Red hair colour advice!

It is a high lift dye, with very high levels of ammonia and when you add a high vol peroxide 9(2% is 40 vol, extremely strong for an on scalp application) it is a very strong product. it is designed to give lift on natural dark hair, not previously processed hair. Repeated use will cause a lot of damage, and it is not necessary to use such strong products to achieve red.

Thank you, that makes sense! Finally it is clear to me now, eeek! It's a wonder I'm not bald so! Thanks for your help. Final question - such dyes need an activator like 9% to work - they can't be applied directly on to roots without this? But the other dyes can be applied directly.....

(Then it's definitely time for bed for me, I just spotted I spelled roots as 'routes'!!!)

Oxidative dyes (permanents and demi permanents) need the peroxide (developer) to trigger the oxidation reaction.
Direct dyes(such as any of the dyes sold here) work by coating the outside of the hair, no chemical reaction involved which is why they are totally safe to use

Yes, as I said before, the direct dye as sold on beeunique are basically just conditioner with pigment. They are totally safe to use (as long as there's no allergies, so do a skin test first, you can google that, but it's less likely with these dyes than permanent anyway) and you can leave them on your hair as long as you like.

The reason the dyes the b red dyes etc are so bad is exactly what wicked pixie said. But I'll go a bit deeper. When the ammonia and peroxide lift the cuticle, what happens frequently with these high lift dyes is the cuticle gets ripped off or sometimes totally melted because they're so aggressive. It's like leaving the front door of your house open all the time, and a house full of animals, you're not going to have much left in it eventually! There's nothing stopping the broken proteins in your hair from slipping out and then you'll have very bad breakage as there's less holding your hair together. There's nothing to hold in the dye, so it starts fading really fast.

Not only that, the cuticles that have been ripped off, or even ones that won't close, end up making the hair like Velcro. You'll try and run your fingers through and it knots easily because the hair is literally catching against itself. Every time you use a dye over the same spot it's doing the same thing making the risk of completely frying your hair more likely. It can happen quite suddenly too. It might feel fine now, but as I said before, it depends on the products you use. They could be masking any damage and it's just getting worse each time.

I've only just seen the post where you asked about the difference between manic panic and b red. You must have posted that as I was answering your post just before that. But that means you at least get the concept of brightening up the colour. This way you're doing that from the start rather than using the b red all over.  And wicked pixies post above explains the difference, so I'm not going to go into that again obviously.

Ladies, thanking you kindly for your explanations and support (especially Janine!) . After dying my hair for about 12 years this is the first time I actually understand (Or feel like I do anyway!!!) I have ordered some Special FX & Adore and another one (I went a bit crazy!) but I'll have to dye my hair before they arrive so it'll be my last go of the BRed i think. I didn't realise how much damage I maay have been doing to my hair so thank you again.

I think you'll be happy that you've made the move to direct dyes, when I had bright red and I switched from permanent red dyes all over every time to just lightening my roots and topping up all over with SFX or Adore reds it improved the condition and colour of my hair no end! (and I hadn't thought it seemed damaged at the time, until it ended up tons shinier!). My hairdresser at the time used to say that she was happy to let me do my own colour as she didn't think she could get it as bright and as un-damaged with the products and techniques she knew!

lauralei, that is good to know and I'm quite excited for my dyes to arrive! I'm nervous about the bleach bath thing (but only because it's 'new' to me) and I've just looked at the step by step tutorial so I'm sure I should be fine. Need to just source some powder bleach now! Should have looked properly last night and ordered it along with my dye! (I've come across blue/white powder bleach online but unsure what the difference is or which I should get!)

It's ok that you didn't understand 🙂 a lot of people don't. I only do because I did hairdressing when I first left school, but I did it in college where we had lots of science lessons. That's not something you get so much of when you train in a salon. I left hairdressing behind after the two years, I just wasn't good at cutting and didn't enjoy it! But sadly a lot of hairdressers just have very little idea how to get bright colours. There's a few and most of them seem to have learnt through people like us!

I would suggest BlondeMe or Blondor for bleach. I normally get it on Amazon, but sometimes Sally's (UK). You can use the peroxide you have now. Though, I do want to check to see if you have a photo of your natural colour. You might be better off with a full bleach, but a much lower level peroxide if your hair is a bit darker than I'm imagining.

Even now that I have my hair brown I just use a permanent brown on the roots and freshen it up with Adore on the lengths if it needs it, so much healthier than keep battering it with chemicals all over!
I think you'll be fine with the bleach bath, you'll get to be an expert eventually! I second what Janine says about seeing your natural colour though, to get the best strategy for you! (my hair is mousey dark blonde and I only needed a bleach bath with a weak developer, but it all depends on your hair! )

Hi ladies, apology for the delay. Very busy couple of days.

Afraid I've had my hair dyed for as long as I can remember so don't have a picture of my natural colour.

Would this even be relevant considering there is so much dye built up in my hair over the years?

If it makes any difference, it's a medium brown I would say, darker underneath & lighter around my face. Hair is quite thick also, if that bears any relevance!

Thanks for all the advice.

It is relevant if you want to find the least damaging way to do your roots

We only need to see the roots, which you can take a photo of as they come through.

But as wicked pixie says, yes, it's very relevant as we're trying to work out the best way to do your roots. The rest of the hair has little relevance at this point! The roots are the only important bit in working out how much oomph the lightening process needs to have.