Apologies in advance for the long post... I'm in desperate need of some help :'( :'( :'(
I've spent the last year trying to get grey sections in my hair.. I have been going to the salon to get large sections of my hair bleached gradually. I did this as I was hoping to avoid damage...
I thought yesterday would be the last session needed to get an even, light blonde. On a previous salon visit, the toner my hairdresser used left my hair with a green tinge. I asked if she could use a more violet based toner, hoping it would leave the blonde silvery. I have a feeling she misunderstood what I wanted.
To cut a long story short, the hairdresser re-bleached all the blonde sections then put a 'pastel purple' on.. only it wasn't pastel AT ALL... it was bright purple. To make matters worse, she had bleached even the almost white areas, which have now been fried... the last 2 inches of my hair.
I said it wasn't what I was expecting and that I couldn't go to work with purple hair. She advised me to wash it as normal for a week and that it would fade to a silvery blonde, and that if the worst came to the worst, she could bleach bath it.
I came home and washed it in dandruff shampoo, as I read that could fade colour. It went BLUE :'(
I then tried the following:
Vitamin c treatment x2
dish soap and bicarb
hot water and head and shoulders
It's faded somewhat, but it is still completely turquoise/blue.
I then strand tested colour b4, hot water and bleach powder (different strand!!) and as a last resort, a bleach bath. None of these three made ANY difference to the strands I tried them on.
I am not confident that going back to the salon for a bleach bath will help at all. I don't have the money for a professional colour correction (and I'm not even sure they could correct it). I can't go to work with blue hair. I have come to the conclusion that I'll have to dye over the whole lot with a brown type colour, which I am gutted about after so long of trying to get the blonde I needed to go grey. I could just cry.
It's so damaged that I don't know what to do for the best. Should I get a box dye? If so, what tone of brown do I need to go over faded blue/turquoise? Red tones I'm presuming? It was only bleached yesterday, so how damaging will this be?
Is there any other option to avoid further processing :'(
Thank you
Do not get a box dye. It's just fry the bleached bits even more.
You just need an orange dye to, for the time being, tone the blue. so a brand like manic panic or directions. You can mix this with a cheap white conditioner to make a toner that won't add damage but will help to make the blue a dark blonde/brown. It should fade gradually and then you can hopefully start toning with pink as it goes greener underneath and eventually find a way to tone to grey. If you can provide a picture though, we can see if it is orange you need now or pink, or something between even!
It's likely she did use a purple toner. The problem is, with hair that's been heavily bleached it will grab the colour and it'll come out brighter purple.
I've ordered some directions in mandarin... thought red/orange looked like it was opposite my current colour on the colour wheel.
I've also ordered some adore in mocha.
Will this be ok to use instead of a box dye?
Adore dyes are much much better for your hair than box dyes, it sounds like your on the right track with your hair by toning the turquoise/blue color with orange, and hopefully that will get you to a color that you can still go to work with. Good luck!