An addiction to hair colouring

[BeccaAngel]

I have had this problem off and on for years. I would get bored or see an awesome hair style/colour then cut it to that style or colour it to that colour.

I'm doing better about the cutting now, since I'm still growing my hair out. But that itch to dye it, was just recently scratched as you can see in my pictures. I'm very happy with it but I'm unhappy for letting my urge to colour win once again.

I was feeling rather down about my appearance last night, so I decided to spice my look up with some burgundy/red. I can go a while without dying it but it's so hard to quit entirely. Anyone else have this problem?:)

[Dr. Girlfriend]

I used to be one of the worst dye addicts ever. What eventually stopped me was frying my hair after months of bleaching and dying. Now whenever I get the urge, I look at pictures of my poor, abused circa 2001 hair.

[whitestiletto]

Yeah... When I was in highschool I dyed my hair red, then by midway through college it was getting pretty crunchy so I cut it all off into a pixie, because I hated the hard texture... Then I hated the pixie... spent 4 looong years growing my hair to APL, 2 of which I hated my short short hair. Then as soon as it was APL, I went to a salon and asked them to dye it again. A part of me was screaming when I did it, knowing I would hate it again. 6 months later, my hair is crunchy and I miss it being soft, and now how on earth long will it take me to grow the dye out again? I'm just trying to henna the crap out of it to darken it to more match my roots, and hopefully this time I can stay away.

[October]

I had an addiction, but I think I am mostly over it. I've only used a semi-permanent color twice in two years. My nickname in high school was Skittles - because I was every color of the rainbow (never on purpose... lol - red that turned out purple, bleach that turned orange, brown over bleach that turned green... you get the idea).

[Lianna]

I've dyed and let my hair be all natural several times. I never go too different from the original so isn't hard to quit based on roots but I look so much better with it dyed so I chose that.

[RitaCeleste]

I'm addicted to the hair dye and not even trying to reform. I let it grow out all natural a few times. I was most ticked to find my hair is coarser and stiffer before it gets fried.

[KittyLost]

I was addicted to hair dye. I tried to dye my hair in fits of rebellion when I was 14 and it didn't work. I tried again at 16 when I was bored whilst growing my hair, with more knowledge and armed with bleach and veggie dyes and it worked great! That first year of dying my hair I dyed it natural and unnatural and both together, in total about 16times in 12months so my newly grown BSL hair coupled with heat styling all got chopped to shoulder.

I've only recently stopped dying because in April whilst trying to get rid of my beautiful blue hair to please work bosses, my hair finally had had enough. It gave up on me and said "enough of your abuse!" The damage got cut off and I'm left with annoying 3-4inch short layers that my hair loves to curl crazily and make me look like I have some sort of mullet. I dyed my hair to match my roots and haven't dyed since 5th April and luckily have no obvious line of dyed vs undyed hair. If I tried to dye it now I'd destroy the rest of my hair and need a buzzcut to fix it which I'm not willing to do. So i'm learning to like my natural colour until the damage grows out only experimenting with slices of unnatural colour. I'm done with dying it all-over and different shades of brown. For now at least.

My addiction stopped when I had to choose between dyed hair or having hair lol.

[Revontuletar]

I know exactly how you feel! I dyed my light blonde hair black a few years back and it grew out this yucky dirty blonde colour that I hate, so I have been dying it blonde ever since with permanent dye :( I am now going to try and kick the habit and hopefully go on to something less hair-murdering.

[vanity_acefake]

Cured (well almost) hair dye addict. I found my need to dye my hair depended on where I was in my menstrual cycle. PMT made me want to dye my hair. No idea why. Now I just go and fiddle with it learning a new style instead.
Must admit I still itch to dye it pillarbox red every now and again.
:)

[pink.sara]

I'm a dye-hard and no reforming!
I've finally compromised dyeing the whole lot for hennaing the majority and keeping a bleached streak to change colours with veggie colours manic panic etc.
I don't think there's any deep rooted psychological or hormonal reason behind my dyeing! I like different clothes, and I like different haircolours :)

[oktobergoud]

Here is another one!
I dye my hair with henna now and that's totally fine but for like 6 months I want to dye it a different colour, sometimes I try it and it fails and becomes something yucky.
Anyway, I used to dye my hair so much and was totally addicted to it. Whenever I feel bad, I just needed to change my hair so I would feel better again. Or when I saw an awesome picture etc.
Now I have learned that it all has destroyed my hair and that I want it long, so henna it is :) I can stay away from all chemical dyes now, yay ;)

[Majorane]

Ah, PMT makes me want to dye/cut/curl/whateveraslongasitisdifferent my hair as well. For this purpose I alwas have lots of henna in stock (it's easily available here anyway) and I have had those "rinse out after 5 washes" (but really, more like one) color-mousses in darker colors in stock as well, until a year or two ago. For the ICE-dyeing craves. (how does one spell that?)

SO that when I really succumb to a moment of insanity and dye my hair at least I won't fry it completely dead...

[celebriangel]

I must admit I have the urge to dye my hair right now. It was chemical red but that had faded and I henna'd over it. It was quite lovely...but my light/medium ash brown roots *refuse* to take the henna! They are still brown, just a different shade of brown (a darker, chestnut shade. Which is all well and good, but...)

I want red! Henna is supposed to be red, my hair is quite light, why can't I have red?????

Maybe I'm just not doing it right...

[BeccaAngel]

Don't we always want something different from our "natural" colour? just like some people with straight hair want curly hair and vise versa. I blame Hollywood! lol but only a little. It's only ourselves to blame in the end for falling for it every time. But I will eventually give up on dying my hair one of these days. Till then I'm enjoying my burgundy/red :)

[Revontuletar]

Becca: I know isn't it terrible! I regret the day I decided I was bored with having light blonde hair and that I wanted black instead! After many, many packets of dye, my hair breaking and falling out, getting it cut and dyeing some more I finally got it back to blonde. Only problem is now it grows out a darker, ashy colour! Argh!

[knoxkatie]

Have you considered trying Elumen? Here is the thread (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=5594).

It is perfectly safe for your hair and lasts about 3 weeks. It doesn't contain any ammonia or peroxide or any of that stuff that is bad for your hair. Of course, you can't go lighter because it is deposit-only, but it's fun and not permanent so it might be something to try when in need of a color "fix" :D

[Joliebaby]

Recovering addict, been growing out my natural color for a year and I still sometimes suffer with it. Just taking it day by day and hopefully I now have too much effort (a whole year) put in to it to go back to square one!!!

[AcornMystic]

I've been recovering from colour addiction for the past year. My last dye job was mid December of 2010. I went cold turkey and dyed it my natural colour so that I wouldn't have to deal with the growing out phase since I am going 100% natural. I did it before my boyfriend visited from out of town for Christmas so that for once and all he could see my natural hair colour, or rather.. my now natural hair colour. Long story short, my hair changed colour from auburn to dark chocolate with auburn highlights and a silver sheen (from my mother who started going grey when she reached adolescence which, fortunately, I was able to escape).

I first started colouring my hair when my older sister got me into it in my early teens. It became our little 'thing' that we did, just us sisters. When she moved out of the country she would come up every year to spend time with family and we would continue our little ritual. We always did it red, because we both loved it, she herself was and is still a colour addict, and I was originally a red head anyway. When our ritual died I continued to do it, even experimenting with black a couple times. I was even bleach blonde for a day, as a pre-step to getting an even more rich red, but had to wait a day so ended up going to school like that.

Before my sister started dying my hair I would get compliments from hair dressers that my hair was so incredibly silky, relishing to run their fingers through my hair. I always thought it was greasy because of the slip it had.

At any rate. I just want to experience the hair I have now and the closest i'm gonna get to dying it again, is the tips, as an accent, because they're going to get chopped off eventually i can do so easily without harming the rest of my hair, but that will be a while.

What helps stop me from allowing the colour bug to bite me? I want to be the 'real' me since I haven't been fully since I was pre-pubescent. I want that silky hair that hair dressers used to fall over themselves to "fondle" XD. It's also lower maintenance with your natural hair's strength and hey, my natural lights are pretty awesome, now that I can actually SEE them. :lol:

[HairFaerie]

I am addicted too...usually out of boredom as well. I discovered an awesome, more natural brand from the health food store. It doesn't have ammonia and a lot of the other bad stuff. I am sure it's not 100% good for your hair, but it's probably a heck of a lot better than the other stuff. The colors are very rich. It's called Naturtint.

I just did mine today! :)

[QueenJoey]

I can't really say I have an addiction as I've dyed my hair a grand total of 2 times and gotten highlights once. However, I started to yearn to dye my hair after the first time, and soon after the second. I've been dying to try henna, too. I guess what I have is more of a craving than an addiction.

And thanks HairFaerie! That is so funny because I was just at my local health food store (I walked through my door literally 5 minutes ago) and I saw a shelf full of Nature tint that caught my eye. I might go with that when and if I ever dye my hair. Not sure though, because the Naturetint was right under the henna dye...

[Mymagicfairy]

I was an addict as well and for the same reasons
Boredom or seeing someone else have amazing color
I would go from blonde...to brown to red ..even black
Kept my hair short so there wasn't much damage
Eventually my fourteen year old begged me to stop using chemicals on my hair
And thus my turn to natural dye and henna as well as indigo
I am growing my hair out now and it's a gorgeous shade of very dark burgendy/black
I love the strength henna has given to my hair and now when I am tempted
I just look how shiny and healthy my hair is

[trillcat]

You are in good company here, Hi my name is Laura, I am a bleach addict. I am astounded that my hair has gotten this long with all l I have done to it. I like very light blonde hair, I am growing it out now, My natural hair is so blah! I want to be the the chick with the long white blonde hair again! ( I will be white, my hair is not going grey, its is going white!) It is hard to not bleach it all, but I want butt length hair, not going to get there with all the chemicals!

[Corvus]

I have been dyeing my hair for about 30yrs!!! I started off a very dark claret red (looked black, but burgundy in the sun), then for the last 20 years, black. I don't think I really know what my natural color is anymore....... now I have to keep up with the grays every 4-6 weeks! *sigh*

[EbonyCurls]

I'm a "cured" dyer. I never had a desire to dye it a certain color, I just wanted it to be different than what it already was. I've since learned to see the specialness and uniqueness of having virgin/natural hair. Plus there are always wigs and colorful accessories for that extra kick.

[HeatherJenae]

I always have a different hair color whenever I have to wait on a prescription at Walgreens because I always end up wandering into the hair dye aisle. I say go for it and use semi-permanent, that way you can switch it up as much as you like. My hair isn't going to win any great condition awards, but it looks good despite lots of fun color experiments! :)

[BeccaAngel]

I had noticed the past few days after washing my hair a few times, (which wasn't every day) the burgundy is fading to a subtle reddish/purple tint over my brown. So unless you really look than you really can't tell that I coloured it, other than the damage I am repairing at the moment. So in a month or two i might recolour it the same once again to get more of a dramatic look. Or just leave it alone for a good while. :)

[Rosetta]

Another former hair dye addict here. I know that "itch" to colour so well...
My reasons were mainly the same, boredom, I loved the instant different look you get, etc...

But I think I'm recovered, as I've been growing out my natural colour for a while now. Although it was maybe 6 months ago that I did last use a hair dye, Casting Creme Gloss in dark blonde, but that was just to try to even out my hennaed ends/lengths and virgin growth :o (Not that it did much though.)

As for conventional dyes, I've found a very good cure is to read the ingredients list and to think what all those nasties do to you... :eek: As for henna, that unfortunately doesn't help, but I'm just trying to hang out and stay away from it :)