Help with dark purple hair

A direct dye (like the arctic fox or Manic Panic) will take over the caramel colour but it will fade easily on your natural colour at the top, but if you don't mind having a dark to purple ombre I think it would look pretty nice!

As for box dyes, I haven't tried any permanent purples but I used to use the Feria mango coloured one but found it faded super fast! If you do go for a permanent purple I'd recommend keeping a bottle of a direct dye in as well to top it up with! One option if you do want the purple all over is to use the box dye all over this first time then in future just do your roots with it as they come through and refresh the rest with direct dye.

Alternatively if you like to change your colour a lot you could pre-lighten your roots a little with a bleach bath then just use a direct dye all over (that's what most people on here do).

I find direct dyes tend to be 'truer' colours than box dyes which mostly seem to have red or brown undertones, also with direct dyes you can mix them to make the exact colour you want.

Thank you so much for your reply.

I really don't mind a dark ombré but I would actually like it more black than brown for the top. That's would I was thinking of just box dying and letting it fade and than applying the manic panic. I did a strand test of manic panic purple haze and the blonde ombré was purple but my brown stayed the same. I was also recommended that SE deep purple would help cover the top better but can't seem to find it by me. Only can find pimpin purple.

I wonder if I dyed my hair black or really dark brown and applied a purple/plum glaze if that would work. I'm new to this whole hair dying thing as you can tell.

At Sally's the girl recommended I tone my blonde down so it wouldn't look red but when I did a stand test it looked purple to me. So I prob wouldn't go that route.

Thank you.

I probably wouldn't go as far as dying it black and putting the purple over as I don't think it would show up, but I have a mid brown (level 5 permanent dye) on mine and it looks pretty nice and rich deep purple whenever I put a purple direct dye over it.

I don't think you'd need to tone your blonde as purple counteracts brassiness anyway, if your blonde has a lot of orange tones maybe you could use a more blue based purple (you could always mix a blue into a purple anyway!).

I've not used Deep Purple but I find SE is well worth ordering online as it is generally really well pigmented.

I ended up dying it manic panic purple haze. Top came a lil darker and bottom is purple. Kind of ombré. Overall I like the look just feel like next time I need to massage it in better. Is it ok to use special effects next time around when the color starts to fade? Or stick with manic panic? And do you think one bottle would be enough? Thanks!

I've never used Manic Panic, I tend to go for Special Effects, Directions or Adore personally. Special Effects tend to be highly pigmented and long lasting, directions are fairly long lasting too and aren't too expensive, and Adore is easy to get a nice even coverage with as it's more liquid, and it's also not very expensive (though some people find it hard to apply due to it being quite runny, and I don't find it as long lasting as say SE). It's hard to say whether one bottle will do as it depends on the thickness of your hair and how porous it is! I used to get 3 full applications out of a bottle of SE but my hair was only chin length and thin then.
Remember for the best effects use it on clean hair that hasn't been conditioned, and fully saturate the hair with the dye!

Thanks! I just ordered some sp and can't wait to try it! I appericate all the help. I also read it's ok to add some dye to conditioner, I may try that as well.

Yes, you can mix some dye into your conditioner and use it each time you wash your hair (or once a week or whatever). And Direct dyes can be mixed with each other to make new colours too, and diluted with conditioner to make them lighter coloured (just remember that they are translucent so they won't show up if you make them lighter than the base colour!. Hope you have fun with your new purples, don't forget to show us the results!