Ombre oops!

If you're using a permanent colour, stop doing that. Each time you do it's damaging already bleached hair and it'll fade faster and faster each time you do it.

What you want to do is to use an Adore dye in brown. I can't advise on which colour as brown just isn't my style, but hopefully someone else can help.

The reason adore dye is better is it's a direct dye. It isn't damaging at all and that means you can top up the colour as often as you need to with no fear of causing extra damage to your already damaged hair. Even if it feels great, bleached hair is damaged and dying it with permanent dyes makes it worse.

Ok so I googled Adore hair dye because I didn't know what it is. Is it basically just a semi permanent dye? Why will a semi permanent dye last longer than a permanent one? I always thought that it was the other way around. Doesn't semi permanent wash out every time you shower? I don't have time to constantly re-dye my hair. I want a way to fix it now and be done with it. Is there no way to do that? Also, should I keep dying my entire head or just the lighter part?

I'm not saying it'll last longer. I'm saying you can top it up as needed. As you've found, the permanent dyes are going to fade anyway and that's just going to get worse the more damaged your hair gets if you keep trying to top it up with permanent dyes. Adore will cause no damage so won't make the fading problem worse and won't damage your hair. If you keep using permanent dyes it'll get very damaged and eventually your hair will find it hard to hold colour at all.

It's what's called a direct dye. They can be known as semi permanent, yes, but direct dye is more correct. Semi permanent can be used to mean a dye that uses peroxide and that's exactly what you need to avoid as you don't want to cause more damage to your bleached hair. Direct dyes use no developer at all and so don't do any damage.

I still don't really know what to do. I understand what you are saying about the permanent dye damaging my hair, but I don't have the time or money to re-dye it with semi permanent dye all the time. I'm very upset about what the hair stylist did to my hair and I feel like there is no way to get it all one color without cutting off the light part and I'm not willing to do that, seeing as I have really long hair and she put the blonde all the way up to my scalp. If I use the same color twice on the blonde part, will it darken more? Or would I have to dye my whole head a darker color than I did a week or so ago?

Sorry to hear about your salon experience.  I just wanted to say the direct dyes like Adore (and you can find other brands At Sally's) do last longer than you might think.  For me, especially with processed hair, the colour soaks in and almost seems permanent.  I let them sit on my hair longer than the 30 minutes they recommend with a plastic cap.  I think just give it a try for now and get your hair back to one colour and see how you feel about it then.  I wouldn't use any more permanent dye right now, you could do some serious damage at this point!  If you keep putting permanent colour on those highlighted pieces they could very well melt right off, it happened to me a few years back.

You can find a direct dye similar to your natural colour and just put it directly on the blonde pieces and let it sit a while before washing it out, it won't hurt anything. Honestly I think you'll be surprised at how well it works. 

By the way, even Superdrug carries a type of direct dye, called Colour Effects that comes in small bottles.  It's probably not as effective as Adore or Sally's products but they are inexpensive and Superdrug often has offers on them.

I think kpboo9 is in th US by the spelling of color rather than colour 🙂

As Stingle says, direct dyes last a lot longer than you're imagining. When topping up the dye you'll only need a small amount and just where it's faded. The first time you use it, put it all over and then leave it for as long as you can. I will put these dyes on my hair at night, put on a shower cap and a beanie and sleep in it then wash it out in the morning. It kind of takes less time that way. Then when topping up, put it on the faded areas, just put it on the faded parts and go an do something else for a while. It's just like doing a conditioning treatment really! You can just rub it into the faded areas on hair that has been shampooed only and towel dried well.

There's ways of making it last even longer and when I follow these my hair dyes are as good as permanent because they barely fade at all and you can really tell when the colours I use fade!  Here's a thread about it http://www.hairdyeforum.com/index.php/topic,11009.0.html

If you use the permanent dye twice on the same hair, it might darken it more. It might go very dark. Damaged hair gets very porous and can really grab colour. It might not hold the colour at all. Damaged hair can get very porous meaning it won't grab colour! It's strange and unpredictable and each time you use the dye it gets worse. It also will mean it's more and more unlikely you'll get an even colour each time and more and more likely you'll damage your hair so much you'll have to cut it off. If you want to save your hair you have to treat it well now. It might be the salons fault (and that is bizarre, some places have a very weird idea of what ombré is) but now you have to live with it and do the best and kindest thing for your hair.

Semi permanent direct dyes really can last as long or even longer than permanent dyes, we're talking weeks or even months.  They're non-damaging and not expensive.  You can even mix them to make your perfect shade and dilute with conditioner to make application easier and/or prevent rub-off from highly pigmented dyes.

Like Janine, I sometimes sleep on hairdye and rinse off in the morning.  Or else I choose a day when I'm not going out (or can get away with wearing a hat) and have dye on my hair all day, rinsing off before bedtime.

Just for reference, I sometimes use the Superdrug Colour Effects and (other than the blonde) they are not suitable for use over a light base colour, they make my roots quite red/ginger but give a lovely mahogany sheen where my hair is dyed brown- just in case anybody reading in future thinks they are a good substitute for Adore, they are a good product but they are more for adding a sheen over the appropriate base colour.

Kpboo9, I dyed my hair brown from bleached/ faded red last year and found that permanent dye faded really fast as the bleached hair was porous and damaged so I use Adore dyes to keep the colour refreshed. They are easy to apply, non-damaging and last quite well. You could keep dying the lengths of your hair with a permanent dye but it would keep fading out, and more quickly each time because the peroxide would make the hair more and more porous and eventually this would cause noticeable damage.

The short answer is, no, there isn't a way to dye it once and be done with as it will always fade where it was bleached so this would be the kindest way to keep it looking fresh.

Just wanted to mention the little bottles of Superdrug colour have changed!  Since I wrote my previous post I picked some up recently for the first time in years and noticed it's changed from a conditioning colour to a colour shampoo!  I used to be able to use these in a pinch but they absolutely do not work for any sort of coverage.    And as I was trying to rinse out the colour it got extremely lathery because it's a shampoo. I used it several times hoping to build up some colour and left it on longer but just ended up with dry hair with an orange tinge.  Yuk. 
I don't have any Adore left and can't wait so using some Clairol Colour enhancer non-permanent at the moment.  The colour selection isn't too exciting but hopefully won't be orange after this. 

Yes, you're right - I do remember when they had a creamier formula and stronger colour to the Superdrug wash in wash outs, they really are just orangey coloured shampoos now!