. I tried Colour B4 from Boots in the UK and I personally felt I still had some damage to the ends, although it is not as bad as the snapping ends of bleach damage it still did'nt help whilst I grew it longer.
Also agree to get a good colour match to your natural hair colour it is best to get it done at the hairdressers. My hair was about APL when I bleached all the black out to get back to my natural brown, it cost about £80.00, this included the colour, wash, cut and styling.
If you do go for bleach make sure you maintain deep conditioning treatments about once a week with light dusting every 8 weeks onwards, baby your ends with oils and try the Anti Snap treatment from Redken, its a blue bottle. Good luck.

sunnydays
May 24th, 2011, 09:28 AM
Has everyone elses gone a nice blonde shade? As mine went really yellow/orangy and white was awful the lady used 40vol bleach and an ash colour maybe this is where she went wrong....

HairFaerie
May 24th, 2011, 11:28 AM
Has everyone elses gone a nice blonde shade? As mine went really yellow/orangy and white was awful the lady used 40vol bleach and an ash colour maybe this is where she went wrong....

Toner is the secret to achieving a nice blonde shade. If you just bleach, it will create a brassy, yellowy, too light or otherwise unnatural color.

Toner does just that...it "tones" down the brassiness and adds a slight hint of color. It usually has a slight blue/violet tinge to counteract the red.

Toner is deposit only and helps get rid of brassiness. It produces a very nice, natural blonde color.

They have lots of shades of toners. From platinum, champagne to golden blonde. And everything in between!

Clairol makes very good toners, in my opinion. In the US, Sally's has a nice selection of toners.

amaiaisabella
May 24th, 2011, 11:44 AM
I just went from nearly black to blonde. It took approximately 3 months to finally get where I want, and I had to cut off nearly 6 inches of hair- but to be fair, most of that was trashed from my own bleaching attempts made to fix the mess Aveda made of my hair.

I found a good stylist now, and although she's not perfect (using a close-toothed comb, heat styling, etc.), she advocates for doing things slowly over time. She suggested doing highlights to slowly go blonde (which of course would be quite difficult to keep up with on your own, unless you're super skilled, which I am not) over time, but I am an impatient girl by nature and former salon worker (without skill, the most dangerous kind ;)) so I decided to do it on my own.

I bleached, bleached, bleached, and still had orangeish hair. I agree the magic is toner, and a good one. Sometimes the confusion is between whether to use a blue, violet, or blue violet toner to get rid of brassy gold or orange. I'm afraid I can't help you there, I've had no luck with toners on my own. The best my hair has ever looked is when going to the salon, so I've stuck to that, and done my whole LHC routine to supplement the damage done there.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM :)

ravenreed
May 24th, 2011, 12:25 PM
My only experience was not a success. I did learn that my hair is surprisingly resistant to lifting the color.

Intransigentia
May 24th, 2011, 01:04 PM
My advice would be, first of all, go to a pro. When I've tried bleachign on my own, I've ended up looking like a nuclear fireball and then having my poor damaged hair turn into felt.

With a professional colorist, I was able to get really pale blond highlights into my naturally mid to dark brown hair, and have them look good. BUT it was still really damaging. My hair turned to mush whenever it got wet (srsly the weirdest feeling ever, it's like a handful of wet, very thin rubber bands), and needed loads of deep conditioning and protein to not just all snap off. It seemed that blondes do have more fun, but the effort of caring for the blonde hair just wasn't worth it. I'm happy to have cut off that part of my hair long ago.

Nicolioli
May 24th, 2011, 03:17 PM
If your natural color is blonde, you could always try 'stripping' out the color with either One n' Only ColorFix or Color Oops. However, don't use L'Oreal ColorZap; that has bleach in it and will turn any virgin roots you have to bleach blonde.

I used the ColorFix on my own hair to get out my years of dying my ash blonde hair to brown, and it's works okay. The first time you use it, your hair will be a really bright, almost strawberry blonde, but then it will get darker after a few days, and you may have to do another treatment. Also, it smells like rotten eggs, and the smell will stay in your hair for a while. :mad:

Katze
May 25th, 2011, 02:22 AM
My hair is a light ash brown with golden highlights, and I bleached for about 20 years. Sometimes on my own, sometimes I went to the salon. No matter what, it ended up brassy, and toners and violet shampoos only worked until the next wash, and never stayed.

One of the best looks was when I had silver streaks put into my natural hair. However, they turned pale, brassy yellow very quickly, and no 'toning' product seemed to want to be permanent on me.

However, the WORST side effect of all the years of bleaching was that my hair never grew, was dry and fragile, and never got beyond about APL.

That was before LHC, and I did not know that my fine, wavy hair actually needs more moisture, but I was forever using deep treatments, oiling (and ending up having to strip-wash my hair again), and doing all kinds of other 'treatments' to try to 'repair' my hair, none of which worked.

Would I be able to bleach and still have long hair? Maybe, but most likely not. My hair seems to be stalling at BSL no matter WHAT I do, so maybe trying to go natural isn't worth it in the long run.