DIY hair color removal

**illicitlizard** · October 9th, 2018, 05:16 AM

Vitamin C with clarifying shampoo is a good idea, one of my friends used it to successfully remove pink from her hair earlier this year. Also bicarb soda in shampoo does similar, but it really dries the hair out so it's not ideal. I don't really know of any non-damaging ways to fade colour tbh. But definitely just do all the things you're not supposed to with dyed hair; hot showers, clarifying, use a colour remover if possible.
P.S. You're never too old to have fabulously bright hair :P

**browneyedsusan** · October 9th, 2018, 06:43 AM

I don't have anything new to add, but hope you and your mom get that color lifted.

FWIW: I really like that original color! I'm 52, and would rock the dickens out of that strawberry blonde!

**lapushka** · October 9th, 2018, 07:12 AM

Hold on a minute, and don't panic... yet.

Hair color freshly done from the salon will always fade with the next hair wash; just tell her to use H&S or another dandruff shampoo and then see what it does. It might then just be her perfect color.

**Joules** · October 9th, 2018, 11:25 AM

Originally Posted by illicitlizard

Vitamin C with clarifying shampoo is a good idea, one of my friends used it to successfully remove pink from her hair earlier this year. Also bicarb soda in shampoo does similar, but it really dries the hair out so it's not ideal. I don't really know of any non-damaging ways to fade colour tbh. But definitely just do all the things you're not supposed to with dyed hair; hot showers, clarifying, use a colour remover if possible.
P.S. You're never too old to have fabulously bright hair :P

That's what I keep telling my mom

that bright hair is great, and naturally hair is great, everything is great except for the people who are trying to limit what you can do with your appearance. She's slowly becoming more and more open-minded, so maybe she'll rock bright hair when she's in her 60s

Originally Posted by browneyedsusan

I don't have anything new to add, but hope you and your mom get that color lifted.

FWIW: I really like that original color! I'm 52, and would rock the dickens out of that strawberry blonde!

Mom's 52 too! The original color was brighter than strawberry blonde (maybe your monitor doesn't display the color correctly...or maybe the photo isn't very good). It was bright ginger hair. It was bright, but it wasn't obnoxious or too unnatural, if that makes sense. My best friend's natural hair color used to be exactly the same when she was a bit younger (it faded a bit after she turned 20), so such colors do exist in nature. I wish I had it...

Originally Posted by lapushka

Hold on a minute, and don't panic... yet.

Hair color freshly done from the salon will always fade with the next hair wash; just tell her to use H&S or another dandruff shampoo and then see what it does. It might then just be her perfect color.

She agreed to start things slowly

she wants to get her money's worth and rock this color for a couple of weeks.Maybe it'ss be perfect after the first wash.

Funny enough, the hairdresser told her to touch up the roots with even darker shades. I guess she really did not get what mom wanted at all.

**lapushka** · October 9th, 2018, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Joules

That's what I keep telling my mom

that bright hair is great, and naturally hair is great, everything is great except for the people who are trying to limit what you can do with your appearance. She's slowly becoming more and more open-minded, so maybe she'll rock bright hair when she's in her 60s

Mom's 52 too! The original color was brighter than strawberry blonde (maybe your monitor doesn't display the color correctly...or maybe the photo isn't very good). It was bright ginger hair. It was bright, but it wasn't obnoxious or too unnatural, if that makes sense. My best friend's natural hair color used to be exactly the same when she was a bit younger (it faded a bit after she turned 20), so such colors do exist in nature. I wish I had it...

She agreed to start things slowly

she wants to get her money's worth and rock this color for a couple of weeks.Maybe it'ss be perfect after the first wash.

Funny enough, the hairdresser told her to touch up the roots with even darker shades. I guess she really did not get what mom wanted at all.

If she's gray, that's an odd thing to say, but if her natural hair is darker than the red, I think I get it. Because she probably thinks your mom wants to go darker than her own color? Or, have I got it wrong?

**Joules** · October 9th, 2018, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by lapushka

If she's gray, that's an odd thing to say, but if her natural hair is darker than the red, I think I get it. Because she probably thinks your mom wants to go darker than her own color? Or, have I got it wrong?

She's maybe 50% gray right now. I've never seen her with full on natural hair color (not even on pictures, all photos she has from her young dye-free years are black and white), so I can't really assess the situation here. She says it was just like mine, so probably level 7 or even 8. I have pics of my natural color in my albums. It's not even nearly as dark as she's now. Her hair was dyed with level 6, as we were told by the stylist, and we were offered level 5 tones for root touch-ups.

Now that I'm analyzing it it seems weird. We were dyeing her hair with level 7 red, and we sometimes used level 6 red on her roots to get dimension (I touched up her roots all the time). We did want to go a shade darker, so going with level 6 tones was totally logical for the hairdresser. Maybe my mom's hair reacted weirdly? I mean, her hair looks black. I'm getting seriously confused here. Maybe it's not the stylist's fault at all.

**Obsidian** · October 9th, 2018, 02:37 PM

When I tried coloring my henned hair a light brown, it went really dark, nearly black. I think I should have tried a medium/dark ashy blond instead and done strand testing. I really like your moms color but I agree, it should fade with a few washes.

**zmirina** · April 14th, 2019, 10:27 PM

Be careful with vit C, it almost always makes hair redder, based on my research and experience

**Beckstar** · April 15th, 2019, 12:15 AM

Tbh, both colors look great.

**Begemot** · April 15th, 2019, 12:24 AM

My understanding is that vitamin C doesn't make hair color red, red color is just the last one to go when you start lifting a darker dye out

So vitamin C just lifts darker dye out pretty effectively and shows the red tone that's left from previous dyes. I couldn't get rid of the red with DIY stuff though. Years ago I tried vitamin C and also honey and cinnamon mix. I wonder how your mother's hair turned out Joules