Ooooh, I’d look just like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s!
. . . Well, okay, I’d look like Divine in Hairspray. But still . . .
Totally. Disgusted. With. My. Hair. Brenda at work sent me to her colorist, who looked art my hair’s condition, color and texture (and I told her what had already been done to it), and said, “I am not going to do a double-process lightening on your hair—it would ruin it, and it would look like hell.” All she’ll do is highlights. “Oh, I can take you light as you want go with highlights,” she says, but since my base color is now brown, I don’t want stripes. So I have an app’t. on the 3rd to see what she can do. I hate it when people are too knowledgeable and professional to ruin your hair like you want!
Well, if you can take a quick trip, I’d be HAPPY to do a double process on your hair…
Al - ruining her friends’ and families’ hair since 1987! 
I am so mad at my old colorist and so depressed. Alice, is your slogan “If you got a head, we can fuck it up?”
Once in college I tried to hi-light my own hair and ended up with a HIDEOUS color. So I went back to the store and bought a plain brown dye that was close to my real color.
I then called a beauty shop, and told them I wanted in for a hi-light. I just didn’t tell them I’d been dyed twice in the past two days.
My hair actually turned out great, too. No problems at all.
Can you try that? I don’t think it harms your hair to go darker. Just dye it back to a little darker, and then go in to a totally new place to get the lightened job you want so badly!
Hope this advice helps you!
(Oh yeah, I am not a beauty proffesional. So take my advice for what it is. :))
Nah—basically she said, “it will ruin your hair, and you still won’t get the the color you want.” I guess I will have to resign myself to “shit-brown with highlights.”
Eve- speaking as someone with shit-brown, dank-ass-nasty boring brown hair, let me assure you that highlights can be a miracle cure.
As long as you have someone good doing them, and it sounds like you finally do, they won’t look like stripes. They can do several different colors (of blonde), it layers through your hair, it gives you lift, body, and voluptuous definition! OK, maybe not so much the voluptuous - but I actually prefer highlights to a dye job, because you get less of a demarcation line when the new hair is growing in.
<snort> It is now!
I should get a sign made…
Brenda at work suggested I go for the shade she refers to as “When-You’ve-Got a-Moustache Blonde.” I think Sarah Jessica Parker wears that in the current season . . .
you have given up on “lucy, you have some 'splaining” red?
Now, I’m thinking maybe I should write the whole misadventure off as a loss and go back to my original dark brown. I think I’ll ask Colorist lady.
OK, question for all you Suicide Brunettes: If I want to go back to my original dark brown and cause as little additional damage to my hair as possible, what should I use? I know that my hair in its current condition (dyed and dyed again) will take a dark dye even darker—so if I use “dark brown” it would probably come out black, right?
Anyone know of a good, non-harmful dye I might use? A non-ammonia and/or “natural” one? You think “medium brown?”
Weren’t you talking about going red with coppery and/or butterscotch highlights? I thought that sounded nice. Of course, that’s what I do, so I may be a little biased. 
I also vote for highlights. If done right (which usually means you pay a s**t load of money), it can look as natural or unnatural as you want it to.
What do you say we all get together for a Girl’s Night at someone’s house and do each other’s hair and nails? We can wear baby doll pajamas and lip sync to our favorite songs using our hair brushes as microphones. I don’t think I’m convenient to anyone, but we could use my house.
Clueless Guy checking in just so all you ladies can feel superior in your knowledge. How long is this bad dye job going to last? Can’t you just wait for it to fade? Whenever my daughter tries to dye her medium-brown hair red, it lasts about two minutes. Same thing with curling it. She’ll spend the whole day in curlers, take them out, and before she’s even out the door, her hair’s straight as a ruler.
Well, y’see, this is the problem: my real color is dark brown. My current color is medium baby-shit brown. If I get highlights, I will still get dark-brown roots in about six weeks, and then what do I do? I think my only option is to say, “oh the hell with it,” and go back to my natural color, and maybe get a nose job or lipo to cheer myself up.
I wanna come to come to Girl’s Night! But - hair gets done by professionals. We can do manicures and pedicures, and even bleach our mustaches (er-upper lips) if we want, but serious hair issues require serious money be spent at serious salons on serious professionals.
One miracle product I’ve found, when I’ve overdone what my already dry hair can tolerate, is Avocado Butter Hair Treatment from Burt’s Bees. It works great and smells fantastic (kind of like rosemary and citrus).
Hmmm, thanks. I bought some Garnier Nutrisse in Medium Natural Brown (I couldn’t find any non-ammonia colors that were close to what I needed). I figure “Medium Brown” should turn “Dark Brown” on my already-dyed hair, which is what I want. How to do a strip-test, though, as the wet strip of hair will always look darker?
After you die and rinse the strip … let it dry. 
When I was dying my hair (lt bwn/dk blnd died to red), I was very, very happy with Feria.
This summer I haven’t been outside, and am totally missing my natural incredibly almost white blond highlights, so I bought some cheap dye (the kind that comes with ColorFast Conditioner), and boy do I regret it. No shimmer, no variation in tone, blech.
The biggest problem with dying over a dye job – from experience and from the package insert when I got mad enough to re-read it – is that your hair gets very dull, split ends come out of nowhere until it is mostly grown out, even with regular trims, and even for those who rarely need conditioner, all of a sudden Pantene can barely do the job. Also, it makes your (my) scalp itch.
Oh, goddam. I read this, and it looks like I’m going to have to wait till the 3rd and have Brenda’s colorist fix my hair professionally. Otherwise I’ll wind up looking like a fuzz-headed Ken doll.
Gotta spend the next week with hair the color of a breastfed baby’s poop.
You could always shave it all off, slap on a wig and then start over when it grows out 