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

**SapphiraSilver** · July 4th, 2010, 08:37 AM

Originally Posted by Mrs Sgardelis

I'll join in!! I was silly enough to dye my blonde hair blonde

when I was about 17, I kept it up because I hated the regrowth. I last dyed just before christmas '09 I have about 3 inches of regrowth which is thankfully blending in ok (thank god for summer!). It's just below shoulder now so it's going to take awhile till I can get rid of all the dye but Im loving my natural hair again

Ooh 3 inches! I can't wait to have that much, I am barely at one inch lol Well thats a great effort! best of luck with it, it's a long long process

**white line** · July 4th, 2010, 09:18 AM

I can join too. About 5 1/2 yrs ago I quit dying my hair after around 20 yrs of continually coloring. Then last summer for some dumb reason, I talked myself into lightening it again. It had been all virgin but guess I wanted to look more "summer" and lighten it. That lasted about 3 months and realized I didn't like the upkeep anymore and the damage. Now I have one year of growth (roots) and am trying to decide how to make them less noticable. I did put a dark temp color over it last fall but that has faded and you can see the line, but it's not too bad. Not sure I want to put another temp color over it. How do you guys plan on dealing with this? I've also been thinking about a color depositing conditioner but not sure what to do.

**Joliebaby** · July 4th, 2010, 09:27 AM

I'm joining here!!
The same ol' story- I was a light blonde as a child with TLB hair.. Gradually it got darker (it also seemed to instantly get darker when it was cut short because all of the hair that had gotten naturally lightened by the sun went away..)
I started dyeing at about age 13. I've been natural / almost natural a couple of times though. Last time was when I shaved off all my hair. I should have grown out all virgin hair then, which was the plan, but at this ultra short boy-length it just looked so bland that I decided it would be a good idea to just use some demi perm color, just until it got a little longer. Well you can guess it didn't stop there.

My situation now is that I had dyed my hair about 5 or 6 time with a very low peroxide semi permanent dye (at a salon / bought from salon) during the past two years. My hair has grown a lot, I was pregnant and had a daughter and just didn't have the time nor interest to fuss with my hair.

I have wanted to get back to my natural hair color before, but now I have a new reason: I want to teach my daughter that everyone is beautiful just the way they are created. I don't want her to get into hair coloring rut at age 13. And I have to follow my own advice if I want it to make any difference to her!!!

The last time I colored my hair it accidentally became darker than what I wanted, level 4 probably.. as I was intending to cut out some burgundy tones to get to a color closer to my own. A hair stylist friend suggested a bleach soap cap, but that would have bleached out my virgin roots (which are not much yet!) and just been harsh. My hair was in great condition so i didn't want to risk it.

I came across colorfix and decided to try it. It worked in getting my hair a couple of shades lighter. Obviously it's not my natural color per se, but it's much closer. It didn't damage my hair either.

I hope that the difference is very small and I can live with it. I think I can- I have so much else on my mind now and not so much time to obsess about my hair.

I don't know how long I'm going to grow my hair, after BSL in a couple of months it will be longer that ever since childhood, yippee! My next goal is waist and we'll see from there....

Anyway I'm not going to cut it because it's healthy and I'm really enjoying the length. And I got here so easily, just concentrating on my baby daughter! I have no desire whatsoever to start over - I've done it enough times already!!!!

Just have to stay from doing damage to it, because I can't stand crunchy, stiff, breaking ends!

ETA:

Oh, and I'm trying to eat healthy, drink more water, take a multi vitamin, omega fatty acids, I ordered some DE... and pamper my hair occasionally with coconut oil and such before washing. I also mist daily. My hair got a little bit dry from the colorfix and chelating shampoo so I'm giving it extra moisture. And it's summer too so it's good anyway to do that..

I can't take a pic of my roots yet because they are seriously short

**MicheleClaire** · July 4th, 2010, 09:38 AM

I have naturally dirty blond hair and have been growing out bleached hair for almost two years now. I have waist length hair and only the last 4-5 inches of my hair is bleached! I love it! Soon, with trims, there shall be no more bleach and my hair will be tailbone (my goal).

**zenobia** · July 4th, 2010, 10:00 AM

Removed for privacy

**spidermom** · July 4th, 2010, 10:08 AM

No color problems, just wanted to point out that summertime is a great time to learn how to wrap your hair up in a scarf and disguise what's going on. There are YouTube videos with techniques to try: I like The Style Underground. You can do a nice oiling first; nobody will know.

Originally Posted by Tiina

I'm growing out my natural colour too. I started to dye my hair when I was 12 or 13 and I went straight to black. My natural colour is gray. Not ash blonde/brown but just gray.

It looks ash blonde to me.

**Loreley** · July 4th, 2010, 10:16 AM

I colored my hair 2.5 years ago. I'm growing it out, my natural hair is halfway between shoulder-length and APL. My virgin hair is dark brown and the rest is red and auburn. I trim every month but it'll take years till my hair color will be completely natural.

**linda g** · July 4th, 2010, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by spidermom

No color problems, just wanted to point out that summertime is a great time to learn how to wrap your hair up in a scarf and disguise what's going on. There are YouTube videos with techniques to try: I like The Style Underground. You can do a nice oiling first; nobody will know.

Thanks for pointing out this great resource. I just added their blog to my rss feeds.

I've been growing out henna since January. I posted recent pics in the Renegray thread and on my blog. Most days I am fine with my roots, every now and then I feel insecure if I let myself worry too much about what "they" might think of me. (Who are "they" anyway?

)

**minaa** · July 4th, 2010, 10:30 AM

I'm in this boat! My hair is cut extremely short right now (I'm impatient with the dye), and there's still places where bleach and dye are visible. I had about three months of growth, but with this last cut I'm behind a bit. I don't know how long I can wait until my next cut to remove all of the dye, but I'm looking forward to it, as that'll be my true start to growing out my natural color. :]

**jivete** · July 4th, 2010, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by spidermom

It looks ash blonde to me.

I agree with spidermom,tiina, your hair looks ash blond to me.

I have about 2.5years of virgin growth. I was blond as a kid and then started dyeing dark brown in my 20s. I'm a medium ash brown now. It's hard to like my natural color, but the quality of the virgin hair is so much nicer than the dyed bits, I'm working through it. I may someday get some lowlights or something, but not for at least another year.