Whats people's views on colour stripping?

[sunnydays]

How bad is it for the hair? Is it better to just get highlights and work the colour up? Which is worse for the hair?

[pink.sara]

Hi, I've stripped my hair lots of times in the past and about a month ago removed my chemical black to try growing out with henna only.
In my experience stripping is much much kinder to hair than bleaching (even just a few highlights) and provided you use a stripper without a final step that uses peroxide you will be surprised at how little damage it causes.
In fact after stripping it last month twice it only needed one good condition to make it feel normal again.
If you can get hold of Scott Cornwalls "Colour B4" I'd recommend it, I used the extra strength for removing multiple blue black dyes.

[sunnydays]

Hi, I've stripped my hair lots of times in the past and about a month ago removed my chemical black to try growing out with henna only.
In my experience stripping is much much kinder to hair than bleaching (even just a few highlights) and provided you use a stripper without a final step that uses peroxide you will be surprised at how little damage it causes.
In fact after stripping it last month twice it only needed one good condition to make it feel normal again.
If you can get hold of Scott Cornwalls "Colour B4" I'd recommend it, I used the extra strength for removing multiple blue black dyes.

Mine is not black, its a medium brown at the moment so not really really dark. before I had much darker hair which I had a full head of highlights using a cap and bleach and I had really nice blonde with some brown, however when I tried to go from dark to blonde this time I did not go very well and ended up a horrible brassy colour, maybe its because the idiot hairdresser dyed my beautiful blonde hair red and then put a brown over it!!! Really was no need for the red, I only wanted to go light brown/blonde NOT black

[pink.sara]

If it's been dyed with red before the brown you may end up with brassy hair using colour stripper, red tends to stain the cuticle and colour stripper doesnt remove that too well. It would still be worth a strand test though as it causes almost no damage.
Plus I know of a few people who have gone straight back to their natural blonde after using brown dyes.

[Chetanlaiho]

Forgive me my ignorance but what is the difference between colour stripping and bleach?

[kitcatsmeow]

I think it depends on how your stripping and your hair history. Before I found LHC I had previously lightened to platinum blonde hair and a recent Brazilian Keratin treatment (Brazilian Zero for those in the know). Anyways I ended up going to my salon and getting it dyed to a nice ashy brunette but went back again for some darker lo-lites. This was a different salon but recommended and I only wanted a few so....

Anyway long story short I ended up with blue black streaks and a bluish tint throughout my hair. I stripped about 70% of it with dish soap (8 SCRUBS in a row. I'm sure there are some members dying right now reading this....) since I opted not to cut or bleach it out. My other two options. Followed by more dying of course to cover the remaining blue. My hair was FRIED and I'm slowly nursing it back to health thanks to LHC.
The only saving grace for me I think was the BKT which sealed a lot of the blu dye out and I eventually stripped that away before my actual hair cuticles.

So that's my sad story! Be careful and I strongly suggest letting it fade/grow out.

[sunnydays]

I think it depends on how your stripping and your hair history. Before I found LHC I had previously lightened to platinum blonde hair and a recent Brazilian Keratin treatment (Brazilian Zero for those in the know). Anyways I ended up going to my salon and getting it dyed to a nice ashy brunette but went back again for some darker lo-lites. This was a different salon but recommended and I only wanted a few so....

Anyway long story short I ended up with blue black streaks and a bluish tint throughout my hair. I stripped about 70% of it with dish soap (8 SCRUBS in a row. I'm sure there are some members dying right now reading this....) since I opted not to cut or bleach it out. My other two options. Followed by more dying of course to cover the remaining blue. My hair was FRIED and I'm slowly nursing it back to health thanks to LHC.
The only saving grace for me I think was the BKT which sealed a lot of the blu dye out and I eventually stripped that away before my actual hair cuticles.

So that's my sad story! Be careful and I strongly suggest letting it fade/grow out.

Mine isnt black and deff not a blue/black, I was thinking maybe waiting till end of year as that will be over a year since the red was put on and nearly a year since i would have had any highlights, so would that be enough time for hair to recover. A good year with no dye then half head highlights?

[pink.sara]

Ok, by colour "stripping" I certainly wasn't suggesting you scrub it 8 times with dishsoap! :disgust::eek:
That's horrific and will ruin your hair, probably by removing and damaging the cuticle beyond repair.
This is the colour stripper I generally use: http://www.scottcornwall.com/shop/product/colour_b4_regular
It is cheap easy to use and has no peroxide steps in the process.

Whilst bleach is actually entering the hair and destroying the pigment inside to make it lighter, colour stripper works by removing the pigment molecules deposited by oxidative hair dyes. It will only remove artificial dye, your own haircolour will not change.
In a nutshell when you dye your hair a darker colour the conventional hairdye deposits molecules of the dye colour inside your hair shaft, then the peroxide added to the hairdye makes these molecules swell up, embedding them in your hair permanently. A colour stripper reverses this process, shrinking the artificial dye colour molecules but NOT your own colour so the dye molecules can then be rinsed from your own hair leaving natural colour behind.
Because you are removing only the artificial dye and not altering the structure of your own hair like bleach would, the damage is much less. In fact I would say the most damaging part is rinsing for 15 mins to remove the artificial dye molecules as this much rinsing removes all your natural oils and leaves your hair a bit dry.
HTH explain it a bit!
If your hair was bleached then dyed it will take you back to the bleached state.

[QueenJoey]

My sister has stripped her hair. I'm not sure if it was good or bad for her hair. I mean, you can really only tell on your own head of hair. But her hair is strong and very resilient. She's the only person I know who can straighten her hair about once a week and not have any trace of split ends. Also, she stripped her hair to add purple and the color showed up much better than the when she first tried to put it on her virgin hair. That's her in the background in the background of my siggy pic.

In conclusion, it might be okay. But if you're not a "super freak" like my sister you may want to see what other ways you can get highlights/lighter hair.

[whitestiletto]

I had my hair stripped in a salon by a color professional and I feel it damaged the texture of my hair. I would not do it again, nor would I recommend it.

Have you considered honey lightening treatments?

[LyraS]

Stripping sounds so harsh. Makes me cringe.

[MiamiPineapple]

In my opinion, hands down the worst thing you can do to your hair. I would NEVER do it again, it destroyed by hair :(

[RitaCeleste]

Nope, bleach is worse. Some colors don't want lighten with bleach easily. I had damage after attempting to recolor to a lighter shade with 30 vol developer, stripping then recoloring. My hair was a dry, brittle mess, but it was from all the peroxide. If I had of stripped, skipped the peroxide rinse for the stripper and just recolored it would have been much better on my hair.

[1953Diygal]

It brings back memories of putting Effasol on my hair which is the equivalent of putting Comet on your hair. Oy...the damage!!!

[pink.sara]

Nope, bleach is worse. Some colors don't want lighten with bleach easily. I had damage after attempting to recolor to a lighter shade with 30 vol developer, stripping then recoloring. My hair was a dry, brittle mess, but it was from all the peroxide. If I had of stripped, skipped the peroxide rinse for the stripper and just recolored it would have been much better on my hair.


It brings back memories of putting Effasol on my hair which is the equivalent of putting Comet on your hair. Oy...the damage!!!

This ^ is what I mean! Don't use the last peroxide step of colour removers such as rusk Elimin8 and you will be fine. Plus effasol uses peroxide to remove colour which is why I would never use it to strip dye, use effasol and you are effectively bleaching.

[Vanilla Mint]

If you're using sulfur-based color removers without a bleaching step (Color Oops, for those in The States), all you have to worry about is not putting any pigment on your hair for about a week afterwards. After these removers, the hair is left SUPER porous and any dye will process WAY darker and ashier than intended. The confusion here lies in the fact that most salon color stripping systems do use bleach to achieve the final result, thus subjecting the hair to a lot of rinsing plus chemical damage.

Also, most of the time, the hair is going to pull brassy, unless you were using a super low-level developer. Even the 20 volume developer used with most dyes lightens the hair before the pigment deposits itself...meaning that you most likely wouldn't be left with your natural hair color, but a lighter, brassier shade.

[whitestiletto]

I wanted to update my opinion on stripping. Now that I've hennaed over my stripped hair several times. It wont hold Henna. The Henna stays for about three COs then my hair fades back to the very light stripped base. Im going to increase the frequency of my hennas and add indigo. Overall I'm disappointed that my stripped hair can't keep the Henna and grow darker over time.

[RitaCeleste]

I noticed more color bleeding out of chemical dyes after stripping my hair. I've since read that coconut oil can cause some of that too. I don't know if it was the oil, brand of dye or what but it did stop when I started using olive oil instead. I don't know if it was coincidence or not.