Last night, I colored my hair. My intent was to 1) cover up a little bit of new gray and 2) return my hair to its natural color after I had some highlights done last year.
So my hair is naturally a darkish brown. So I bought a color that I thought would match my natural color. Well, today I think it’s a little too dark. It’s like one or two shades darker than I would like it.
So here’s my question to hair-coloring veterans: would it be OK to color my hair again to get it back to the color I want (which is like a medium golden brown)? Or would coloring it two times so close to each other damage it? Or should I just get some highlights as several people suggested?
I have really long hair, so keeping the ends healthy is a real concern, so I don’t want to damage it beyond repair. Thanks for your advice!
If your hair is healthy, not dry or damaged, you can probably go ahead and re-color after 24 hours (I have). For future reference, you should do the color strand test before applying the color to your whole head. Also, you might try picking a color one or two shades lighter than your natural color - it will be more flattering if you are old enough to have gray, according to the experts. The result will be that your gray will be covered, but will be lighter enough so that you now have highlights and lowlights, which is a more natural look that flat, uniform color.
Highlights can do wonders for a botched coloring. I recommend that. Just don’t try to do them youself.
Also, I’ve dyed my hair twice in the same day (within like 5 hours) and nothing really awful happened (then again, the second box didn’t lighten it any, either ). Of course, I have really “good hair”, so YMMV. You should always get a trim after a coloring anyway to rid yourself of those icky ends. Professional highlights aren’t cheap so, depending on your situation, you might want to get another all-over box dye. Either way, get a trim.
I would say wait a little and see what you get. My hair always lightens a bit within the first week (or failing that, you may start to like it better). Then if you do decide to recolor it won’t be such a shock to your hair.
Thanks for the advice. I feel a little relieved. I didn’t want to have to keep this really dark hair. I think I will wait a few days and recolor it a couple chades lighter.
I’m only 28, but I am starting to get some grays, and they are really shiny and silvery, so they are easy to see. That is why I started to color my hair. 28 is way too young for gray!
If you really don’t like it then I’d say go ahead and recolour… just make sure you use lots of conditioner and drink lots of water to keep it healthy afterwards.
Shouldn’t really be a problem unless your hair is quite badly damaged already
DO NOT try to recolor it…color will not lift color…in other words you can not put another color ontop and expect to lighten it you may get a SLIGHT differance but that is only because you have blown open the cuticle layer a bit more so more color molicules excaped, but at the same time you have damaged the hair a bit more.
Take DAWN dish washing soap and wash you hair with that (it won’t hurt you hair at all, it just strips all the build up off along with some of the color pigment left on the hair shaft from the dye) be sure to follow with your cream rince to close the cuticle and cut down on tangles.
Good luck, do conditioning treatments (helps make the hair shine and the light relection will make it look lighter) and remember next time not to go quite so dark.
ACK! So are you saying that I can never color it again at all? Until it grows out? That would take like 10 years as long as it is!
Many women I know (my mom, aunts, cousin, sister-in-law) change their hair color a lot. I just need to get it back to it’s normal color! Please help!!!
I am NOT a hair colorist, but a girl who has been dying her hair various shades for abot 5 or 6 years.
A good rule of thumb to remember for the future is to always pick a color that is a shade or two lighter than the color you’re going for – most at-home dyes tend to come out a little darker than pictured, and it’s easier to make it darker than it is to make it lighter.
I would definitely wait a few days and wash it a few times to see if it lightens up. It should fade at least a little in the first week or so. If it’s still too dark… Well, I’ve never really tried to change shade that subtly (I’m a little too dramatic for that), so I’m not exactly sure, but it would seem to me that the change you’d get would be so minor you’d be better off going with highlights. Of course, since the reason you dyed your hair in the first place was to get rid of the highlights you had… It’s worth a shot, re-dyeing. If it’s still not the color you want, then you can go the highlights route. And as long as you use good conditioner, your hair should survive. I’ve gone through periods where I’ve dyed my hair drastically different colors about every two weeks or so, and with a decent conditioner and this hair repair serum I got at Wal-Mart, it’s still healthy and shiny and all that. double-dyeing is not the end of the world. Good luck!
I think what Lwaxana is saying is that you can’t just dye your hair black, then pick up a bottle of light brown dye and expect it to turn that color. Think of it this way: if you color with a black crayon on a piece of paper and then color over top of that with yellow, does it turn yellow?
I also vote for waiting a week or two and letting it fade. It WILL fade, trust us. If you decide you want to go even lighter after that, I’d suggest going to a professional. Lightening hair is too easily turned into a grisly sight.
Don’t go for highlights unless you want highlights. They can definately just plain lighten it a shade or two.
I’ve colored my hair for years, and was always told to wait at least a week between coloring and any other type of chemical processing (i.e.- perms, additional coloring, etc).
As said above, it will probably lighten up some after a week or so; if you’re still not happy with the color, consider highlighting.
I colored mine all over for a long time, eventually drying it out to where it looked like straw. In the past year and a half I’ve stopped coloring it all over and went to having it highlighted, and it’s a lot easier to maintain - it looks more natural and doesn’t have to be done very often. If you get it done professionally with foil highlights, you can have more than one shade put on at a time, and it can look really nice and not need touched up for 3 months easily. (And there’s the added benefit that you can pick up satellite signals while you’ve got all the foil on your head).
The residing hairstylist here stole my solution of using dish soap to thoroughly clean and strip down the color. This can work wonders enough so that you don’t have to rush out and buy another box.
When you decide to recolor, it is a good idea to have a day or so’s worth of sweat/hair oil/ moderate amount of hair products on your scalp. sometimes if I’ve washed my hair recently and want to color my hair before Monday, I will wear a winter cap around the house and sleep in it to built up the oil as fast as I can.
It’s true you can’t lift color with color.
I would recommend high lights, or maybe ask a professional hair colorist about doing a color strip. That’s what I would do when a client needed color correction.
The color strippers can be dangerous, especially with long hair, so don’t try to do it yourself.
No hun, you just can’t recolor and expect it to be lighter, just let it fade a bit the choose a lighter shade next time.
Yup, very fine high lights can lighten the look without looking like high lights…I call it a sun kissed look
SO RIGHT YOU ARE!!! And from what it sounds like she only needs a little lift, (and without seeing it) from her OP that would proberly pull too much color and make her a nice shade of orange/red.
Strippers (color strippers not girls with names like Peaches and Bubbles) can be very tricky even for seasoned professionals, they damage the hair and depending on the hairs condition can often result in splochie color results…so avoid strippers if at all possiable
I would just like to reaffirm what Lwaxana said about lightening your hair with Dawn dish soap.
You see, last Halloween, I was Elvis, and put a whole bunch of pomade on my hair to grease it up. I’m not sure how people use that stuff regularly in their hair, because I ended up resorting to Dawn to get it out. Worked like a charm on ridding me of the grease, but it also removed the color I had applied about 2 weeks previously.
I’ve done it, one, right after another. it’s not great for your hair but it will survive.
I once colored it…i used a bleach, not really realizing how light it was going to get. Not to mention I didn’t really spread it out nicely.
I am a Japanese female…it came out horrid, it was blonde blonde blonde and it was all splotchy! :eek:
I looked like an Asian porn star/punk rock chick.
Needless to say I was mortified. I put on a baseball cap and went to the store to get another kit to darken it. I had the same question you did. It’s not recommended, but in cases like mine…what can you do?
My hair’s a little damaged, but that’s because I’ve always colored it (but not always one right after another).
If you’re really concerned about damage, you might want to try henna. There are henna dyes in shades other than red. My hair’s down to the small of my back now, and the ends have seen a bit too much color to trust regular dyes on it anymore. It’s always soft and silky after I dye it with henna.
I find it fades alot more than regular color, but that just makes the roots less noticible, and I really like how soft it leaves my hair. Plus, it’s just plain fun to smear hot green muck on your head…
). Of course, I have really “good hair”, so YMMV. You should always get a trim after a coloring anyway to rid yourself of those icky ends. Professional highlights aren’t cheap so, depending on your situation, you might want to get another all-over box dye. Either way, get a trim.
