Dyeing to hear your hair coloring story

In My Humble Opinion
1

So finally I am paying a professional to color my hair. About 7 weeks ago I got my first dye job. He used Aveda product, which he said was plant-based and had less of a chemical effect. I loved it, but after about 2 weeks it began to fade. Mind you, this was permanent color. I did everything he told me to - used the color conserve shampoo, washed and rinsed in cold water, stayed out of the sun.
I went back last week, so that was exactly 6 weeks after my first appointment. He was stunned. “What happened to your color?” My hair had basically reverted to its natural color, with gray here and there. Instead of a touch up and root job, he had to re-do the whole thing. He said some hair is color-resistant, at first. He went a bit darker this time. I wonder if I need something stronger, although that doesn’t appeal to me. My hair was in fantastic shape, he said. No damage from the original coloring. I hate to think that I will have to do this every 6 weeks for the rest of my life.

Anyone have a similar story? Any hair professionals out there want to comment?
I am a natural dark blonde, and I went to red tone, if that makes any difference.

2

I just got an online coupon for a free trial of a permanent color, but the sample would come without the fixer solution, so it would wash out.

Well, it worked fine, coloring the grey and leaving all those original “tones and highlites”.
The only problem?

It was Just-For-Men brand, so I’m too ashamed to get more at my regular store, since they would think I’d started living with my boyfriend. :wink:

3

Might as well give the site:
http://tryout.justformen.com/signup/default_website.asp?id=website

4

When I was young I dyed my hair once. My dad came over once, and I told him that I’d dyed my hair, and he freaked. “Oh my god, nobody will hire you, they’ll think you’re not a team player, etc., etc…” Um, I dyed it black! My regular hair is dark enough brown that you didn’t even notice! Hello?

I’ve recently had it professionally done for the first time, and it looks very nice; the fellow gave me some bleached highlights that are sort of reddish-gold, so it finally goes with my beard. I just thought the process was so surreal – he put this really tight shower cap with holes in it on my head, and then pulled little tufts of hair out with a needle. I looked absolutely bizarre. Then he slathered it with the bleach and baked my head for a few minutes. The process was intensely surreal but I’m very happy with it and I’ll probably get the same thing again when it comes time.

5

Greetings, coming out of lurkdom to chime in.

Ive been using the store bought dye for years. I decided to treat myself once and have a proffesional do it. The results? Meh. It was a total waste of forty bucks. The color was ok but like you said, it didnt last very long.

I went back to doing it myself. Much cheaper and the results (for me anyway) last much longer.

6

Does anyone have experience with that stuff you spray in and then lay in the sun to give slight highlights? People talk about their hair turning out orange, but I suspect that’s when brunettes try it, and it says it isn’t for dark brunettes. My hair is dirty blonde, and already prone to natural highlights. I just don’t want to have to get as much sun exposure as it needs to do it naturally.

Like this. Or that.

7

I get my hair dyed in a salon. I have super-thick hair, and got frustrated after too many times where I wouldn’t be able to get the dye through all my hair, or would miss a spot and not see it until my hair was dry - and then I’d have to go buy more. For me it’s completely worth it to spend the cash on the salon. My hair really seems to hang onto dye, too - you can see the roots clearly if I don’t go in every 6 weeks or so, plus when I tried a “temporary” hair dye in college (supposed to last 12 shampoos or so), it stuck around until it grew out.

8

In my late teens and early twenties I went on a hair coloring binge. I’ve had about every color out there other than jet black. My hair takes color really easily. It’s a medium brown in its virgin state, but it only takes a one step process to go really light.

Red was the hardest color to maintain. It faded within a few weeks. I tried the color enhancing shampoos, but they turned my hair either pink (when I was trying a more strawberry blonde color) or crayon red (when I was trying to go darker red). Auburn shades just ended brown on me after a few weeks.

I tried to do my own roots for a while. That was a disaster. I started out a light blonde, and somehow ended up Marilyn Monroe platinum after a while. That was not a good look for me! I had to get it corrected by a stylist. He didn’t want to do it and nearly made me sign a release form (or maybe he was just threatening). He did get it a nice shade. My hair was a bit dried out, but he cut it really short.

That spray in stuff is Sun In. It did nothing for me. Nothing. Didn’t turn my hair orange or have any effect at all. I’m not sure why. My hair normally lightens like crazy.

9

I have very dark brown hair with subtle natural red highlights. My sister, who has my identical hair, has used sprays like that and, meh, nothing at all. What worked for me to enhance the red highlights was to “paint” fresh lemon juice on my hair and then go outside to garden for an hour or so. Once it dries, you can rinse it out. It might take repeated applications for it to work, but at least your flowerbeds will be weed-free. :slight_smile: YMMV, since you’re blonde and not brunette.

I’d like to know if anyone’s ever used henna on their hair. What happened? Did you like it?

10

I used to dye my own hair, did so for several years. But I have long hair and I never could get it evenly applied. And after a while my hair got in really bad shape, even though I used all kinds of conditioners on it. So now I have it done in a salon…looks much better now.

Had a friend with dark blonde hair and a brunette friend who tried Sun-In and it turned orange for both of them. It does turn blonde after a while, but they both had catsick orange hair for a week or two.

I did. My hair became a very nice shade of red, but I had to pour on the conditioner like crazy afterwards. The henna really dried my hair out.

11

Ten years of fake blonde hair here (naturally mousy medium brown). I started at the end of junior high with Sun-In. It’s hard to maintain because it doesn’t spray on very evenly. You can’t see where it’s going and end up with patches.

When the Sun-In was growing out and looking weird, I tried to dye it a more natural, even honey blonde. It turned green. Actually, a grayish-green fishy color describes it best. Ewww. I cut it short and waited for the grow-out. (I was fourteen and it was the mid-nineties…no one cared.)

Six months later, I got a box and highlighted at home. Nice. And…I’ve been pretty much maintaining it with a box every few months since then. Two exceptions were made–I got professional highlights on two occasions, one very recently. It was NOT worth the money I spent.

Highlights at home are trickier than regular haircolor; I usually get someone to help. It takes a while, but it usually lasts for a few months if you do it well.

12

I’ve dyed my hair every color from bleached blonde to jet black. Currently I’m maintaining it at dark reddish brown, which is close enough to my natural color that the roots aren’t glaringly obvious if I get sloppy for a few months. I had it professionally highlighted once [sub]in 1960 for 20 minutes[/sub] and while it turned out okay, I didn’t think it looked much different than my home jobs.

Last time I tried to dye my hair auburn it started washing out in the shower almost immediately; for several days bath-time looked like a hog slaughter. Within a couple of weeks my hair was washed-out and drab. A friend of mine had the same experience. I’ve never had this problem with any other dye color; is there just something about red that makes it not want to stick around?

13

I’m 24 and have been dyeing since I was 16. My hair’s naturally brown, but has been blonde, black, red, green, blue, greenish blue, purple, orange, light pink, dark pink, and any combination of those colours you can think of. All the unnatural colours were semi-permanent, and would wash out eventually, though I had to have my hair bleached first.

I always did it myself, except for once. Once I got it done at a salon. A ritzy one! It looked nice too, a layer of bright (yet work-safe) red on top, and then a layer of black, and underneath, another layer of red. Very shiny and healthy and I was happy with it. About two and a half months later it was very dull, and I decided to dye it red with a home dye, and it turned almost brown, even though the dye I chose was brighter than my colour at the time. WTF?

So I got some henna from Lush ( http://www.lush.com ), in Caca Noir. The preparation is complicated and I made it too thick. As a result, I missed a lot of spots. Now I have black hair with reddish brown streaks. Doesn’t look too bad though, and I’ll redo it soon. But I have to say, I love that Lush henna - the smell, the shine, and the SOFTNESS! My hair feels like a soft bunny now!

Out of all the dyes I have ever used, Nice 'n Easy lasts the longest. If you want to colour at home, and they have a colour you like, go for them. :slight_smile:

Anyway, those are some of my stories.

Oh, on preview, Marlitharn, a friend of mine is a hairdresser and she says that red does indeed come out faster. She explained why, but I don’t remember. Something about it not going deep into the hair shaft? I don’t know. But in any case, you are not alone, and it’s not your imagination!

14

Back in '91 or '92, I dyed my hair black for Halloween.

My hair was in it’s TV Preacher mode, so I decided to go out as Elvis. I’d rented the white jumpsuit and gooten some gen-u-wine straight from Graceland Elvis sunglasses.

I figured I’d use a temporary dye, but the weather prediction was for rain on Halloween. I didn’t want to take the chance of ruining the jumpsuit, so I had my friend use permanent dye.

Holy crap does that stuff burn!

Well, I was a big hit as Elvis. Strangers came up to me to have their picture taken and so forth.

Of course, now I had to be Elvis until my hair grew out enough to cut off the black parts. I didn’t want to go through another dye job.

I had to endure Elvis jokes for several weeks. The weird part was that my hair is brown. Now I have a ton of black hair with brown roots!! Once I had about 1/4" of brown, I had my friend take all the black out.

I’ll not be doing that again anytime soon.

15

I did Henna for years, contrary to Flipstrip’s experience, it always made my hair feel incredibly good. Soft, shiney, all good.

I’m on chemical home dye jobs now. Brown…well light copper brown officially. They seem to last a couple of months (l’Oreal).

My real hair is a colour I like to call “dark dog shit brown”

16

I’ve dyed my hair for about the past twenty two years or so. I’m naturally a dirty blonde color, but dye it auburn. The brand (and exact shade) I use varies depending on which coupons I have. For me, I do it about once every 4-5 weeks or so, and it’s pretty much a no-brainer. Mix the stuff, slather it on like shampoo, wait 10 minutes longer than the instructions require (this insures that the color will set into the hair shaft, especially if there is any gray hair), then rinse it in the shower. With red color, I’ve heard lots of complaints about it ‘bleeding’ for a long time afterwards. I think the key is to really, really, really rinse it well.

I always use conditioner (especially after rinsing out all of the dye), rarely blow dry my hair (and even then, never to the point where it’s completely dry) and try to stay out of the sun (the sun will bleach all the color out). My hair doesn’t look fried or feel like straw–it’s soft and managable.

My experiences with the temporary hair dye have not been positive. Although I’ve never used them myself, I did try them with both of the HallGirls. Both times, the auburn semi-permenent hair dye (the kind that washes out) turned their hair a funky orange color, and didn’t wash out, regardless of how many times they washed their hair. It gradually wore out, but they had orange hair until that point.

Once, I went to a salon to get highlights. (Auburn hair with blondish high lights–I thought it would look really cool.) They solution the stylist used did absolutely nothing. (It was so not apparent that the stylist didn’t even charge me after it was over!)