I recently dyed my hair brown using Natural Instincts (28 wash) on top of my blonde hair. Well the color wasn't fading, so I tried dying it back to blonde, and the woman at the beauty supply store told me to go one shade blonder than I wanted it and it would turn out the color I wanted. Well I did it, and there was very little change from the brown! :eek: I don't know what to do, I may go back and ask for an exchange or something, because she told me it would work and it didn't, you know? Also, does anyone have advice on trying to get my hair back to blonde?

Thanks :bouncing:

anyone have any suggestions?

Natural instincts is a semipermanent colour.....it won't lighten it from light brown to blonde.

You could try a high lift blonde. I think L'Oreal or Clairol makes them.

OR....

You could strip out the colour and then apply a blonde.

OR...

You could streak your hair all over to lighten most of it.

Just some suggestions.
q

I dyed it brown with the natural instincts then used L'Oreal lightest blonde to try to get it to go back, but it stayed brown... :/


I think once I get more money I'm going to get foils to lighten it up. Thanks for the reply :)

I think probably you should've tried stripping it first before reapplying the blonde....I don't know if it's too late by now or if ya can still try it:) I found a great "stripper" from L'Oreal (I think it was) that worked like a charm, I used it to get rid of a blue streak I had in my hair, then after a few days I applied a new blonde shade.

You will need bleach to pull out the color. Color doesnt lift color. You will need to bleach out the pigments. It could take a bit as you had porous hair then added a color on top of it. Always strand test before you do a color or bleach on your hair. :)

hi
so you have dyed your hair dark and want to go lighter again. Is your hair naturally blonde or bleached??? i would suggest getting a full foil of blonde highlights. To get it back to blonde you will have to bleach the color out or strip it. I would beach the highlights into your hair. I would also suggest having it professional done. it can be costly but well worth it and you could be very blonde afterword.
hope this helps
-lilo/hairstylist

YES i would go professional b/c they can do it more carefully not to dry it out so much.. and I have a question... if they say you NEED bleach to pull out the color.. why is it that salons can dye brown hair blonde without bleach?? i got blonde highlights (not TOO light, more golden) over my medium brown hair with no bleach... good salons can do that.. but when i got bleached highlights my hair was sooo dry..

Color will not lift color. You can only lift so far with color on natural hair, like med. brown hair can go to a carmel, etc. but you need bleach to lift out the color or go liter than a few shades.
You deposit or have natural color molecules in the cortex and color will only "explode" a few to get your hair slightly lighter where as bleach can "explode" them all to get to white if so desired.
Both bleach and color can be drying, it depends on your hair, and the type of product used.

Yes i guess thats true... if you want it a LOT lighter you have to use bleach.. my highlights weren't TOO light.. they were blonde but not platinum and my hair was brown so i guess yeah if i wanted platinum highlights bleach would be needed...

I think I'm going to wait a month to let my hair recover and then get it foiled... my stylist is going to laugh at me.. I do this every year or so! LOL

I would go with highlighting....I use Herbal Essences highlighting kit and it gets my light brown hair almost platinum.

did that herbal essences kit make your hair any dryer? i have been wanting to try it.. but i JUST dyed my hair (semipermanent) to medium ash brown.. so it is darker than before, so I'm not sure if i would need to do caramel highlights.. which I don't want since I was trying to get any red/orange tones out of my hair! and was it hard to use?
i tried feria highlighting once and did not like it! my hair was dryer, too reddish from it (it was supposed to be "golden" brown) and it looked like I dyed my hair, not highlights!

Strand test before doing color. It will save you headaches.
Also, color will not lift color out of hair. Bleach will lift color. That is one of the basics of hair coloring.

Well, highlighters are essentially bleach so I think that would lift your color a lot. Doing a strand test first is a good idea. I dye my hair A LOT but I also get my ends trimmed every 6-8 weeks and deep condition once a week so I really don't see much dryness. Herbal Essences comes in different shades....I use the one for light brown/blonde hair so the streaks come out almost platinum. You may want to use the next-lightest shade since your hair is darker. Also, I've learned from hard experience to NEVER use any at-home color that has the word "ash" in its name--it makes my blonde hair look greenish. :-p

OHHH yikes I do not want green hair.. I guess I got lucky.. mine just turned way darker than I expected! For some reason all the "natural" colors that were neutral came out more red than my natural color (but not really red!) so I was HOPING it would work ok with ash.. but yeah I'll watch out for that! thanks!

One of the basics taught in cosmetology school was, yes, kids you guessed it --COLOR DOESNT LIFT COLOR.

Highlighting is a techinque not a product. You can highlight with color or with bleach. It depends on what is on the hair now (colored? bleached? permed?), the porousity, what you are trying to achieve and the techinque to be used (foils? bayalage? cap?)

Ash can make hair look green, true, but if you are looking for a cool toned blonde this "cuts" the red. Opposites on the color wheel neutralize.

Strand (clip a small piece of hair from the back and tape it together then process it) and patch (place dab of color mixture on the inner arm or behind the ear for 24 hours) are a necessity. It is such a pain to do but saves you irritation and/or hair emergencies. I know it takes a bit to do, the clipping and then mixing a tiny bit of the color and developer together then process it but especially with home hair coloring it is a MUST.
Its hard to wait it out when you just want your new hair but sometimes you realize uh, this is horrible or you need a different color altogether.

Corrective coloring is BIG BUCKS! It is one of those "cha-ching" things you see on the schedule! Hairdressers are always so excited to see a bad home color job! Those highlighting kits are great money makers for us. In the salon I worked at it (and it wasnt even that expensive of a place $20/cut) was $100 and hour for corrective color.

I have a question about the strand test though... a lot of times once you mix the product it will explode if it isn't used within a few hours (I learned this the hard way!) and it also says that right in the pamphlet.

You only mix a dab of color and a dab of developer. Dont mix the whole bottle. I never have heard of it exploding but then again, I use a bowl with a brush not the bottle. Color is only good for like an hour or so.

when that exploded did you put the cap back on?? bc you are not supposed to.. the pamphets i have read say it may explode when the cap is put on after being mixed.. thats why when you throw the bottles away you are supposed to leave it open.