Can anyone give me some advice on how I would go about dyeing my hair back to or close to my natural color which is med. brown? I have been dyeing my hair a med ash blonde for a while now, but I am thinking about going back because I have so much damage and breakage that I believe is from the color lifting. I have had my hair blonde for about 4 years and I really don't want to change back, but I may have no choice. My hair is in poor shape. It doesn't look too bad if I put mousse in it and scrunch it and let it air dry, but I can't wear my hair straight because you can see the breakage all the way up to the crown. I was thinking of maybe using a semi-permanant color every 6 wks until it grows out (which will be forever since my hair is fairly long)....whatever I do, I want it to do the least amount of damage. Thanks!!

Pretty much the same thing happened to me. I dyed my hair a lighter shade of blonde twice, blue twice, and then I dyed it cherry red twice. This totally screwed up my hair and I had more breakage and split-ends than you can imagine. It SUCKED! I decided to go back to my natural color (dark blonde). The best way to do this is to just go to the salon so that they can strip the previous color from your hair and give you some treatments..then they'll dye it back. You should probably ask for some treating shampoos and conditioners as well. I like Redken products for this purpose. All together this costs $75 (for me it did) and I have long, thick hair.

Well good luck with your hair!!

If your hair is in bad condition you definately dont want to get the color stripped! Color removers are much more damaging than hair dyes! You should definately go the semi-permanent way because that really doesnt damage your hair at all, and being that your hair is so dry, your hair might soak up the color and it will stay permanently.

the color stripping didn't damage my hair.

I wouldn't strip your hair, you don't really need to remove color anyway, you just need to add it. Stripping does damage hair, whether you can notice it or not, especially for what you say the condition of your hair is in. I had bleached blonde hair and didn't like it so got a darker red semi-permanent color added. I did it all at a salon. It faded a lot, but the main color of the semi has never gone away. This might have been because my hair was very bleached so it was open enough to hold all that color in there permanently, so I don't know if yours is bleached enough to take and hold onto a semi, but I would do that anyway. I am going to do another semi color myself this time, due to the color actually being lighter than my roots, but I think I won't have to do it again after this time, and if I do then I'm sure it won't be often. Of course, even if the semi sticks to the part of your hair that's been bleached, it will still fade off the roots, so you should try to get a shade that matches your natural color or close to it, whatever you think is best. It might fade a bit, so you might have to keep doing it every so often. So that's my advice, I think that's what you should try. Oh, and I've heard that you should be careful not to choose an ash color. And if you're doing it at home, I think I've heard that L'Oreal is one of the best brands, but also I've heard that Sally's Beauty Supply has some good brands and I think they are supposed to be able to help out. Otherwise, a salon would be the best bet. And be sure to buy yourself shampoos and conditioners for color treated hair, and use a good deep conditioner weekly! Good luck! :)

Sally Beauty Supply mainly carries Wella, and that is what we used in my Cosmetology class. It is a pretty good brand.
Definately tho-avoid damaging your hair as much as you can because things will only get worse.

Thanks for the advice guys. I think I will try the semi-permanant route. I am going to wait a little while to think about it though since I just did a roots touch up a couple weeks ago.

Be careful even if you only use a semi-permanent, because you don't know how your hair will absorb the color. I did that once and my hair became green. No kidding, green with a slight metallic tint...lovely. After that mishap I went to a salon and the stylist had to add a red color to counteract the green, then a warm brown. Pfew. The color came out fine, but my hair was dry and looked like a haystack. And this was the less damaging route; he said it would have been worse if he had stripped the color out.

I used a deep conditioner every two days and a hot oil treatment every week for several months, until my hair started looking healthier.

My advice is to go to a salon to have this done. The best would be to go to one that specializes in fixing color problems, because it will make a big difference what products they use. It is certainly more expensive than doing it at home, but could save you some anguish. I am done "saving" after that disaster.

Yikes. I'm starting to think I should shave my head bald and start from scratch! Ugh! Why does hair have to be such a pain? I got into the same predicament years ago trying to grow out a perm. This sucks.