That’s what I thought earlier this year when I wanted to become a blonde. Alas, the professional hairdresser made me look like a zebra. You know it’s bad when they say: “Well, maybe you can come back tomorrow and we’ll fix it? You don’t have to pay today.” Of course, I never went back and luckily, another hairdresser was able to fix it.
With home dyes, I only had experienced problems with dyes containing red. My hair just seems to like the red a lot.
I"m with the “don’t fuck with the color” crowd. I refuse to do my own hair…it’s always worth it to have someone to be pissed at when it goes awry. Cough up the cash and hire someone!
I’ve dyed my own hair, and had friends dye it for me. It’s always worked okay- but then, I was deliberately dyeing in purple and blue. And my hair’s so dark all I get are highlights.
I think purple is fetching and attractive.
I color my own hair, but I stick to something close to what I think my real color would be if I still let it grow in enough to see any real color mixed with the gray, if you know what I mean.
But I’ve definitely been on the SDMB too long. When AngelicGemma said,
I read it as “felching.”
Oops. :eek:
Bears emphasis and repeating - Prell Is Your Friend!!
Well, a couple of shampoos later (I haven’t got out to get Prell yet, but I will look for it later today), most of the burgundy has come out and my hair has pretty much settled down to black cherry, I guess you could call it. I’m getting compliments on it at work, so I guess it isn’t as bad as I thought. Just that first moment of taking the towel off my head and AAAAAAAHHHHH! HOLY CRAP THAT’S BRIGHT!!!
I use Natural Instincts Caribbean Mahogany sometimes on my hair. It’s purple the first two days, but fades to a beautiful red. Give it a couple of days - it’ll settle down.
Don’t wear a hat in the meantime, though, unless you mind getting it all red. Hard lesson learned with my favorite college alumni hat.
Maybe they meant to say aubergine rather than auburn.
Words to live by. Can I quote you on that? 
I had that the first time I dyed my hair. But I still liked it. I’ve had complete strangers come up to me and say they love my hair colour, is it natural? and if not what do I use?
My mother attend vocational tech (aka “beauty school”). This, combined with a summer spent as a receptionist at a very well-to-do “exclusive” salon (aka - celebrity clientele), has kind of turned me into a psuedo-expert on any sort of beauty product/method/system you can think of.
What dupes a lot of people with do it yourself dye-ing is that the color on the box is the result you will achieve with hair that is already the same tone (same lightness/darkness). Common sense would tell anybody “Ok, I have white blonde hair. If I dye it a dark red-brown, it will come out a dark red-brown, because the dark dye will just cover up all the light tones.”
Wrong. You will end up a pumpkin head.
There’s a shade chart on the box usually - they can be a godsend. And those purpley-red-black hues are a pain by nature, anyway. Next time, just remember that if your hair is lighter than the color on the box, it’s going to come out more intense than you planned.
And tip - to get out a lot of the color quickly, use white vinegar in the shower. You’ll smell like a rotten hero sandwich, but it’ll really dull down the “eeeeek!” factor.
You sure can, Dragonblink.
I think my error here was forgetting about the previously dyed hair. I’m used to my kinda unspoiled dark brown hair that usually laughs at attempts to dye it.
But what do you do when the “professional” hoses it up? I went to Mastercuts (because I was new in town and hadn’t-and still haven’t-found a salon I want to stick to) for a touchup. My hair was originally a lovely mahogany, now fading to a hideous khaki, so I’ve been coloring it back to its original color. I went in for a touchup, and ended up with roots that were Traffic Cone Orange. I went back the next day to get it fixed, to no avail. I was stuck with a head that looked like a detour sign for a few weeks…
