Giving up the dye/bleach and growing out natural? Share your progress.

[Bat]

It looks amazing jane_marie!! And your hair is still a very nice length, it won't be long before you can do all sorts of braids and buns again .

8 month update!


Finally managed to take a picture were my demarcation line is somewhat visible. It takes my phone camera, the right angle and freshly washed hair to show up. When it's up in a bun, the front view is all my natural shade, which is really cool. Glad that it isn't as awful as I always believed it was. Without LHC I probably wouldn't even have thought about quitting hair dye, glad that this thread exists!

Now I just need to stop thinking about how long it will take to have 100% virgin hair again...

It's looking great! You can barely tell still

[BuddhaBelle]

So this is a bit of an essay but here it goes...

Late 2019 I was a dumb girl and decided I was going to dye my blonde hair brown. Loved it for about two seconds but decided to go even darker, and darker, and darker. Eventually, in December I ended up with basically BLACK hair. I was never really happy with it, and the second my roots grew out it looked absolutely awful but I wasn't really sure what to do. Then lockdown and working from home happened in March 2020 so I wasn't really too fussed. Tried my best to remove it, I think I used box dye remover about 5 times, but I could only really lighten it to a brown. Here are some pictures showing my root growth.

After one of my dye remover rounds:


A root shot from the front.


Then somewhere around June I was inspired by all the e-girls and decided to bleach my fringe white blonde and dye the colour I had managed to lift dark brown again. (Don't ask, I think the lock-in made me lose it.)

Thankfully in October 2020 I came to my senses and went to my trusted hairdresser to get it fixed. I bleached the brownout and she gave me as similar to my natural colour as she could so I could go on the journey of growing it out. Here is a small snippet of my current growth, the dye is pretty close to my natural colour. Also to note, my hair does lighten in the sun so I think in the summer this will almost seamlessly match.



So I'm not sure if I'll be cutting these ends off anytime soon as I would really love to retain the growth as it is in quite a healthy condition, but I will definitely never be dying my hair EVER again. And if you ever see me even think about hair dye please YELL at me.

[Arciela]

I finally managed to trim off the tiny bit of bleach damaged hair I had left, I thought I got it all but there was about an inch left. It blended so well colorwise but I could tell with the texture difference. It brought me back to waist length but worth it

[Bat]

Congratulations! My hair is a disaster atm patchy as well, I'm got a toner to use just on the worst bits, hopefully that helps fix it up so I can leave it to grow out.

[Simpscone]

Hey, welcome back!
I think front strands are ok?
I honestly am not going to police anyone here haha.

Thank you! I thought that would be the case

Hi guys! I couldn't deal with babying my length anymore. The combo of layers and chemical damage was just too much. So I chopped off all of the layers and most of the color.

Here's what it looks like post chop:



I still have a few inches of bleach damage (particularly at the front) but I feel much better with a higher percentage of virgin hair.

It looks great! It must feel so good to chop most of the damage off, now you can enjoy your hair more

Welcome back here, Simpscone! I think it's almost up to each individual how they define "giving up x" and "growing out natural". My original thought was that I would only be moving over to highlights and not fully giving up bleach. That would've still meant that I was partially growing out natural.

I'll be at 1 year and 10 months tomorrow. I'll be celebrating 2 years somehow come the spring equinox.

Glad to be back! I thought that would be the case, I know the different threads can be super flexible on what you need to be doing to "qualify" to join. I can't believe how quickly your 2 years has almost come around! 2020 really flew by in a blink...

8 month update!

Finally managed to take a picture were my demarcation line is somewhat visible. It takes my phone camera, the right angle and freshly washed hair to show up. When it's up in a bun, the front view is all my natural shade, which is really cool. Glad that it isn't as awful as I always believed it was. Without LHC I probably wouldn't even have thought about quitting hair dye, glad that this thread exists!

Now I just need to stop thinking about how long it will take to have 100% virgin hair again...

It looks so good, I can't even really see the demarcation line!

So this is a bit of an essay but here it goes...

Late 2019 I was a dumb girl and decided I was going to dye my blonde hair brown. Loved it for about two seconds but decided to go even darker, and darker, and darker. Eventually, in December I ended up with basically BLACK hair. I was never really happy with it, and the second my roots grew out it looked absolutely awful but I wasn't really sure what to do. Then lockdown and working from home happened in March 2020 so I wasn't really too fussed. Tried my best to remove it, I think I used box dye remover about 5 times, but I could only really lighten it to a brown. Here are some pictures showing my root growth.

After one of my dye remover rounds:


A root shot from the front.


Then somewhere around June I was inspired by all the e-girls and decided to bleach my fringe white blonde and dye the colour I had managed to lift dark brown again. (Don't ask, I think the lock-in made me lose it.)

Thankfully in October 2020 I came to my senses and went to my trusted hairdresser to get it fixed. I bleached the brownout and she gave me as similar to my natural colour as she could so I could go on the journey of growing it out. Here is a small snippet of my current growth, the dye is pretty close to my natural colour. Also to note, my hair does lighten in the sun so I think in the summer this will almost seamlessly match.


So I'm not sure if I'll be cutting these ends off anytime soon as I would really love to retain the growth as it is in quite a healthy condition, but I will definitely never be dying my hair EVER again. And if you ever see me even think about hair dye please YELL at me.

Your hair had quite the journey last year then! I try to never regret my hair choices because the whole thing is a journey and thankfully it looks like it hasn't done your hair any long term damage!

I finally managed to trim off the tiny bit of bleach damaged hair I had left, I thought I got it all but there was about an inch left. It blended so well colorwise but I could tell with the texture difference. It brought me back to waist length but worth it

That's amazing! I can't even imagine getting to that point one day... congratulations!

Congratulations! My hair is a disaster atm patchy as well, I'm got a toner to use just on the worst bits, hopefully that helps fix it up so I can leave it to grow out.

Some of mine is patchy at the moment too, but being in lockdown and with it mostly being at the back where I can't see it... yeah it can stay that way for now

[Bat]

Some of mine is patchy at the moment too, but being in lockdown and with it mostly being at the back where I can't see it... yeah it can stay that way for now

I have to fix mine I don't want to start my hairdressing course with patchy dyed hair!

[NicoleLionne]

It's looking great! You can barely tell still

Thank you, Bat!!

So this is a bit of an essay but here it goes...

Late 2019 I was a dumb girl and decided I was going to dye my blonde hair brown. Loved it for about two seconds but decided to go even darker, and darker, and darker. Eventually, in December I ended up with basically BLACK hair. I was never really happy with it, and the second my roots grew out it looked absolutely awful but I wasn't really sure what to do. Then lockdown and working from home happened in March 2020 so I wasn't really too fussed. Tried my best to remove it, I think I used box dye remover about 5 times, but I could only really lighten it to a brown. Here are some pictures showing my root growth.

After one of my dye remover rounds:

A root shot from the front.

Then somewhere around June I was inspired by all the e-girls and decided to bleach my fringe white blonde and dye the colour I had managed to lift dark brown again. (Don't ask, I think the lock-in made me lose it.)

Thankfully in October 2020 I came to my senses and went to my trusted hairdresser to get it fixed. I bleached the brownout and she gave me as similar to my natural colour as she could so I could go on the journey of growing it out. Here is a small snippet of my current growth, the dye is pretty close to my natural colour. Also to note, my hair does lighten in the sun so I think in the summer this will almost seamlessly match.

So I'm not sure if I'll be cutting these ends off anytime soon as I would really love to retain the growth as it is in quite a healthy condition, but I will definitely never be dying my hair EVER again. And if you ever see me even think about hair dye please YELL at me.

That's quite a story! Your hairdresser did a great job, the colour looks very nice and your hair looks quite healthy. Happy to have you here!

I finally managed to trim off the tiny bit of bleach damaged hair I had left, I thought I got it all but there was about an inch left. It blended so well colorwise but I could tell with the texture difference. It brought me back to waist length but worth it

That's awesome! Congratulations on getting to fully virgin hair. Have you posted a photo somewhere on the forum? Would love to see how it looks now

Congratulations! My hair is a disaster atm patchy as well, I'm got a toner to use just on the worst bits, hopefully that helps fix it up so I can leave it to grow out.

Hope the toner helps! Or that it evens out a bit after a couple of washes. Good luck!

It looks so good, I can't even really see the demarcation line!

Thank you! I'm glad I colour corrected before I grew it out, it has made the journey a lot more manageable!

[Bat]

So... My hair basically went black LOL still I like it and it should get lighter as the Color fades

[Lunaena]

I am giving up on bleach. My hair simply cannot take it anymore. My hair might look a bit healthy after deep conditioning, but if I were to do nothing, one may easily see how damaged my hair truly is. I don't know what exactly I should do with my hair yet, but I need something to smudge my roots so it will look more natural while it's growing out. I cannot wait to feel healthy hair again, I have almost forgotten the feeling of it!

[Stray_mind]

Welcome to all the newcomers and welcome back all who returned, and to all who are still with us-good work!

It's been 3 years and 3 months since my scalp was touched by any kind of dyes and my natural hair is somewhere below shoulderblades i think now. I should update my signature haha.
The semi permanent dyes on my ends are nearly faded now.

So far i haven't been having any urges to dye my hair, even the ends. I am hoping to be fully rid of the dye in coming 1.5 years with slowly trimming it away.

Happy growing, you guys.