I apologise in advance if this is a long post! I'm going to try to put it all into a single post rather than trying to start lots of different ones for each question I've got!
I currently have rose red on my hair (pic below). This pic was taken today under bathroom spotlight, coming up to 3 weeks since I did it. While I like this colour, what I want has actually changed (I'm never happy!), and I'm now after something brighter and more pink / purple - so I'm going for SFX Virgin Rose. I was planning this coming weekend to do a 2 day blitz on it, using the following steps.
1. Colour B4 to remove as much current colour as poss.
2. Coconut oil overnight to condition & hopefully remove anything left over
3. See how it looks in the morning after removing coconut oil with conditioner, and either:
4a. Bleach roots only (desperately need doing) or
4b. Bleach bath all of it or
4c. Full bleach all of it (I've got 30vol)
5. Virgin Rose colour
My real questions are:
A. Am I doing these in the right order? If not, advice on which order to do would be appreciated!
B. Do I actually need to do all of these to get the VR colour to work? I haven't used it (or any other SFX colour) before, so not sure how it takes. If not, which steps would you miss?
At the moment the colour is OK but it does fade to a red as it goes, because it bleached to ginger underneath (too much red dye / stain from years of too many colours). I last bleached 7 weeks ago so should be OK with that in terms of condition - it's in surprisingly good condition at the moment anyway. I'm thinking of bleaching again so the fade with the VR is less red in tone (hopefully).
At the moment I'm looking at the mountain of hair colouring products piled up in my bathroom and I think I'm confusing myself! Before I found this site I wouldn't have thought about it that much - would have just slapped on a full head of box bleach (40 vol) then the new colour. I know better now but I definitely need some guidance!!
Thanks in advance and thanks for actually reading all of this if you have!
Posted : March 25, 2014 8:24 pm
With dye that fresh, you'd be better off fading for a couple of weeks before going straight for the colour b4. (Also, personally I think decolour remover from boots is a lot better).
Virgin pink is very forgiving though. You'd be able to put it over faded red and get a good pinky purple. Then as it fades, maybe wash with purple shampoo to keep that purply pink rather than red.
Posted : March 25, 2014 9:39 pm
I would use fading treatments to try and fade what you have as much as possible, so you can see your base coming through, then go for a color remover - they seem to work better on color that is already faded anyway. After the color remover if you still have quite a bit of red to it you can do another fading treatment.
If you don't want it looking reddish I definitely think Virgin Rose is the way to go. The color remover will help if you still have some remnants of permanent dye in it (that isn't staining) too. Save bleaching for last until your semi is really faded looking, it will be less for the bleach to have to work through so it can just 'focus' on lightening your base. If you don't want it reddish looking when fading I really would try to just get it past the ginger stage to at least a gold. I had this same issue with my pinks always looking red over my ginger - I tried using violet, purple and blue on test strand to cool it off but it would either just look dull or would fade to a burgundy-ish pink. Over my hair that was gold or lighter though, I had no issues at all getting it to a nice purple-y pink. Just getting your hair past the ginger stage will help tremendously with combating the reddish fade.
After you do the color remover though, make sure you rinse really really well. Even though they are semis, they can still have that reoxidizing/darkening effect if you don't rinse all the color molecules out. I usually recommend rinsing for a half hour, drying it completely, then rinsing for another half hour. Also, it will be better for your hair if you leave at least a few days to a week or so from the day you use the remover til the day you bleach/bleach bath so your hair can build up some natural oils. Idky bleaching clean hair just seems to damage it a lot easier.
Posted : March 25, 2014 10:45 pm
I would actually give bleach powder and hot water a go.(NO peroxide) i tried this last week before using SFX Virgin Rose (although I could have just put it on!) I mixed hot water and powder in a bowl with shampoo, covered in an old towel for 20-30 minutes and when i rinsed the dye just poured out! Mad at myself for not trying that before! Then maybe you can see what you are left with
I cant even say what damage it causes, if any, or if it's just drying,(I think its just that, my hair would go mushy if i was to use anything damaging now) but its worth a go.
Posted : March 26, 2014 4:48 pm
Thanks lovely people. *cheers*
Lots of useful advice there. I guess I'm struggling at the moment because I'm impatient to change the colour to the next version - even though this one hasn't faded as much as I thought it would at all!
I should be patient and wait another week really - although patience isnt my strongest attribute ::) To be fair I'm currently getting so many comments about the colour it is at the moment I should probably wait.
I think I'll go with that. Wait another week, give it more fade time, then crack on with the VR.
(unless of course I get ridiculously bored this weekend and just decide to go for it...! I'll keep you posted...)
Posted : March 26, 2014 8:11 pm
I would say, if you have any damage now, even a hint of it, don't use bleach powder.
Posted : March 26, 2014 8:25 pm
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