How to remove brown hair dye on blue dyed on bleach

If I understand correctly, you want to remain a brunette but just a bit lighter than it is now?

If so, I'd probably use a natural shade semi or colour shampoo and gradually grow the darker shade out. Way different approach but most likely a bit nicer for your hair. It would be a search as it has to counter faded blue/green and bleached yellow so my guess it would need to be a quite reddish colour.

But if you want to go faster/aren't in the mood for natural semi's I'd use a colour remover first. I don't know CB4 and I have no idea whether it's a stripper or remover. I would opt for the colour remover as it is way less damaging. They aren't always great with semi's like the blue and green in your hair (colour removers only tend to work on box dyes for me) but your hair will be lighter and you'll have to use a lower volume and/or spend less time bleaching it. Or even better a bleach bath. It depends how your hair is, what the colour is after the remover, et cetera. Vol. 30 however seems quite brutal to me, especially since your hair had quite a lot to take.

It could also be, as your hair currently is died with a perm dye, the remover will lift enough to use the dye of your desired colour. Permanent dyes do lift your hair to make it stick, unlike semi's. I never end up with my natural virgin hair colour, it's always a few shades lighter. Unfortunately, the outcome of colour removers is always a surprise.

That being said: do NOT dye IMMEDIATELY after a colour remover. The removed colour can come back due to re-oxydation. Trust me, that makes you sad. Been there, done that.  😛 Apart from that, the colour remover I use smells horrible and makes your hair quite dry so it needs a lot of TLC. I like to keep at least a week between the colour remover and dye/bleach.

I'm extremely scared for fried hair, so I prefer to use bleach not too often and in the lowest vol. I never had great results with the Manic Panic boxes but that also differs between people, condition of hair, et cetera.

Your hair has been through a lot. You need to avoid anything with peroxide in. So that's permanent dyes and bleach. If one side of your hair was lighter, that very much suggests it was already highly damaged and there's been other processes since. The other side being darker can also be a sign of too much damage. I know it sounds odd, but even the same head of hair can have parts that has damage that makes it take up too much dye and parts that means it can't hold on to dye. With each process you're pushing the integrity of your hair further and further and with each one it could be the last straw.

Rather than colourb4 I'd suggest recolour remover by Scott Cornwall in boots. It is a little more expensive, but with removing permanent dyes it tends to be more effective. I can't remember off hand if they come I. Different strengths, but use the highest. It has no damaging affect on your hair, but it is drying, so get a good deep conditioner to use afterwards.

Unless you're really unlucky, this should take you a few shades or more lighter. From there you could look at the Adore range of dyes on Beeunique.

Even if you want a cool toned brown you'll need to add some red to combat the green tones you're getting through from the colour underneath. It doesn't have to be much, but the beauty of dyes like Adore is they cause no damage whatsoever so you can keep adding little by little until you get the right shade.

If I've misunderstood what you want, feel free to correct me. You weren't fully clear in the actual result you wanted.

Thanks to you both for the answers but I do not want to tone down my brown. I want to dye edges (4 fingers or smt) to blue+purple or green+pink.

Therefore I need to bleach.

And my right side is lighter not cause it's damaged but cause it's * very long hair so it's lighter compared to my roots *sun etc makes it lighter. I never dyed it before, it's 100% healthy, shiny, soft, wonderful in short.

But my left side from shoulder to tummy, was dyed to blue. The edges were damaged over the years cause of rebleaching. The most damaged parts are cut cause it's been months. But it's still dry and of course there's this brown hair dye over blue so it's darker than the rest of my hair. My hair is ginger chestnut naturally.

I tried to upload photos to show my hair but each photo is more than 2mb so I can't upload them from my phone, I'll try from laptop today.

Also another thing.. I order my dyes from UK. One reason for that is cause in Paris it's so difficult to find stuff and even if I find it's pricey. I never saw or heard of scott cornwall but they sell colour b4 at supermarkets here.

These might already cost me a lot I just wanted to make sure if colour remover is necessary or effective to remove the brown hair dye over blue on my left side before I bleach my hair. Or if should wait more to get rid of this processed hair naturally.. (by cutting - but I'm so bored of full brown hair after 11 years of blue 🙁 )

I also mentioned manic panic bleach cause I tried other bleaches sold in Paris before and the result was super crap. Everyone says that 30vol is great so I thought I could give it a shot.

ps: My hair goes orange after bleach. I tried 20 before but it didn't work. Some people suggested 40 but before a huge flock of hair, almost my entire left side was blue from roots to edges. Right I now I just want edges cause they're lighter in nature compared to roots and if they're damaged in the future I can cut them easily. That's why between 20 and 40 I thought 30 would save the day but since I'm not a pro doing hair I'm completely lost especially with this brown dye on blue on the left side.

I'll try uploading photos in a few minutes from my laptop.

Ah, yes, I would definitely use a colour remover first to get of the permanent dye. If you have any chance to go to Belgium, you could use the Kruidvat version. You can use it up to three times and I went pretty blonde to begin with. In that respect: good to know CB4 is sold in France, that might be an option for me in the future.

That being sad: I've had amazing results with a bleach bath with KIS by Kappers, a Dutch Brand, named 'Snow White' and developer (developer usually works anyway, as I recall the power is in the powder). Again, perhaps that is also possible to get via Belgium.

I've used 30 in my bleach bath but of course it's diluted to a 15 as it's a bleach bath. Perhaps you don't even need to bleach the whole streak, depending on the outcome. You can probably do the same with manic panic anyway, causing less damage.

First thing, I still won't suggest bleaching. As your hair is on one side sucking up too much dye and on the other not holding it, it's warning signs it's very damaged. There's a really good chance you don't need to bleach.

This is why we both thought you wanted to tone down the brown lol "I have decided to dye it back to my natural which is chestnut/brunette in ginger tones." I hadn't taken in the ginger part, but did take in the part about wanting brown and it being too dark in areas. Not admonishing you for it, I just realised why 🙂

Scott Cornwall is the creator of ColourB4 🙂 I didn't know it was available outside the UK, so I'd assumed you were here and so could also get other UK brands. I hadn't seen your location in the side bar either. As that's the only option, get the max strength. You should try it, I can't promise it will work, but it could do. Well enough to get green or blue over? Hard to say. If it gets almost all of it out I'd say you'd be ok to do a super quick, weak bleach bath. But literally no more than a few minutes.

If your hair is going orange with bleaching, it's likely the fault of a not strong enough powder, not too weak developer/peroxide. Manic Panic is a horrible bleach powder, really bad. You need to invest in a really good quality bleach. I like Indola, Blondor or Blondme.

I know what I'm saying isn't what you really want to hear and you probably disagree on the condition of your hair. You can ignore me if you want, but I've been helping people long enough to know that bleach is rarely option to go with. Compromise is ALWAYS better. Always. Bleach is a last resort in removing colour and ONLY if your hair is in very good condition. You say the damage has been cut off, but if this has all happened within the last year or two, a lot of that damage from dying over and over (some of it at least on already bleached hair) is going to be there on a good portion of your hair.

Ok I have prepared the photos, hope they upload without a problem.

Odette:

I found out that they sell colour B4 at monoprix, carrefour, leclerq etc but I never paid a visit to any, I just saw online last week. I live in central Paris and generally big stores like Carrefour etc are in the suburbs so instead I might try a big Monoprix in the city to see if I can find it there. Otherwise on Haircrazy (UK) they sell only one version of it.

I have no chance to visit Belgium unfortunately. At least for now; no plans. What sucks the most about Paris/France is that it's not the perfect place for coloured hair options. It's not as popular as in Germany or UK and hairdressers are super expensive that's why I try to do it at home each time.

Janineb:

In fact the most damaged parts are cut cause the blue was already on my ear level in January 2017 and instead of bleaching top (and paying tons to hairdresser) I have taken a radical decision and dyed everything to brown. I loved my blue hair so much (and had it for 11 years as I mentioned before) but I was so tired of bleaching the new grown hair on top and at home it was a huge crisis. Could never find good bleaches, each time orange, didn't know much, couldn't get help and the hairdresser never gave it justice tbh. (That explains the green, blue difference. Too many different tones and I hated it each time and i spent a lot.)

I couldn't find my tone so like a stupid person I bought dark brown thinking it would be ok. It ended up being black. (Dark brown over blue - disaster.) My roots are darker yeah but my edges are 2 tones lighter (my hair is pretty long, until my waist) So this black was looking horrible and pretty obvious. So I went to the hairdresser 2 days after and he toned it down with natural dye (he didn't bleach, he said it's damaged enough; my old blue part) He told me to wash it off regularly and apply light brown dye after a month or two if necessary. So I did that. I dyed it brown a few months ago as it was greenish dark brown after washing million times. Right now it's still different than my natural brown hair on the right side but the difference is not excessive. Only visible under sunlight. You can still see a few old bleached follicles and some faded green follicles. The length is: from a bit under my chin/around shoulder till the end.

Everyone tells me to leave my hair alone for another year until this ex-blue part grows and gets cut. But I'm 1)impatient 2) so bored of full brown hair. That's why I wanted to have new colors on the edges (at least the edges, not the roots)

I have discovered this Colour B4 last week online, that's  why I know literally nothing about it or the owner. I wrote at forum of Haircrazy before but I needed more answers before doing anything. I don't want to ruin my hair more so I'm scared as well. No idea if I should spend all that money - and I'm unemployed right now, cherry on top of everything - (colour remover, 2 dyes, one 30vol bleach for natural hair, one 20vol for damaged hair) and go into trouble (testing/seeing if it works) or wait a bit more..

People say colour remover smells awful for so long, does not guarantee anything and makes hair so dry... And have to wait for a week to do something on it (1/4 of my hair weird blonde, the rest brown i'll look like a creep) but I might bear it in the end since I want a good result.

In short, what do you suggest after reading all that (might sound so ouffff but 🙁 )? I really need the opinion of someone who knows what s/he's doing. I'm amateur in this hair situation.

Thanks to you both again. <3

That's my long, awful hair story.

There was not enough space for this one.

The Carrefour, really? I'm going to check that out here!

You could perhaps also search for Belgium based online retailers as some have great shipping deals with France. The other way around, I've bought plenty of French stores online without any trouble or high prices. I love the UK but unfortunately the shipping can be massive.

I would try the CB4 before anything and decide from there on. The result may surprise you!

Since 2006 I've been ordering from UK, just recently I discovered a French page, they sell exactly the same stuff but it's the same price and you still pay shipping so it didn't change much for me :/ at one gothic shop here I found directions a while ago but it was more expensive than UK.

I was planning to do my hair after mid October (have an important interview around that time) so everyone told me to keep it full brunette until that *sigh-bureaucracy and outdated outlook prejudices full speed* But considering the circumstances (too many stuff to buy and uncertainty of success with my damaged and already dyed hair) I might postpone it a bit more and move from there maybe. A few more months, at least until the most damaged parts grow. I'll be checking in here in every case.

If only I knew about this colour removers before, I wouldn't have dyed over blue 🙁

Check out colour b4s website with fr extension. They say auchan, carrefour, monoprix, casino, super u, intermarché, leclerc.