[Sticky] Colour B4 Information

I think the pastels are lovely, but for when you go bright again, I love the pink orange blue idea 😀

ahhhh i need guidance. my hair is currently dark brown (permanent, dyed twice - first early july, second on monday) with like caramel highlights in the ends (hairdresser did it with some mix he said was 80% water 20% quasi developer to minimise damage). before dark brown it was ginger with blonde dip-dyed ends, which i had then covered all over with coral red.

i'm looking to color b4 the ends so i can dip-dye it (i asked my hairdresser to remove the colour for me, but instead he put the highlights in...) but i'm now worried that it's hardly gonna lift the colour 🙁 i've heard you can use color b4 up to three/four times? but i only bought one box which says "1 application" on the side... surely doing it three or four times doesn't require me to buy the same number of boxes, does it? D: i'm worried about ending up with an absolute minging browny-ginger that i can't use as a base for anything, and i don't think i can bb it for like a month now because of those damn highlights :/

Well, when it says one application on the side, it usually means it can only be used once. In other words, you can't use the product and keep some for another time. So yes, you have to buy a box for each application. And you can do three.

Because you HAD blonde dip dyed ends then you should be able to remove enough colour to get back to that blonde base. The caramel should remove fairly easily as it's fresh, read the instructions and I'm pretty sure it even says that in there. The dark brown left might require 1 or more treatments, I doubt it, but that is still a lot better than doing anymore bleaching for a while. It costs more than bleach (but way cheaper than going to a hairdresser and getting the wrong thing 🙂 ), but it is far more effective for what you're trying to achieve, with what is already there. You can't know how much colour it will lift, but it's generally very good on browns.

But you're only doing the tips anyway, right? You might be ok if you empty the two bottles in the colourb4 (into separate bowls and then divide them into half and mix that. Then save the other halves to use after if you need to. I do that as one pack isn't enough to cover my hair but 2 is too much. You can do the second application right after the first one if it's not enough.

Its been nearly a week I used colour b4 and my hair still smells a bit of eggs ??? how can i get rid of the smell or would it go by itself?  🙂

Just keep washing and using smelly conditioners/shampoos. It will go away eventually, i think the smell sticks around cause the process makes your hair dry and so the scent lingers in the porous hair.

when I use color b4 it takes my hair to an orangey/yellow.  will I have to bleach my hair to put a blue on top or will it work?

what was your colour before using colourb4? (ahh confusing)lol you can use it up to 3 times to remove every last bit. also after you decide its like to bleachBATH not straight bleach you need to make sure you've washed veryvery thoroughly for about a week to prevent the old colour reoxidising and coming right back.
as for blue you will need to be reasonably light depending on what blue you are wanting to use?
cant say for sure til we know what colour.

lol my hair is a medium brown right now,  but I've used colourb4 loads of times and it always takes me back to the yellow colour.  my hair is naturally a light brown/dirty blonde.  the blue I want to use is Crazy Color Capri Blue.  thanks.

i suggest you make awee post in the semi perms forum and ask fro advice on the base required for the capri there, lot of lovelies with blue locks to help there. I would imagine you will need a BB to elimate orangey tones

ok thanks.

*waves*
In need of a little bitty help! 🙂 My natural hair colour is dark brown. Last year i bleached my hair twice (i used schwarzkopf Absolute Platinum 00A) and had bright pink hair for a while but after the second bleach i burnt my scalp so i got scared to bleach again and since December last year just been dying my hair with schwarzkopf dyes (reds and purples) but i would love to have pink hair again but not sure how to go about it.. Would colour b4 work? as i want avoid bleach if i can.. even my hairdresser said shes too scared to bleach my hair so the thought of bleaching makes me so nervous! Lol
Thanks! 🙂

Colourb4 will strip the permanent pigments from your hair. Depending on your base colour it may or may not be light enough for pink.

You could always use blonde box dyes. A lot of people here like XXL blondes to bleach. Get some one else to apply with a tint brush, keeping it off your scalp and about 2-3 mm down from the roots. The product expands so should just cover this, but even if it doesn't and you have slight roots, what does it matter? You'll get roots in a week anyway! But you'll have a ugh lower risk of scalp burns.

*waves*
In need of a little bitty help! 🙂 My natural hair colour is dark brown. Last year i bleached my hair twice (i used schwarzkopf Absolute Platinum 00A) and had bright pink hair for a while but after the second bleach i burnt my scalp so i got scared to bleach again and since December last year just been dying my hair with schwarzkopf dyes (reds and purples) but i would love to have pink hair again but not sure how to go about it.. Would colour b4 work? as i want avoid bleach if i can.. even my hairdresser said shes too scared to bleach my hair so the thought of bleaching makes me so nervous! Lol
Thanks! 🙂

When you say you bleached your hair twice, do you mean once right after the other?  If this is the case, I'm not surprised your scalp got burnt.  Most hairdressers are not terribly experienced with bleach (we've honestly had more than a handful of people coming in saying they'd gone to a hairdresser because they were too frightened to do it at home and they ended with ruined hair/scalp burns)--at least yours is responsible enough to admit she's not comfortable with it.

Bleaching is totally safe when done correctly (once a month at the most).  Box bleaches like XXL are going to give you great lift while still being gentle, again, provided they're used correctly.  Like Janine says, you can always try to apply it with a tint brush to keep it off of your scalp.

But if you have dye in your hair, we would always recommend a colour remover first, like Colour B4 or Scott Cornwall's Decolour Remover, as these are not damaging to the hair and can be used up to three times to get as much colour as possible out.  What shade of pink are you going?  A bright pink will take over a pale ginger, so you might get away without any sort of bleaching.

When you say you bleached your hair twice, do you mean once right after the other?  If this is the case, I'm not surprised your scalp got burnt.  Most hairdressers are not terribly experienced with bleach (we've honestly had more than a handful of people coming in saying they'd gone to a hairdresser because they were too frightened to do it at home and they ended with ruined hair/scalp burns)--at least yours is responsible enough to admit she's not comfortable with it.

Bleaching is totally safe when done correctly (once a month at the most).  Box bleaches like XXL are going to give you great lift while still being gentle, again, provided they're used correctly.  Like Janine says, you can always try to apply it with a tint brush to keep it off of your scalp.

But if you have dye in your hair, we would always recommend a colour remover first, like Colour B4 or Scott Cornwall's Decolour Remover, as these are not damaging to the hair and can be used up to three times to get as much colour as possible out.  What shade of pink are you going?  A bright pink will take over a pale ginger, so you might get away without any sort of bleaching.

I just realised how that sounded! Lol noo I should have pointed out my second bleach was about 2 months after the first, My second bleach was done by a friend and i dont know if maybe she rubbed it into my scalp to much or i left it in too long. Yeh id rather my hairdresser tell me shes not confortable than just do it but its made me nervous! Lol..

Yeh a tint brush sounds like a good idea 🙂 Thanks Janine, I like your idea and i think i might try it that way! 🙂 I think i'll see what blonde box dyes boots has when im in town today!

Iam going for a bright pink.. I think iam going to use Special Effects Atomic Pink as it went over my ginger hair after i bleached it perfectly and lasted ages last time! 🙂

I hope i could get away without bleaching but if i have to, is the bleach at sally's any good? or should i just stick with xxl?
and how long round about will the process of getting my hair to pink take? As i was hoping to have it done in time for a gig but i doubt it! Lol
Thanks Intempestivity 🙂

I just wrote a really long post and then firefox ate it. Grrr! Try again.

Anyway, I've been on a colour B4 journey.

I've used colour B4 twice and Decolour Remover once over the last week, with 72 hour breaks in between. For the first one I just whacked it on dry hair, for the subsequent two I washed twice with clarifying shampoo (Tresemme deep cleansing), dried it, and then applied.  I left it on for 50 mins each time with a towel and clingfilm. I did try to rinse for the full 20 mins but I have low blood pressure and was starting to get quite dizzy in the shower so I'm not sure I did quite as well as I should have done.

My hair was originally L'oreal Majirel copper blonde (834 & 804 mixed, with 20 vol developer), which I've been using for about 11 months. Before that I had highlights. I've been quite boring for work for a while now, but my boss intimated that I could push the boundaries a little more than I am doing 🙂 I'm trying to go back lighter but now much lighter, I'm not sure. I'll see how I get on. I didn't expect miracles given that the colour I was trying to get out is basically the colour that most people's hair goes after using the stripper!

I personally preferred the Decolour Remover, although I'm not sure it was as effective as the colour B4 (given that my dye was permanent). As a cream based formula it was much easier to apply (although harder to mix) and comb through so I think I did a much better job of washing it out. With the colour B4, when I took the clingfilm off it looked really visibly lighter, but at the end of the process the difference wasn't as clear (and I think it reoxidised a bit over the next couple of days). After applying the buffer for colour B4 it turned into a total rats' nest and was really impossible to agitate properly to ensure all the colour came out, which probably accounts for that. colour B4 is much easier for me to get hold of and cheaper (£8 at my local Wikinson) but I would definitely make the flog to Boots to get hold of the Decolour Remover in future. It also doesn't have the unholy sulphuric whiff of colourB4, which was nice.

It is definitely a bit lighter although not loads (probably not quite as obviously different as the pictures suggest), but what I'm really happy about is that it's left the colour really even. Still, it's better than getting to that stage with bleach. My hair actually feels amazing - I think I must have had tonnes of product build up because using the clarifying shampoo and no conditioner left it really shiny and light feeling. It's made me much more careful about the bleach because it feels so lovely now that I don't want to ruin it, so I'm going to take it slow (and only have 20 vol developer to enforce this and make sure I don't do anything stupid!).