Is anyone with brown hair growing out blonde highlights cold turkey

[nomedoit]

So in order to save money I went to the local hairdresser who over the period of 18 months has completely fried my hair. I have so much blonde/bleach/probably industrial ammonia on my hair that the ends are almost white and sort of fried and all over my head the hair is split and breaking off. I kept telling her I only wanted highlights but she dunked my head in colour so it is really blonde and solid and the condition, well there is no condition.

I've got about an inch of brown regrowth and I know the option is to go for some semipermanent colour but part of me wants to stop and go cold turkey and give my head a break. So now I have it tied back and it looks fine. But how long will this work, has anyone grown out a complete head of blonde without colouring?

Do you have block colour or highlights?

Grown out highlights are allegedly a trend ombre hair

I went for semi permanent about my natural colour ish. I also chopped my hair off to shoulder length (good 6 inches off in other words).

It's basically block colour though it wasn't supposed go be. Does semipermanent colour affect the condition?

how about cutting it off?

I am doing that. I had the same problem with the white cotton wool ends. I went to a different hairdresser and asked them there advice. They put darker highlights in. This meant that I would not have a solid band. Not had my highlight done for approx 6 months and the blonde streaks are still there in the bottom part of my hair.

Would recommend going a couple of times to get darker colour woven into hair. Made it seem less drastic.

pity me growing out witchy black hair now topped by mousey / grey roots. That's a look that Alexa Cheung won't be rocking, I'm sure :(

My hair is in a bob and I don't want to go shorter but lemon I too have the cotton wool ends and I will get half an inch trimmed off. It's just the thought of putting yet more colour on it that worries me.

Semi permenant colour does contain peroxide, and some contain ammonia as well, and the ones that dont tend to have a higher concentration of peroxide. So yes, they do affect the condition.

I had similar problems many years ago except it was my own choice/doing as I'd been going to a hairdresser for scalp bleaching (basically bleaching my hair to a white blonde) - I was young and fresh faced and I could get away with it! (think Gwen Stefani in her heyday)

Anyway, stoopid hairdresser overlapped it and because she was using Wella Coco (which is supposed to be for afro hair!) it fried it and it started breaking off about an inch down, at the crown. You can imagine my horror.

I had very little options. I had to wear it in a ponytail basically, because it was the only thing that was able to disguise (in the most part) the fact that my hair was breaking off, though I did have some breakage at the nape of the neck too which looked really silly but as it grew I could just kirby grip it to the rest.

I thought I was going to have to go cold turkey and just let it grow out but I couldn't bear it. I went to Nicky Clarke salon in Mayfair and had a really good bob cut. That was a start. When I had about 2 inches of roots, I dyed the roots only, bringing them up to a light golden brown (I am mousey naturally) and was able to match the body of my hair using "temporary" colour which just coats the hair shaft and doesn't damage it or use peroxide.

After about 6 months and a few more haircuts I went and saw a hairdresser in my home town who did a combo of lowlights and highlights and gave me a really nice neutral highlighted look which wasn't too blonde but was much better than anything I could do.

You are probably not in quite as much shit as I was but if you are really hating your roots you could look at bringing the body of your hair down a few shades or just say sod it and risk having the body of your hair matched to your roots so you can go natural. I liked the previous poster's idea of having some lowlights weaved in, that's a good idea and will make the graduation more natural looking.

Tatty please don't mention Nicky Clarke. I want to weep. A long time ago, in another life, I used to go to Richard Ward for colour: when I was young, single and had money. I used to think it was extravagant and it was but my hair looked great and wasn't cracking off. Now, when I hold a few strands up, it's like there are split ends all the way along.
In my present life I am reduced to sitting in small town hairdressers situated in a log cabin with copies of Slo-Cooker Weekly. I am in the US, midwest...
So, the plan is to grin and bear it and tie it back for a while and then go to Florida to get it fixed. On holiday, I went to a really really good hairdresser down there and we are going back in the autumn. I don't think travelling a thousand miles to get decent colour is unreasonable!

Ive grown out blonde highlight many times, I always put a semi permanent (look for no ammonia brands) in a dark blonde through it without any problems.

you are a brave woman, i keep thinking i wll od this but now i have grey bits in my roots I am going for blonde again! I think you need to srcape hair back for a couple of months then have a short bob and tint?

anhd change hairdresser not all highlights have the bleach effect.

i went a dark brown using a home dye to cover my growing out highlight, actually people seem to prefer my hair brown and i get complimented a lot more.
i used one of those 10 minute home dyes, fab results good colour and not too much fading, i just redye it every 6 weeks or so.

gillybobs How long does the semi-permanent colour last? Do you end up having to grow that out?

It lasts fairly well I think because its going on top of bleached hair IYSWIM. The bleached hair seems to be porous and holds on to the colour quite well. It does fade out gradually but I just redo it when needed. I think because I use a gentle formulation and condition my hair EVERY time I wash it it doesnt seem to do any additional damage. In my experience anyway!

I've been growing mine out for a while - had noticed that Sarah Jessica Parker/ Gisele et al were all rocking this (obviously fake) grown out highlight look and so thought I would have a go. I'm a mid brown naturally and have had a golden blonde through my hair for years now - it wasn't damaged as such but I was fed up with the condition anyway and my hair really didn't have a shine at all any longer. The first 3-4 inches were the worse but I have noticed that my blonde has faded at the same time - because I had highlights there isn't a set 'line' although at first, when it was around the crown more you could see it.

I curl mine a lot into a soft wave and that really brings it all together - and I condition copiously!

I'm currently happy with the way it loosk though - I like it, and a lot of people have commented that there is 'something' nicely different about me!

Today I left it to dry and then tied it back and it looked quite good. My hair is very fine so I use heated tongs/rollers which hasn't helped, obviously. Thanks for the advice to condition - I had sort of given up considering the amount of breakage but I will do that. fixit I have about one and a half inches of regrowth and it looks very defined but if I tie it back you don't notice so much.