Hi everyone,
So I finally decided I want to bleach my hair in order to dye it crazy colours like pink or blue (something I've wanted to do for years). Buuuut, as I have never bleached my hair before (nor have it done at a salon), I have a lot of questions. Long post will follow.
For a start, I'll offer some background on my hair. My natural hair colour is dark blonde and I used to have salon highlights (until I was about 18). Then I decided I wanted something different so I went to the salon to have it dyed brown. Over the course of about 1-2 years I kept having darker shades of brown and eventually it almost went black. Then I started dying the roots only (still at the salon) and it started to fade to a more natural dark brown shade. After that I started getting a bit fed up with the salon (taking so long, plus it's expensive, etc) so I started dying my hair at home, using a box dye L'oreal Casting Creme Gloss Strawberry Red (I wanted to go red, but it never turned out quite as vibrant as I wanted it; hence my wanting to bleach). I've done this for about 6 months now so my hair is a medium brown/red colour. It's been about 8-10 weeks since I last dyed it.
I'm still deciding between bleaching it at a salon (I've got an advice appointment tomorrow) and doing it myself (well, having a friend do it :P). If I decide to DIY it though, mostly for monetary reasons, I'd like some advice! 🙂
My strategy was: buy 2x Flash Lightning Kit by Manic Panic (40% vol as my hair is quite dark - 2x because it's quite long, just in case) and bleach it. Then use the Manic Panic Virgin Snow toner to get the orange/yellow out of my hair. Then I'd use the Carnation Pink dye by Directions.
But then as I was reading through these forums, a few people recommended using Colour B4 on previously box dyed hair instead of bleaching it straight away, for better results.
Would I be better off using Colour B4 first, then possibly (if needed) bleach, then toner and then dye? My hair is quite healthy at the moment, but I'm quite afraid that would be a bit of overkill? I would use the coconut oil method for the bleaching part (as instructed in this topic: http://www.hairdyeforum.com/index.php/topic,3806.550.html ) to minimize damage, but still. And how long would that whole process take me? As I also read you can't use bleach too quick after using Colour B4? Also: I live in The Netherlands, so a lot of hair products are very hard to come by over here. I've been looking around drugstores but I can't even find a 'regular' toner over there, nor any other colour strippers except for Colour B4. The only 'crazy colour' dyes I can find -not in store- are Manic Panic and Directions.
What would you recommend? 🙂
PS: I can also provide a pic of my current hair colour if it would help.
Thanks,
Laura
Posted : October 10, 2016 12:01 pm
If your hair has had permanent dye on it that has not grown and been cut out and is darker than the colour you want to achieve then you will need to use a colour remover before you bleach, colour removers are drying but not damaging and it will harm your hair more to try to bleach the old dye out.
(also the white toner won't do anything unless your hair is light yellow, it just won't show up over orange at all)
Posted : October 10, 2016 3:58 pm
My hair has always been dyed using semi-permanent dye. But as it's been dyed so many times (most of the time I dyed all of my hair, not just the roots), there's a lot of colour build up so I don't think all the dye will ever come out by itself. Would you still recommend using colour remover or should I, because it's semi-permanent dye, just use bleach instead?
And what would you recommend to get the orange out instead of white toner? As I have a lot of red in my hair at the moment, so I expect it will kinda go orange :p
EDIT: As I've been reading more topics on here, I came up with another idea. Maybe I could use Colour B4 first to see if I can strip any remaining dye out, and if so, use multiple bleach baths instead of a full bleach? As this would be less bad for my hair (and it seems like it'd be easier to do at home rather than a full bleach, as well). But again, as my hair is quite dark, I don't really know if this would work for me?
Posted : October 10, 2016 4:12 pm
Use the colour remover first. Then see what you have. It's difficult to predict exactly what you'll get as everyone's hair and hair history is different. 🙂
You can use the colour removers up to three times, I suspect you'll probably need to. But trust me, it is well worth trying to get out as much dye as possible before starting with bleach.
Posted : October 10, 2016 11:04 pm
A few years back I went from having dark red hair that had been dyed many times with various permanent and semi permanent dyes to a really super bright red by using colour remover then bleach bathing. My hair is naturally dark blonde, but very ashy and I found my roots never needed more than a bleach bath to go properly yellow blonde.
You may find you have too much staining under the semi dyes to get light enough to go blue as that needs a really light base, but you may be able to get light enough for bright reds or purples.
I agree with Janine that you should try up to three colour removers and see where you are left then, Remember that your hair may look a bit ginger once the dyes are removed as it may have been lifted/ lightened slightly by the dyes you have previously had on it (it won't go back to your natural colour).
Posted : October 11, 2016 3:01 pm
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