Ginger hair disaster...

[tethersend]

I am ginger.

I am going grey.

I choose a 'light natural auburn' dye.

I put it on, leave it for the required time.

Hey presto! Ridiculous hair. Or as DD put it "Not orange mummy, purple hair!"

What the fucking fuck am I supposed to do now? I look like a lady of the night in downtown Bucharest. Circa 1993.

And why does nobody make a ginger hair dye?!

I hate the world.

Is that the only option? Hairdressers?

Go to Boots/Superdrug and get a product called

"Colour B4" by Scott Cornwall

Use it.

It will remove the colour.

Then you need to find a colour that works. I'd start with a "dark golden blonde" if I were you and see if that at least colours the greys and take it from there...

Any hairdressers have any advice?

About 10 years ago (so not very helpful to you really) my friend dyed her hair with a colour called Autumn Gold (possibly Nice n Easy, but as I say 10 years ago) which turned out to be exactly my natural colour.

I think auburn quite often is purple unfortunately . Strand test is your friend.

This is the product

What "number" was the hair colour you used? Were there any numbers on it? For instance, Cheryl Cole's (supposedly) hair colour is "Mahogany 550". What is the number? Because the lower the number, the darker the result. 550 is somewhere in the middle. Garnier Herbashine Ice Mahogany Brown is a 300 (or maybe 400) and it comes out almost black on me. If I were you I'd start somewhere no lower than a 700. If you used a 600 or a 500, that is probably why its too dark and too much pigment...

Def do colourb4 extra strength - it really shifts permanent colour

See, it would have been safer to start with Something like this. Dark golden blond, so its got the warmth, and its a dark blond, which will probably come out more like a light brown, but with the warmth...could be quite gingery on grey. Note that the number is a "7". I wouldn't go darker than a 7 at first, you can always go darker or add colour later, but its harder to remove too-dark pigments.

I feel your pain. I'm a natural redhead with quite a lot of grey to cover. I've tried many, many auburn products and find most tend to turn my hair purple. The best permanent colour to do at home I found was Nice & Easy 109A Natural Warm Auburn. It still tended to be a bit dark (for me)at first but, once washed a couple of times, its a really nice colour.

Any anti dandruff shampoo will strip colour from hair.

I've used nice n easy 108 before and it was as close as I could get (still too red, rather than orange IYSWIM)- this was the nice n easy foam (colour 6A or something; can't remember, but was def a 2 digit number)- the colour on the box was almost the same as on the 108, so like a twat I bought it.

10 years ago, you could buy lots of ginger hair dyes- now they all seem to have been discontinued. It's as if we don't exist.

Have ordered that hair stripper- thanks so much for the recommendation and link. Will I have any hair left at the end of it?

Thanks all for commiserating with my idiocy.

Your hair disaster may have changed my life! I have Ginger strawberry blonde hair, and I last tried to dye it at home about 25 years ago. I couldn't find a dye that made any difference, so I must have spent thousands getting professional highlights over the years.

Is there a specific make that you'd recommend? Is your hair dark or light ginger?

iI dyed my natural blonde hair Golden Blond just before Christmas and ended up ginger.

I panicked like mad......and then I embraced my inner ginger.

I loved it until I tried another colour.
I could easily do it again though.

People said they liked it too.

Your hair will be fine after an application of stripper. Just use a good conditioner after.

In the meantime, if anti dandruff shampoo works, then it must be the active ingredient, which is Salycilic acid (beta hydroxy acid) therefore, if you have any aspirin, which is salycilic acid, essentially, then disolve them in some lukewarm water and give your hair a bit of a "rinse" before you wash it and that should get rid of even more than anti-dandruff shampoo alone...

Not to worry tethers. If your hair falls out - I have two DS with copious amounts of bright ginger hair. If I frog march them to the hairdressers - we'll have enough for a couple of wigs

Nice and Easy 109A is the business! 108 made me look far too brassy, but 109A is exactly the colour I used to be. Noone ever knew I dyed it till I accidently picked up the 108 one day......

I've just dyed my hair a v bright red/ginger. Natural hair colour = chestnut with flecks of grey. It was a cheapo Superdrug own brand dye, called "hot red" I think. Have already had two strangers tell me how much they like my hair