Real honest hairdresser answers pls: how often CAN you dye your hair?

[WilfShelf]

Without ruining it?

And are some people only ever going to be able to lighten their hair to a nasty ginger tone? I keep trying but never get the cool ash tones I want.

I know, I know: 'go to a hairdresser' but even they turn me ginger and fleece me and more importantly, Never Do What I Ask For

You can touch up roots as often as you like, it's the comb through that knackers your hair.

What colour are you naturally? If you want ash, I'd go for highlights and have them done at a good salon.

Hi I?m Julie and I work for Pantene. We would normally advise to leave at least 48 hours between colours. This way it will give you time to perform the skin sensitivity test that we recommend for each and every application. The strand test can be done at the same time to give an indication of the result you are likely to achieve.

It is really important that you perform the strand test as this way you will know exactly what result to expect and you won?t have any bad surprises. The ginger tone you are getting might be due to the fact that your natural hair colour is too dark to achieve the cool ash tone you want. The natural warm undertones (red) in your hair can make it impossible to achieve a very light blonde as they come through, especially with a cool ash tone.

Unfortunately, you cannot lighten colour with colour, so if you want to get more information on the alternatives available to get the tone you really want, the best person to talk to is a renowned hairstylist in your area. To make sure they understand what you want, bring plenty of pictures of your preferred tone/cut. You might look at other options such as bleaching or stripping colour but these are not ideal as they will damage your hair. But your hairstylist will be able to recommend you the best option.

Also, make sure you condition your hair well to keep it healthy and glossy! Hope this helps.

Julie

I'm not a hairdresser but have experience of achieving the cool ash tone you want.

I can't achieve it at home with a high lift tint either - the closest I got was with Loreal 911 (if its still called that) but it was still a little too warm/strawberry for my liking.

I therefore used to go to the hairdresser and get Loreal 911 (or the salon equivalent) applied to my roots, and a half head of highlights (bleach ones basically) which left me with gorgeous creamy blonde locks with no strawberry tones about it. If it needed toning at any point I'd just use a purple toning shampoo to keep it looking ashy.

I'd get bad roots though. At a pinch you could probably do the tinting part yourself at home every 6 weeks, and get highlights at the hairdresser every 2nd time, so about 4 times a year. That is the absolute cheapest you could do it, probably. It wouldnt' be quite as good as going to the hairdresser each time and having them do it though.

This may be not much help to you if you dont want to go to the hairdresser, but at least it will give you an idea of what the hairdresser would have to do to achieve what you want, I think the problem is that you've been going with just a tint when you actually need a bit of bleach (highlights) as well.

Hope that helps.

Oooh brilliant and professional/experienced advice: thanks.

I have resigned meself to leaving alone at home and getting it done professionally. You might see from my other thread have recently had colours analysed and know I need cool tones; but my experience is hairdressers do what they think suits you not what you ask for! Will have to be firm and take my book in... and some pictures also, good idea.