Hi everyone. Not been on for a long time, although been merrily colouring my hair all along! I've been pink, blonde, red, half red half blue, purple, all blue, and finally I've decided to head to black. That's where my problem comes in.
I had badly faded Directions Atlantic Blue (which had been applied over faded Directions Plum - so pretty much the same colour!). The more damaged ends (which are due to be trimmed!) were a lovely bright blue shade - the rest was just sludgy faded greenish blue colour (almost heading to a grey in places). What I wanted to do was mostly black (a deep shiny black) but with a handful of stripes that I'd left with colour. I used Adore Velvet Black, and the stripes I put some left over Virgin Rose on. For the stripes I was expecting a sort of purple effect rather than pink as it was over the blue base, but I wasn't too worried about that at this stage - I was expecting to work on developing the brighter colour bits over the next couple of dying processes.
(For the record, although not specifically part of this question - the VR didn't work at all - all I've got is sludgy coloured stripes still with bright blue tips. Fortunately it doesn't look too bad so I'm ignoring that for now!)
What I wasn't expecting was the 'black' really not being black. It's just gone a sort of sludgy greeny / blue colour. It's darker than it was before, but definitely not that dramatic black I was looking for. No-one at work has even noticed I've coloured it again...
One of my reasons for black was to give my hair a break from bleaching. It's still in OK condition (apart from the tips but that's OK) - I've been careful with v diluted bleach baths over the last couple of years and never more than once every 8 weeks - so it's not that I'm specifically worried about it - I just kind of want to give it a break for a bit. But do I need to be more aggressive with the black to get it shiny and dramatic? Are there other brands of black that would work better? (I did read reviews so deliberately avoided the Directions Ebony to avoid green fade).
Any advice welcome - I'm hoping I've given enough info for this to make sense!
*thx*
Posted : May 20, 2015 6:21 am
When going back to natural colours from unnatural over a bleached base, I always neutralise and fill with the opposite colour first. So if you put the opposite of blue/green, which will be a red/orange (you can do it with photo editing to get the exact shade needed for your hair) on first, you should then get a blacker black.
However, as your Virgin Rose also didn't take I do wonder if you had some build up of silicones or product on your hair?
Do a clarifying shampoo, no conditioner, before the application of more dye.
Posted : May 20, 2015 2:40 pm
Yeah I kind of assumed that black covers everything so just slapped it on rather than thinking about tones. I should know better really... *gun*
I don't use SLS or cones any more, or styling products, but did clarify 1st before colouring.
And to be fair with the VR it was quite old - given the issues with getting it I'd hoarded the dregs of the bottles I had about a year ago & diluted with conditioner so suspect that had more to do with it.
Although I'll be honest today I saw someone with some awesome bright red hair (think it may have been something like Poppy Red or that sort of tone) which got me thinking I may use Katie's oil & bleach technique then go for that instead. The black was more because I simply couldn't think what to go for & was getting bored with blue! Not done a full head of bright red for quite a long time - I've been burgundy / purple / pink based reds where I've used them for quite a while.
Time for a rethink... 😀
Posted : May 20, 2015 2:48 pm
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