I got a wild hair (HA!) this weekend and decided to take my always-dyed-red hair in a new, blonder direction. I opted for a Loreal Kit (I know, I know) featuring an ash brown color with ash blonde highlights.
What I have now is medium brown hair with strange orangey highlights. This is NOT a good look for me and my initial reaction was to plan a trip back to the store for a whole new highlighting kit pronto. After calming down, I realized that I could potentially end up with all of my hair falling out a la Tina Turner in What’s Love Got To Do With It and lets face it, folks… I really don’t have the gams to pull off that wig.
So what can I do to unbrass these god awful highlights without my hair falling out or my scalp catching on fire? Let’s say I have about 30 dollars I can spend at this point, so “Go to a salon and beg them to fix it” isn’t really an option here.
If it matters, I have thin, naturally wavy hair. It was initially light brown but again, it’s been dyed various shades of red for most of my adult life.
IANAS, but I’ve turned my hair orange numerous times! (Guy on the Clairol hotline: “Is it gold like a wedding ring or orange like a pumpkin?”)
There’s not a whole lot you can do without risking damaging your hair. The best you can probably do is to go darker – like a darker red. DO NOT buy another highlighting kit!
Hair turns orange with standard drugstore kits when the hair is hard to “lift.” Your hair needs stronger peroxide than is supplied in the kits to strip the color sufficiently.
On the bright (but not brassy) side, if you wait a few weeks, the color will fade to some degree. Likewise if you go darker. The color at first will be shockingly dark, but it will soften and fade in a month or so.
In my book ginger people deserve everything that’s coming to them, and you’ve tarred yourself with their brush.
Your best bet is to aim for “oompa loompa” then at least people will know to avoid you.
I am not a hair stylist, but I have made many bad decisions regarding my hair color. The best thing to do would be to have a pro fix it, but, as you said, 30 bucks can’t make that happen.
Iffen it was me again this time . . .
Go to Sally’s or whichever Beauty Supply place you have around, and buy a bottle of “ultra violet” shampoo. If no Sally’s-type places are available, try a feed store or pet supply store, and get the cow or dog shampoo for White fur. In a pinch, the laundry detergent for Dark clothes will work, but not as well, and you’ll need several tons of conditioner afterwards.
Then go to wherever you buy hair dye, to get Clairol Natural Instincts “linen.” While you’re there, get two.
Wash your hair three or four times with the purple stuff, condition thoroughly, towel dry, apply the “linen” colored dye according to directions, except put it on the yucky parts of your hair for 5 minutes, and then all the hair close to your scalp for 2 or 3 more, then at the ends for for 2 to 3, for a grand total of 10 minutes. If your hair is too long for one box to cover, don’t worry about it today. Rinse, use the included conditioner (let sit for a bit) rinse and condition again.
This stuff will eventually wash out, so keep another box on hand for next month. It will work better if you’re just orange-y streaks.
Cherry cough syrup pink all over? Buy a cute hat, and tell everyone you’re trying to bring them back in style.
I have had the same problem. What was explained to me is that the pigment in the hair tends to go orange.
The first time (and yes, there have been others…slow learner) I went and bought a box of ash brown hair coloring and a bleaching kit. I put the base back to ash brown and pulled the hair through the cap to lift out the brown and orange coloring with the bleach. It took a long time to pull but when the strands were finally not orange, I rinsed it out.
I got an ash brown with blonde highlights for around twenty bucks and hair that required a lot of conditioner for a month or so. They sell the bleaching kits at sallys or other supply stores. You’re not going to find what you need at CVS or walgreens.
I did that once. Sounds like it was the same kit, even. I think those kits suck. I ended up more of a warm peachy orange. The woman on the hotline told me to overdye it with a dark ash blonde, one of the basic permanent dye kits with no highlights.
But that was the color I was trying to get away from in the first place.
So I tried a darker base 2 part kit of the same variety. But it did nothing.
So I highlighted it with a plain “pull through cap” frosting kit.
The results were not good.
It cost $140 for my hair dresser to fix it (lifter, then a mixture of highlights and lowlights with a glaze), and I didn’t even like those results much, either. What I probably should have done is gone to a darker, cooler semi-permanent after the first botched kit and just waited it out.
I let it grow out and now stick exclusively to semi-permanent dyes. (which aren’t acutally *semi * permanent if you stray too far from your natural color, and to lift *that * stuff requires semi-permanent dye lifter you get from Sally’s) It’s boring, but I’m not a pumpkin head.
I don’t learn. I just try to space my experiments/mistakes out to every few years.
