Bloody green hair AGAIN! Any hairdressers can advise?

[DoinItForTheKids]

DDs hair. This is about the third time we've been to a proper salon to get brassy/yellowy bleached hair changed into a more ashy tone. Third time it's gone green. It looked beautiful when she walked out the salon but its gone into 3 distinctly different colours from the original mid-light brown base at the roots and ash on the rest.

Now we have green (again) at the ends and some small sections have gone a peachy colour (on the ash parts) and therefore the darker roots and underneaths now seem to look really dark.

What I want to try and understand is, why does this keep happening even with 'good' salon colours? What is the stylist not taking account of (porosity, condition?) And she knew it had gone green on previous occasions. My daughter uses purple shampoo to counteract brassyness but this greening has happened several times now and in each case within 14 days of the colour.

This was a £97 bill for hair that looks really really dreadful.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated as this is now two separate hairdressers and three separate occasions of the same thing happening.

Cheers!

[dementedpixie]

Apparently tomato ketchup can fix green tones in blonde hair

[Ofthread]

Have you tried tomato ketchup? Does she swim?

[Ofthread]

Snap!

[Aridane]

Go, ack to,hairdressers?

[dementedpixie]

P.s. do you have hard water or does she go swimming as both of those can cause green hair

[Adoodoobydoo]

I was going to say tomato ketchup. I also use the Jeremy Russel Blonde toner in silver to stop my hair looking brassy. That's a box toner you do at home but is very easy to do (just I'd recommend testing a strand because if I leave it in my hair for the suggested time, my hair gets a purple tinge - which I quite like but she might not).

But seeing as this happened in a hairdressers, and an expensive one at that, you should definitely go back and get them to sort it. I think they will do this for free.

[dementedpixie]

Did OP not say it happens 14 days after the colour so not right away?

[Saz1995]

I'm a manager of a salon in Kent, I do hair on a daily basis. Message me

[Frequency]

There's green in some ash shades which are showing as the colour fades. Colour will fade on bleached hair. There is absolutely nothing the salon can do about that, unfortunately. It's just one of the pitfalls of bleached hair.

You could ask them to use a violet based toner. L'oreal milkshake toners and Wella Illumina are violet based, they're also quasi/semi colours which will last longer on bleached hair.

[ILostItInTheEarlyNineties]

Blonde hair is clearly not working for her and with repeated attempts to re bleach it at the hairdressers it will become very damaged.

Bleached hair contains no red or orange tones what so ever so applying an ash dye over the top can result in a grey or murky green result.
Add to that the fact that the ends are damaged, mineral deposits from hard water, chlorine and copper in water will deposit on the hair making it greener still.

Sorting out the multiple colour mistakes in your dd's hair and achieving a uniform ash blonde colour will take more than a good hairdresser. She would need a specially trained colourist with experience. Those are very hard to come by.

Having blonde hair when your base colour is dark brown is a high maintenance style that should really only be done temporarily. It requires extreme care, regular conditioning treatments and re touching every few weeks. It also has a tendency to turn brassy quickly so will need treating with violet toner after every wash.

I would advise going back to brunette. You say she has dark brown roots so I assume that's her natural colour? Her hair will need to be "filled" with a red semi permanent dye first and then a mid brown applied.
A glossy brown all over colour will look a hundred times better than her current multi tonal disaster.

[DoinItForTheKids]

Weirdly enough, (after all the comments to this effect) she is going back to her natural colour - or trying to! She's not brunette, she's auburn naturally but quite a faded version compared to when she used to be littler.

She doesn't want to be brunette by colour/dye - she wants to go back to her natural colour which is much lighter than that. One of the issues was the first time she had ash tones put on at a different salon nearly 2 years ago, the hairdresser there also failed to do the job right and it went properly green. So we went back and with much disgruntlement from the hairdresser at having to put it right for free, and, hellbent on not chancing it going green again, without asking, against our wishes, she put on a bloody dark brown so we were back to minus square one having spent nearly a year or more growing out a dark brown hair colour DD had had on for a while and after her having gone blonde already! I would confirm that the hair at the time of it being coloured this time was 90% blonde with natural re-growth from the roots to about 3-4" down so was not three different colours - it is now, but it isn't when we went in. The aim of the ash idea (discussed fully with the hairdresser beforehand) was to tone down the horrible yellow hair and unify everything a lot more and in order to help her grow it back to natural without obvious lines. It now looks worse than when she went in quite honestly - it might have been bright yellow before but it certainly wasn't green! If I understand right what she did was put an actual colour on the roots that was as close a match to DDs hair on the roots as possible but feathered it in a bit so it wouldn't be a harsh line and would help her with growing it out, and then used an ash toner on the already bleached bits. Clearly that approach didn't work. She had every opportunity to examine the hair, its condition, porosity, whatever she would have needed to do.

She doesn't swim, we live in a 'slightly hard' water area plus it's only been two weeks - I wouldn't expect a colour to fade in that length of time - that seems totally unreasonable to me. She only washes it once or twice a week!

Saz I'll message you now.

And apologies for the delayed response - I've had NO notifications that anyone had responded and had only just come on here to see if there were any replies or to bump the thread!!

Thanks for all the replies. I also read about ketchup but I'm not sure that's a good thing to try at the moment. I do intend to go back to the hairdresser but if what she did is the extent of how she thought it should be done, but it hasn't actually worked, then going back for her to try the same thing again wouldn't appear to be very worthwhile and why did she use this approach if it doesn't work - what would she know how to do differently if that was her best advice the first time around. That's why I need to kinda try and find out what she SHOULD have done for when I take DD back.

[Frequency]

What she should have done is used a violet based quasi as a toner to achieve an ash shade. Violet cancels out yellow and would brighten the blonde up.

The stylist probably used a darker ash (which would have green in it) to darken down the bleached blonde and make the difference between roots and bleach less obvious.

If this was the case and I'd been forewarned that the clients hair was porous, or had done a porosity test, I'd have used two toners and blended them. A darker ash on the mid lengths and a lighter violet based one on the more porous ends and blended them.

How quickly the colour washes out depends on the condition of the hair, the shampoo used and the colour the stylist used to tone. Two weeks isn't great but if DD's hair has been bleached, coloured and bleached again, it might be the best you can hope for until some condition has been put back into the hair or it's been cut.

[CountFosco]

Cut it all off and grow out her natural colour that way? Or live with the tie dyed hair until it's long enough to cut out? I suspect the more she does to it now the worse it will get.

[GrowThroughWhatYouGoThrough]

Wrong toner/no toner

[ILostItInTheEarlyNineties]

It's hard to envisage her current hair. Would your dd be willing to put a picture on here? I think you can blur out the face although I wouldn't know how to do that!

From what you're saying, she has around 4" of regrowth from the bleach? And that regrowth is near to her natural colour?
A bob might be the best solution here to cut out most of the bleached ends. It will then be easier to return to her natural colour.

Slightly messy long bobs are very in trend at the moment.

I assume the hairdresser was attempting to achieve an ombre colour; darker on the roots and mid lengths and blonde on the ends.

That was a gamble considering your daughter had pre existing brown dye on her hair and it had already been bleached.

It's difficult to achieve an ash blonde shade on auburn hair which naturally has red base tones.
Toners aren't permanent so it may well have looked fine when she left the salon. Bleached or damaged hair will be porous, meaning that it can't "hold" the toner for long. It soon reverts back to yellow with the green residue of the toner remaining.

I think it's best to move away from bleach and toners now

[DoinItForTheKids]

Frequency - what you're saying for the appropriate approach sounds much more like what should have been done.

No, she didn't have pre-existing brown dye - that went a long time ago. She just had bleached and natural roots. Sorry it's difficult to explain as the poor bugger's been through some right nightmares with her hair. I thought I'd found someone decent this time who knew what they were doing but clearly not.

It's all very well and good saying go back (for those who have said this!) but if she doesn't know how to do it right in the first place, will she be able to pull it back?

DD will NOT have her hair cut. She's had a hatchet job on it (the first time she had it dyed green (not on purpose) - she looked like she'd been run over by a lawnmower, I could have cut it better myself and she's been grown the length again for over a year and a half.

She's walking round at the moment looking and feeling like a right numpty. I'm nearly £100 down having placed my faith, again, in a hairdresser who said 'yes we can do this and it will be fine'. This is the THIRD salon!

The last one, put ash silver and grey on top of her yellow blonde but only put the foils on the top half of her whole head! She walked out with silver grey ash on the top half of her head, and manky yellow on the bottom!

It's not my job to 'step away from the toners', it's the hairdresser's job to say 'it can't be done' or 'I don't have the experience to do this' or whatever, that's actually the truth. But they're guessing and messing - with my money. And DDs hair looks a bloody MESS, she looks awful. She's got prom in July - I guess we'll have to get her hair coloured the day before so it lasts long enough for her to get her prom out of the way!! Rrrr. I get all your comments about porosity and can understand how that would affect things, but the hairdresser should have said it's gonna go green or I can't do it. She most certainly didn't suggest any violet option.

Now I guess I'll have the same struggle to have to back to a salon where they clearly don't know what they're doing and when she tells me she'll do it again, I'll be into battle mode to get my money back because she's not doing it again if she simply suggests repeating what she did before, which clearly hasn't worked.

I literally don't know how much more of an expensive salon I can go to and actually find someone who knows colour and can actually a. be honest about the options and if one of the options is to proceed b. knows the technique and correct approach to do that.

It's bad when literally you'd have been no worse off with a blinkin' box dye! No actually the stylist wasn't trying to ombre. She applied the same toner for the same amount of time to all the blonde hair regardless of lengths of whether she was applying to mid lengths or the ends (which were of course drier).

You know, I used to love going to the hairdressers. It was my little place of tranquility, bit of a laugh and time just for me and latterly DD. Now it's just one disappointing and expensive event after another.

At least I'm getting an idea of what sort of approach she would need to take although I'm not sure now actually how successful even that would be - but I a VERY appreciative of all the help.

[Frequency]

Why are they using foils? Are they highlighting her hair?

That is not necessary, especially if you're just gonna shove a root stretch over it all. If she's trying grow out bleached blonde, a root stretch is heading in the right direction but on an already lightish base there is no reason to add more bleach.

Have you considered trying a training salon? The tutors have to know colour inside out because they have to teach the students and it'll be cheaper. It's not expensive you need, it's experienced and knowledgeable and the students have to perform all relevant tests and a in depth consultation all supervised by the tutor.

The toner washing out is just something you're just gonna have to suck up, I'm afraid but at least if it's a violet based toner and not ash or blue, you won't get the green coming through, it will revert back to yellow.

[dementedpixie]

Sounds like a half head of foils was done. I have highlights and use a purple shampoo to keep them from going brassy

[ILostItInTheEarlyNineties]

It's a long shot but it might be worth trying a decent toner at home. One of the best on the market I think is Bleach London White Toner (you can get it in Boots). Lots of reviews and instructions are online.

It's different to toning shampoos in that it's semi permanent, really packs a punch and won't leave a violet or blue tinge to her hair. (Because if it's very yellow, then yellow plus blueish toner will equal green).

It doesn't contain bleach so won't damage her hair. The reincarnation hair mask that comes with it also works wonders at sealing the hair and conditioning it.

[LilacClouds]

If she has auburn hair she will struggle to get a natural looking ash tone in her hair as her hair will contain a lot of red in the hairshaft. It's a difficult colour hair to dye blonde. It also sounds like she's trying to lift her hair colour to shades way beyond it's capabilities.

[RainyApril]

This happened to me, more than once. Sorted by combing lemon juice through my hair and then washing out as usual. Not sure about the long term fixes, it looks like you've had a lot of good advice, but that'll sort the green out.

[DoinItForTheKids]

Ok, I've finally got piccies where I've been able to remove her face! One (obvious I hope) is the one taken on the day, the next one 14 days and one/two hair washes later. She's got green at the ends, blonde in the middle (with a couple of pieces that are slightly peachy coloured at the side of her forehead) and the roots.

LilacClouds thank you - she's not trying to lift her hair right now and didn't ask for that when she went to this salon - she wants it to grow out to her natural colour, but for it not to look completely crap during that period of time if possible . She did ask for lighter at the previous salon, and, once again, we were at a 'top' salon in my city - and they did it for her and that was £120 and washed out in a week too. So it's their fault on every occasion, saying 'yes we can do this' when they should be possibly suggesting totally different approaches... or saying 'it won't work'.

Thanks for all these ideas. I agree that going up in cost (as my experience has shown anyway) isn't the answer! So @Frequency what should I ask for when I call a salon to find out if that's what they do ie as in training?? I believe there is one near me right near where I work so I might pop in and see them and ask and ask them (as a test!) - "what would you say to me if she walked in and asked for X y and z?"

What the hairdresser did was put the light brownish colour on the roots and down a bit trying to as closely to match the natural colour coming through in the roots as she could. Then she simply put DDs hair in the washing bowl and put the ash tint on (and it was only on for a very short time). That was over all the rest of the hair.

[ILostItInTheEarlyNineties]

Well I'll start by saying your daughter has beautiful hair (and could easily have a few inches of the ends without losing the look of long hair).

Maybe it's the photos, but it's not half as bad as I was imagining!
It's odd how the middle section is lighter than the ends. The toner must have taken to the ends. I suppose you don't concentrate on shampooing the ends of your hair when you wash it so the ashy green toner is sticking around?

She's so young with lovely long hair it'd be such a shame to ruin it by mucking about with bleach. She's definitely made the right decision in trying to go back to her natural colour.

The basics of correcting hair colour are the colour wheel; using opposing colours to counteract each other. Unfortunately green is very hard to elimanate as it's opposing colour is red. Added to the fact that they are various different colours going on here, it would be an almost impossible task to treat each colour mistake on one head of hair without one solution adversly affecting other parts of the hair.

I would see 3 options;
Bleach the whole head and re tone (not advisable)
Cut the ends and live with the ombre style until it grows out,
Go brunette or as near to her natural colour as possible.

It's so difficult to stray shades away from your own natural shade and get good long lasting results.
Please reassure your daughter that I don't think it's that awful though, poor girl x

[Frequency]

Just ask the salon if they have any training nights or try your local FE/trade college. Some have dedicated training salons inside the college.

I'd try going a warmer colour than ash, especially if she's naturally warm and wants to grow it out. It'll look more natural than an ash shade. I have no idea what colour line they use but I'd be looking for something with gold and violet in it in a level 9 or 10 for toning and a shade or two darker on the roots.

[DoinItForTheKids]

Thank you both of you, very much appreciated.

How should I play it with the hairdresser then - she's going to want to see her and want to re-do it, but I just don't want to put her hair through another process - it's just wasting everyone's time really - would I be unreasonable to say that I would prefer a refund??

Thank you for the lovely comments about DDs hair .