DIY hair color removal

[Joules]

No, I haven't impulsively dyed my hair and now desperately want to remove it I'm asking for some help to save my mom's hair.

She's been dyeing her hair red for the past two years. Recently she got tired of it, plus she thinks bright hair color looks inappropriate on women aged 50 and older (which is total bs in my opinion, but oh well). Here's a picture of what she had:



So she decided to tone it down a bit and get more of darker reddish chestnut color, something like my hennaed hair:



Aaaaaaaaand here's what she got:



The problem is that the result is at least one level darker than she wanted, it's almost black in artificial lighting (the goal was to look chestnut-y in artificial lighting and even lighter under sunlight). It also seems cooler than mom wanted. Plus the color absorbed unevenly, more porous ends sucked up more pigment and now seem darker than roots and lengths, I went with her with the salon and it was really obvious when the hairdresser was blowdrying her hair (it became less obvious after the hair was curled, of course).

The color overall looks ok, but my mom isn't very happy with it. The hairdresser she went to has been doing her hair for the past 18 years, so she didn't want any conflicts, but we do think of maybe going to another place next time.

Right now she wants to try and wash out as much color as possible at home before going to a different salon. She's growing her hair out and not damaging it is a priority. Guys, please, throw all the DIY color removing recipes you know at me! The only method I can think of is oils, but there must be more options.

[spidermom]

A warm oil treatment followed by chelating/clarifying will probably pull some color. I also hear good things about Color Oops and Color Remove. The color won't completely come out, though. She'll have to grow it out and cut it off to a certain extent.

[spitfire511]

Watching this with interest - for the record I think (without being able to better see her coloring and face) that it looks really nice! (Though I can understand that it wasn't what she was looking for).

Back in the day my solution was always to just give it a few weeks and not use color-safe products (like using a clarifying shampoo every other wash), and wash it more frequently than usual to get it to fade faster and make sure I was conditioning the heck out of it. I don't think I ever did any damage that way (probably less than a blowout does anyway?)

Fingers crossed for her that it fades to something lovely very soon!!!

[blesseddamozel]

You can try making a wash out of crushed up vitamin C tablets and shampoo. I know it sounds nuts but it works! If you search on youtube "vitamin C hair color removal" you'll get tons of helpful results.

[LillyBlossom]

I've had a dye job go too dark, when I spoke to the salon about it they told me to use 'head and shoulders' and wash it with as hot a water as I could handle, it did work but I thought the head and shoulders was very drying on my hair. I hope your mum is happy with her hair again soon.

[Longlegs]

Soak it in coconut oil overnight then put a clarifying shampoo on the hair without getting it wet first, leave it on for 30 minutes if you can then rinse out and condition well.

[Jo Ann]

Dawn dishwashing soap might work (try it with crushed Vitamin C tablets or baking soda) and be sure to deep condition afterwards. Use HOT water--as hot as your Mom can stand it without getting burned!

If you try Color Oops or other dye remover, be aware that the developer might have lightened your Mom's original hair color and it might be an orange color afterwards. Also, be sure to rinse rinse rinse and rinse some more until the water runs clear!

[_fred_]

Firstly, I really feel for your mom, this is an awful situation to be in. I've been there - about 10 years ago I asked for my roots to match my light auburn highighted length, I told her I wanted it all auburn, and the stylist made everything very dark burgundy with a few white streaks. Absolutely not what I wanted, and there was much crying afterwards, then a trip to another stylist. In hindsight, I think she didn't know what auburn meant.

The best method for your mom will depend on the kind of hair colour they used. If it was an oxidative dye, then fade with clarifying or anti-dandruff shampoo as far as it'll fade (with a heavy moisture treatment each wash!), and use Color Oops or another oxidative dye remover. It's best if she's familiar with exactly how these work and the potential pitfalls - if you don't rinse for long enough you risk not getting all the shrunken dye molecules out, and they can re-oxidise and go even darker. Happily, you can use Color Oops more than once, but it's best to have a gap and moisturising treatments in between because it really dries out your hair. I've used a similar brand last year to remove some permanent purple so I could go pastel, and it was really good (I used Colour-B 4). Chances are it won't get absolutely everything, but it's a good start and her new stylist should be able to colour correct fine from there.

If it was a non-oxidative dye, Color-Oops won't work, but she might get good results using the anti-dandruff shampoo with either vitamin C or bicarbonate of soda method. She might also get results on oxidative dye for this. I used this on direct (non-oxidative) dyes at the weekend and it pulled a lot of colour that wasn't coming out just with shampoo (or at least not fast enough for me!). For this method, I mixed up bicarb and anti-dandruff shampoo into a paste, slathered it on my hair, put a shower cap on and sat somewhere warm for 30 mins. Then I rinsed it out with hot water. There are loads of Youtube videos showing this process, but beware of the ones that say 'no bleach!' but actually they get fed up and bleach it.

As for how I fixed the burgundy disaster, sadly that wasn't a DIY method. I went to a different stylist and she bleached it all out and dyed it bright auburn for me. She'd never have got it blonde in one sitting, there was too much red there, but as I wanted it to be ginger the lingering base brassiness wasn't a problem. As your mom wants a deep colour in the red-brown family a stylist should be able to colour correct from what she has now using a similar method, provided you're clear on letting them know the exact shade your mom wants. It may well cause some damage, but depending on how much bleach damage she already has and how strong her hair is, this could be the fastest way for her to get the hair colour that'll make her happy.

Best of luck!

[Joules]

spidermom, spitfire511, blesseddamozel, LillyBlossom, Longlegs, Jo Ann, _fred_, thank you for your replies!

We have some Vitamin C in tablets and powder, so we'll try that. One of her friends also advised her to use kefir (it's like a fermented milk drink) on her hair to fade the color, it's super liquid though, so we'll probably mix it with a thick mask. I'm saying "we" because I'm the main hair care enthusiast in out house and I'll be the one preparing all the treatments and pocking out shampoos for her I can finally go to town with oil treatments on her hair, yay! Maybe coconut milk would also work, I have some of it in my stash. I'm not sure about the hot water, mom has blood pressure issues, I just told her the warmer the better.

Unfortunately we don't have ColorOops here in Russia. We both also understand perfectly well that she will most likely need chemical color removing treatments done in a salon, we just want to strip as much of it as possible naturally to minimize damage. It's really sad that she had her hair colored soooo dark, she's mildly allergic to chemical hair dyes so she's considering going natural. We were discussing lifting her color and maybe doing some sort of blonde balayage to help her transition to her silver locks just the day before the disaster struck. She doesn't plan to go blonde right now, she did want a darker color for winter, but that's toooo much.

Mom's hairdresser did use an oxidative dye, Igora Royal with I believe 20 volume developer. Mom's hair is coarse and quite strong, so that's great, I believe it would withstand a little more processing

[Astrid Carlisle]

You can try making a wash out of crushed up vitamin C tablets and shampoo. I know it sounds nuts but it works! If you search on youtube "vitamin C hair color removal" you'll get tons of helpful results.

haha i second this! i did this a few years ago and it worked, lifted it a few tones!