What colors are these?

Yeah it was me who mentioned Colour B4, when I thought you were in the UK! You do want Colour Fix if you're in the US I just couldn't think of the name of it an didn't want to get it wrong as the other one is damaging!

Well I can order the colour b4 on Amazon if it's better than color fix? Do you think I should or I should just get what's here already?

Yeah it was me who mentioned Colour B4, when I thought you were in the UK! You do want Colour Fix if you're in the US I just couldn't think of the name of it an didn't want to get it wrong as the other one is damaging!

I get it now You explained it a little easier I think, I totally get that the bottom areas that have been backed won't go back to my natural color, that's just what I was afraid of exactly what you mentioned that my roots would be dark than orange than yellow.. My ends actually lighten up past yellow I think so maybe they might be lighter..

I get what your both saying about the lilac situation and that the hair needs to be lighter so we'll see.

In regards to those dyes since you said usually last 4 washes or around there or a month I'd have to keep redoing it everyone it washes out correct? Yes I completely agree that I wouldn't want to put the lilac over anything with orange in it.. I just want to get rid of it all haha.. I will do the color remover and get back to you guys! Thanks so much for the help! 

Thanks for your input Janine, particularly with the US brand of colour remover, I can never remember which one is the good one!

Just to chime in and try to explain the colour remover a slightly different way; colour remover won't do anything to your natural colour on your roots, on the parts of your hair that have been dyed it will remove tint and toner (so the parts of the dye that make the colour) but permanent dyes also lighten your hair, and if they have only lightened partially it will most likely be orange or yellow once the tint or toner is gone. There is nothing that can restore your natural colour to hair that has been colour-treated with anything that lightens. It is likely you will be left with natural roots, orange mid lengths and yellow/ blonde ends.

The dyes that don't use developer are the ones that the users of this site mainly use, things like Directions, Adore, Special Effects and Manic Panic. They come in one bottle and you don't mix them with anything. They are temporary dyes and generally last anything from 4 washes to a month depending on the colour you choose and the condition of your hair. They are generally used over prelightened hair and they are a true colour but are not opaque so the colour of your base will determine the colour you end up with.

This is why for lilac, which is a cool-toned colour you need hair that doesn't have orange to show through and make the lilac look brown! So even for a dark lilac you would need light blonde hair (not for the lightness but for the absence of orange and yellow tones) then you would use a darker lilac dye. As Janine says though you could do a deeper/ warmer purple without going lighter.

The rose gold would be easier for you to do than lilac over a warmer (more orangey ) base as it is a warm colour in itself, and you could acheive it with direct dyes (the ones such as Adore, Directions etc) as they can be combined and mixed together really easily to create custom colours or even diluted with conditioner to be made less opaque and lighter. I'm not sure what mix you'd use though, have a look at the 'Show off your hair' photos on here and see if there is anyone else who has done it.

As Janine says, use the colour remover then let us see the outcome of that as there's no real way of us knowing how that will turn out until you do it so we can't advise further yet!

Yes I don't know which is better I'm gonna watch some vids I guess and see.. I can order the color b4 online but I'm Impatient so maybe ill go get the one you mentioned.. Yes haha I do the same with color and colour

Hopefully I'll get around to doing it today and get back to you guys

There's less in the Us than the UK, for some reason. We usually have less products for various reasons (EU regs, smaller market in general etc) so it's weird.

Don't use color oops though, it's color fix you want! Color oops is damaging. If colour B4 is better than color fix, I don't know. Colour B4 is definitely better than color oops though, just for the fact color oops is damaging.

Use Color Fix.

It's so weird how natural typing US color and UK colour is to me now...

Moderator combined posts

Just get the Color Fix. Seriously, it's not worth the extra money to get something imported that's probably virtually the same. If it's better, it's not going to be THAT much better and you're likely to need more than one. It can get very expensive.

In regards to those dyes since you said usually last 4 washes or around there or a month I'd have to keep redoing it everyone it washes out correct?

You can keep topping it up before it's gone completely. There's a lot of great ways of slowing the fade. The lighter the colour though, the quicker the fade.

Here's a thread with lots of hints to make colour last longer. http://www.hairdyeforum.com/index.php/topic,11009.0.html

I didn't mean that colour B4 was better, I just meant that if you are in the UK that is the brand you can get, just use the one you can get where you live, they're basically the same product!

You do need to keep topping up direct dyes yes, but if you are using a dark coloured permanent dye over bleach it will fade dramatically anyway, like I say, my hair has a permanent dark mahogany brown over natural light ash brown at the top and over bleach at the bottom and the bottom part fades to a very light honey blonde and repeatedly using permanent dyes just causes more damage and makes the dye last less and less time so I now top up over the permanent dye with Adore or a similar direct dye every couple of weeks to keep it looking fresh.

I should add that I only used the permanent brown dye over mine as I have never wanted blonde or light coloured hair, the bleach was only to allow me to achieve a brighter red so I wasn't worried about ever having to remove or fade the brown dye back to blonde, I wouldn't advise you to use a dark permanent dye as your base if you decide on one of the darker colours as if you then want to go back to something like a lilac you'll have a huge job on your hands!

Well it was on Amazon for not that expensive so that's why i thought but I'll get get the one you said. thank you!

By the way how do you respond without doing the quote thing. Sorry beginner here haha

Just get the Color Fix. Seriously, it's not worth the extra money to get something imported that's probably virtually the same. If it's better, it's not going to be THAT much better and you're likely to need more than one. It can get very expensive.

In regards to those dyes since you said usually last 4 washes or around there or a month I'd have to keep redoing it everyone it washes out correct?

You can keep topping it up before it's gone completely. There's a lot of great ways of slowing the fade. The lighter the colour though, the quicker the fade.

Here's a thread with lots of hints to make colour last longer. http://www.hairdyeforum.com/index.php/topic,11009.0.html

Yes I'm going to just get the one here.
Yes I understand what you mean about putting permenant color on top of each other I want my base a light ash brown or even a dark blond so that if I decide to go light or darker I can use one of those dyes you suggested and that way I won't permenantly have a dark base color that like you mentioned will be harder to go light from
I'll let you guys know what happens when I do the remover

I didn't mean that colour B4 was better, I just meant that if you are in the UK that is the brand you can get, just use the one you can get where you live, they're basically the same product!

You do need to keep topping up direct dyes yes, but if you are using a dark coloured permanent dye over bleach it will fade dramatically anyway, like I say, my hair has a permanent dark mahogany brown over natural light ash brown at the top and over bleach at the bottom and the bottom part fades to a very light honey blonde and repeatedly using permanent dyes just causes more damage and makes the dye last less and less time so I now top up over the permanent dye with Adore or a similar direct dye every couple of weeks to keep it looking fresh.

I should add that I only used the permanent brown dye over mine as I have never wanted blonde or light coloured hair, the bleach was only to allow me to achieve a brighter red so I wasn't worried about ever having to remove or fade the brown dye back to blonde, I wouldn't advise you to use a dark permanent dye as your base if you decide on one of the darker colours as if you then want to go back to something like a lilac you'll have a huge job on your hands!

To reply without quoting, scroll down a little further than the last post and you'll see both a reply button and a quick reply box 🙂 You can use either.

Edited to add screen capture. Reply options are circled (poorly) in red!

Got it thanks!

Hi I'm back,  sorry forgot how to do the reply thing again I don't see it right now haha... so I finally have time to do my hair.. I was at ulta and ended up talking to one of the hairstylists and apparently she used to have her own salon so she basically told me not to use a colour remover because there's no point. Since the dye is only in the band area.  The rest bottom is bleached and top grown out roots is virgin.. she told me to just basically bleach everything and than do whatever color I wanted after.

So I bought bleach, a medium blonde color and medium brown in case I mess it up. 20 volume developer, and wella t18 toner in case I need to use it...

I've decided not to do the crazy colors cuz it's too much like maintenance, so I'm going to attach some pics of what I want now. Something along those lines. I just don't know how long to leave the bleach on each section etc and the process you know so what should I do next?  Just bleach my whole head than go over with color or bleach the dark parts a little lighter and tone? I want like a medium/light brown base and the blonde for rest of hair..as I mentioned my roots now are dark dark brown and there's that band of old brown color right below that..
I just want whatever is more like fall looking!!
What should i doooo!  ???

[ *ott*quote author=lauralei13 link=topic=16768.msg175550#msg175550 date=1473930321]
I didn't mean that colour B4 was better, I just meant that if you are in the UK that is the brand you can get, just use the one you can get where you live, they're basically the same product!

You do need to keep topping up direct dyes yes, but if you are using a dark coloured permanent dye over bleach it will fade dramatically anyway, like I say, my hair has a permanent dark mahogany brown over natural light ash brown at the top and over bleach at the bottom and the bottom part fades to a very light honey blonde and repeatedly using permanent dyes just causes more damage and makes the dye last less and less time so I now top up over the permanent dye with Adore or a similar direct dye every couple of weeks to keep it looking fresh.

I should add that I only used the permanent brown dye over mine as I have never wanted blonde or light coloured hair, the bleach was only to allow me to achieve a brighter red so I wasn't worried about ever having to remove or fade the brown dye back to blonde, I wouldn't advise you to use a dark permanent dye as your base if you decide on one of the darker colours as if you then want to go back to something like a lilac you'll have a huge job on your hands!

There's absolutely no way we'll be able to tell you how long you need to leave the bleach on etc, that will totally depend on how your hair reacts to bleaching, you need to do a strand test and see how well it takes.

Personally I would still remove the old brown dye, so that I could see exactly what I was working with but if you are confident that you prefer to go ahead and try to bleach it out then that's up to you! You may be better asking the lady you spoke to at Ulta for advice on how to proceed if you are going ahead with just bleaching though, if you are half following her advice you would be better getting the whole process from her, we don't know exactly what she told you, and she has the advantage of seeing your hair.

(to reply without quoting you just scroll down and there is a box to type into)

Oh got it, it wasn't showing up on my phone thank you!.. well the reason I asked because I don't know who to listen to that's why I'm getting advice from you guys also..

She basically told me to bleach that middle brown part till it looks like the bottom area, than go over the bottom if I wanted or I could just tone it and than do roots, till they get as light as I want..

In regards to the color, the pictures I added, would I be able to get the color from just bleaching and toning or do I have to buy a color to use after the bleach? I bought  medium brown and a medium blonde.

Also in regards to bleaching what's the safest way to do it.. do you sugges the putting coconut oil before thing? And if so how exactly do you do that? Just put it on than let it dry than bleach, Or another way?

Sorry for all the question this is just my first time doing like a big change so wanna be 1000% sure before

Also I just remembered you said the rose gold would be easier than lilac.. what would I need to use for the rose gold..

Can you let me know the formula for the very first lilac balayage one that's dark on top and fades to the lilac it was describes as smokey lilac. I understand I need to bleach my hair really light first for that.. 

Or the pics I attached last with the brown/blonde ones

Whichever one ends up being the easiest for me I'll do.. also in regards to the first lilac one and the rose gold do you think they'd look good on tan skin.im notmally like light olive skin a bit pale now cuz I haventbeen in sun but I'm still like a light tan color.

I know how to do it just can't figure out the colors so I appreciate your help sooo much!  😀

Yeah I don't think you need such a light base for rose gold, as it has warm tones in it anyway, for lilac you need very light blonde.

The best way to tell if you suit the colours is to hold up an item of clothing to your face in the colour you wan't to check and see if it makes things like dark circles or redness look more noticeable. In my opinion I think you'd be fine with either colour, but just make sure as I don't know if you have anything like dark circles or whatever (I can't do lilac, it gives me really bad shadows under my eyes!).

It's really hard to say what you would need to do to achieve the colours; as we keep saying, try the colour remover, see whether you have any staining, see how much you can get it to lighten nicely and then decide what to do from there!

Sorry, I can't advise about the coconut oil as I have an allergy to it so don't use it!

The best advice I can give at this point is to read through the bleaching and lightening section, there are loads of posts there about coconut oil and bleaching methods that will really help.

I would do the color remover too, because the less time you leave the bleach on the better! Just think of it this way, you use the color remover and it removes all the old brown and your left with orangy hair (this is what happened for me) well now your bleach only has to set on for 1/2 the time, so its still completely worth it, I removed all the auburn from my hair with just 1 round of color remover and got to a light orangy color and only bleached for 30 minutes, whereas if I just slapped bleach on I could've sat there for 90 minutes waiting for the bleach to do the same thing!

As for the actual bleaching process, I coat my hair in coconut oil the night before and sleep with my hair in an old t-shirt then the next day all a little more coconut oil on my hairbrush and brush my hair so its evenly coated then apply your bleach. Since you have 3 distinct sections that need bleach I would do a strand test on each one so that you get your timing down right.

yes I understand. That's what I thought also that the  rose gold would be easier. But I really love the Lilac one so I don't mind making the ends really light for that..

Ok I'm going to do the remover today and get back to you maybe from there it'll be easier to tell the colors I would need..

Unfourtunatly I don't have anything those colors so i can't do that. For the rose gold whenever I've worn rose gold jewelry it looked good but was maybe a little like blended in with my skin tone if that makes sense. But that was when I was more tan like I said I'm a bit paler now. I have nothing that's the lilac color :/ I do have dark circles in trying to get rid of them now, just even out my skin tone so I know what you mean. I think though since the top will still be somewhat dark it should be ok.

Ahhh ok thank you for the coconut oil tip, I wasn't sure how to use it. Yes you guys are both right I'll just do the remover because that makes sense the less the bleach is on the better...

I bought the prism lites bleach from Sally's, but I read people said the one called blond brilliance is better do you guys have any clue about that one.. or if  the prism one is just fine to use.. I also read the matrix light master one was good and wella blondor I can order those online but I'm scared to off Amazon since I can't tell if there legit. Are there any U.K. Websites we can order these from because I'm the US you can only order if your cosmo, and what brand would you recommend.
I'd added a pic of my skin tone right now in just natural light

Hi guys so I did the color remover.. I used the color oops I couldn't anything else. It was the extra strength one. I will add some picks of the after.. it just basically lightened the little brown area a bit so now it's the dark the brown and some random yellow peices, you can see in the pics.. I also bought the one called color prep but didn't use it.. should I do it again, with the color prep?

The last pic is just how dark my roots are incase it matters for the other color I wanna do.