Always wait 2 weeks after bleaching to redo. Gives the hair time to grow out a tiny bit of normal strong hair as an anchor.
This sounds reasonable. Make sure this is really a semi- or demi-permanent dye. There are permanent dyes that purport to be ammonia free, but just replace the ammonia with other strong bases that are just as damaging to the hair. But if it’s really a semi-perm, it shouldn’t do any additional damage to your hair (and really, you can bleach and redye without destroying your hair in my experience.) It should stay on pretty well, actually, since your hair is now extremely porous from bleaching.
I’ve bleached and dyed my own hair a lot of times. I’d recommend you condition it heavily every night for a few days; I use the Feria conditioner (the one you normally get a tiny tube of with their boxed hair dye, but I buy it in a bigger bottle at the beauty supply place.) But any other thick, gloopy conditioner oughta work, including normal grocery-store brands; they’re all fairly close to the same. Stick it in your hair, wrap it in plastic, and apply gentle heat to help it sink in for awhile. Then leave it on over night. Don’t shampoo your hair unless it feels like it absolutely needs it - a thorough rinsing will remove the excess conditioner, and your hair is now dry enough that your scalp oils should be encouraged to stick around.
Remember, though, that your hair is dead tissue, and no conditioner can repair it. It will be damaged until it grows out, and so it won’t respond to color the same way new growth will, and it will be more fragile. I recommend some silicone “anti-frizz” or “shine spray” or whatever they call it to make it look smoother and sleeker if it’s looking unhealthy.
You can tweak the undertones by buying other semi-perms in the same line and mixing them if you end up with overly brassy or greenish results. Just remember to check the color frequently as it works, since your hair may suck it up really quickly and end up too dark. And check it out after rinsing; some parts may take color differently, so you might have to reapply in spots.
Well, thanks everyone for all the advice.
The second dye job worked quite well. It was semi-permanent light ash brown dye, and My head has come out a dark golden blondish/ light brown shade… I used the entire bottle of conditioner that came with the dye (supposedly a 4 week supply), along with some gloppings of Infusium.
My ends look a bit fried (my hair is a tich longer than chin-length), but other than that I think the damage was not too bad.
I count myself very fortunate that in all my hair mishaps I have never ended up with green hair. :eek:
It can happen. Your hair starts absorbing the colors all funny when it’s really fried, and it can sometimes absorb the blue tones more readily than the red ones. Combine that with the yellow of bleached hair . . .
Just remember to treat your hair nice. Don’t wash it more than you really have to for a few days, and condition it heavily. Leave it on, apply heat, do it for a few days and it’ll feel and look perfectly normal.
Glad it all turned out well. I had a similar mishap a month ago. I had been getting my hair bleached and highlighted every month since March and it was time to go dark again. For some reason, instead of using the golden or ash brown that I normally use in the fall, I decided to go sassy with a lovely shade of auburn (semi-permanent).
Except when I was done, my hair was red. Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburger red. My husband was aghast. My boss asked me repeatedly if I tipped the hairdresser. I was tempted to go pay money to fix it, but thought, “What the hell; it’s only hair.” I went out and bought a shade of medium brown (permanent) and voila! Instant fix.
My rule of thumb is that if I’m trying to darken my hair or cover up the gray, I can do it myself. If I want to go lighter, I pay the pros to do it.
Seems the situation is resolved, but I have to throw in my own Hair-or story.
Back when I was a handsome punk rocker, I had a bleach job done, cuz brown hair was normal and boring. Wasn’t enough, next paycheck, went back to get some black streaks put in. That was ‘rad’ enough, for a while, then I decided I wanted to be a redhead. Bright red. Didn’t bother stripping those black streaks out though. They kind of bled, in patches and made the bright red more orangish.
I wound up with Calico hair. Looked pretty good put up in a two foot Mohawk, though…
At some point in my youth, I must have done a good bleach job. I have memories of nice whitish light hair with little lemony good bits. But despite bleaching my hair untold times, I’ve never gotten that again. My hair has been every horrific shade of flourescent apricot imaginable. It’s to the point that I keep a backup box of black dye just in case one of my hair experiments goes awry. I kind of like it in a way though- keeps me always experiementing and always on my toes.
The best was when I had some fading dark color…I don’t think it was black, but maybe. I was sick of it fading, but I couldn’t afford bleach, so I just dyed red all over it. It turned out a wonderful cranberry with very natural looking black streaks.
The worst was when I tried to bleach out some blue dye. I ended up with iridescent peacock feather yellow-green-blue-purple hair. It was kind of cool, but not what I wanted at all.
Personally, I think that last option sounds good, but maybe it didn’t look as good in real life. Bleaching your hair well, though, requires the use of a toner. If you bleach your hair until it’s really light yellow or white, you’ve managed to destroy it already. Instead you need to get a hold of a toner that will add blue or purple to your hair to counter the persistent yellow or orange that won’t bleach away. There’s ones that require developer (i.e. peroxide) and ones that don’t. If you use a 10-volume developer with a peroxide toner, you can cover up a heck of a lot of yellow without damaging your hair nearly as much as another bleaching. I use http://www.sallybeauty.com/shop/product.asp?dept_id=1410&pf_id=320351 - I forget the particular color - and have always gotten good results (it says to use a 20-vol developer, but 10-vol is less damaging and actually will encourage more color deposit.)