Hair color oops...

[HappyAnniversary]

Your hair looks gorgeous and those blue eyes pop!!!

 

[jcrow]

your hair looks positively beautiful and i''m a bit envious! i had major blond and wanted to go natural and ended up deep auburn. apparently my hair pulls red very very easily so they have to counteract that. so i''ve yet to get that soft caramel look like yours.

 

[BriBee]

Your hair looks awesome Sum! I''m so glad that you found a new salon who will do what you want when you want! I''m sure hubby will grow to love it. FI doesn''t like it when I drastically change my hair, but he always gets used to it. Then he loves it and I decide to change again

 

[hairgirl95]

Oh MAN, I wish I would have seen this thread earlier!! I haven't had a chance to sit, much less actually do something fun like post on here all day!

Hence why its 2am and I am responding here.

First, let me say your hair looks GORGEOUS!!

I love your new color. And, to be honest, you did exactly what I would have told you to do--have a professional do it. Its much easier than what I am about to type. But, FYI for any of you other color addicts, heres what you have to do if you don't want to spend the $$ in a salon. I am going to disclaimer this with I STRONGLY RECOMMEND having a professional do it. It can be done at home, but its not always easy.

When you have had highlights for so long, whether you use bleach or a high lift color, its very hard for your hair to "grab" color. So, to go from lighter to darker, you have to go in steps. First off, bleached or lightened hair is very porous, which means it grabs color easily, but "spits" it back out even easier. This is why the color you put on your hair looked very dark, yet hardly touched the blonde factor at all. When doing this, you have to go with a much darker shade than you normally would think to use. This is to balance the grabbing and "spitting back out" of the color. In order to achieve what you wanted with the dark blonde box color, you would have had to leave it on quite a while, and used multiple applications. It doesn't make sense huh--you see dark on your head, you freak out, rinse, only to find its just a shade duller and darker than what you started with. It can be frustrating huh!

So, heres what you do. Go to a beauty supply store that sells product to the general public. Around here, that would be Sally's beauty supply. 90% of the color they sell is the SAME as the color you can buy at a professional only store. I laugh when I have to pay more to go to a professional retailer to buy the same thing that I could buy at Sallys. When you go into the beauty store, head to the color aisle. There *should* be a color guide. This color guide tells you what "level" your hair color is. As most hair color fanatics know, hair color ranges from level 1 to level 10. Level 1 is black, level 10 is blonde. Platinum blonde is about a level 12. Also, there are letters with these levels. These levels are:

A and AA are ash and have either a green, violet, or blue base.
N is neutral, and tends to have a warm base
G is gold
R is red
B is beige

There are other mixtures, such as RV is red violet. GB is gold beige. There are many combinations, and that is how a professional colorist perfects your "formula".

There is also developer you have to use with color. This is what makes your color work. The basic developers are 10, 20, 30, and 40 vol.

So, for example, say you have a medium brown hair with caramel colored highlights. You want all your hair to be medium brown again. Medium brown is a approximately a level 6. When you look at your hair in the sunlight, do you see hints of red, gold, or nothing? This determines what letter your natural hair is. So, for example, you are outside and your natural haircolor (medium brown) has hints of red and gold to it. Your caramel colored highlights has red and gold in them as well. You would want to use a level 6 with a neutral base. You would use 10 vol developer because it deposits color, and doesn't LIFT color out of your hair. This is why buying boxed color at the local Walmart doesn't work so good--you never know what developer you are getting. Some are 20 vol and some are 30 vol. These are too strong to cover blond highlights. Thats part of the reason the OP didn't have success with her color.

If you see a lot of red tones in your hair, you would want to use a gold, green, and or neutral base. If you see a lot of gold tones, use neutral or violet base. If your hair is a very drab brown (think coffee), then use a neutral, A, or even a G color. Mixing the right *tones* is what gives you the best outcome.

I realize this is a really long post, and very confusing too---but thats the basics of how you fill in your highlights! Also, to answer sumbride, it is safe to color your hair again in her situation, just make sure you condition with a good moisturizing conditioner. Also, temporary rinses *may* have worked, but in the summer they are hard because if you sweat, your temporary rinse runs out. Not a pretty thing! And yes, your highlights didn't absorb your color because 1. the bleached hair does have a hard time keeping the new color, 2. you did not use a dark enough color, and 3. you didn't leave it on long enough. Your speculations were right on track--you are a smart girlie!!

Okay, done with color 101 class here.

I love figuring out color formulas, so feel free to post a topic about it if you ever want advice. I feel so bad I didn't see this sooner--I worked all day and had back to back dr/dentist appointments on top of doing the entire neighborhood heads of hair for back to school. The long and the short of it is that its really easier to let a stylist do this (as you can see from what I posted) but the OP was on the right track. Man, I love these questions and posts!

 

[AGBF]

Sumbride, I know that this thread was about how to change your hair color, but the darker color looks so spectacular on you that I had to tell you how gorgeous I thought it was! It made me gasp! I had the same reaction to San Diego Lady's going to brown although she, like you, was also beautiful as a blonde. I think that it has to do with your blue eyes and how the darker hair makes them stand out more. You can't go wrong with a hair color, but this darker blonde is truly lovely!

And if you can believe it, I never realized where hairgirl's name must have come from. Is she a professional hairdresser or just a talented amateur?


Deborah

 

[justjulia]

I think your new color looks great. I''m a little late in the conversation here, but I used to have a lot of light highlights...My hair was long and I was putting it up in a bun-which was fine until my bun started looking way blonder than the rest of me. (It looked like I put one of those fake hair circles on-not good.) My stylist started putting lowlights gradually until mine grew out. Now it''s back to it''s original med brown and I just had a perm so it''ll stay up easier.

 

[sumbride]

Thanks so much!

DH says he''s "used to it" now but it was funny this afternoon. We were with a group of friends and he said he kept losing me because he couldn''t recognize me!

Hairgirl, thank you! I am still glad I went to the professional because there is no way I could figure all that out. It was worth the money to have it look good, and luckily it wasn''t that expensive. I got very lucky!

 

[iheartscience]

It looks fantastic! Your eyes just POP! My favorite eye/hair combo is blue eyes/dark hair-it''s so striking!

 

[hairgirl95]

Date: 8/16/2008 7:57:55 AM
Author: AGBF





Sumbride, I know that this thread was about how to change your hair color, but the darker color looks so spectacular on you that I had to tell you how gorgeous I thought it was! It made me gasp! I had the same reaction to San Diego Lady''s going to brown although she, like you, was also beautiful as a blonde. I think that it has to do with your blue eyes and how the darker hair makes them stand out more. You can''t go wrong with a hair color, but this darker blonde is truly lovely!


And if you can believe it, I never realized where hairgirl''s name must have come from. Is she a professional hairdresser or just a talented amateur?



Deborah

Yep Deborah, I am a hairstylist. I have been behind the chair for almost 14 years. I cannot believe how fast time has gone! I took the plunge and opened my own salon 2 years ago. It keeps me really busy, but I do not regret it at all. I have a great group of stylists that work for me--we really are a family. I love talking hair and helping anyone with a hair question. Thats why I felt so bad I came into the post so late yesterday!! Sorry to threadjack here--when it comes to talking about hair, its like a crack addiction for me!!

ETA--sumbride, I looked at pics again of your new color and I had to say again it looks fabulous on you!! Its a great color for you.

 

[MMT]

I would add low lights as your hair grows out. You can do a bunch a once or do it gradually with several visits. Good luck!