Home hair dye confusion - please help??? :-)

[padboz]

hi - I hope you can help? I have mid to dark brown hair. I also have a lot of greys for a 37 year old. My hair bleaches in normal day light very quickly - even in winter a couple of months on and it goes from dark to a dark caramel bordering on deep blonde that I much prefer to my roots. I've never lightened my hair.... (bored yet?) to blend my greys I have to dye my hair to the 2 inch section of my roots which is dark brown - so every couple of months I go from deep brown which eventually fades to the colour I really like just in time to have to dye my roots ..... Can I dye the greys dark blonde without bleaching my hair? Would it look like I still had greys? And is there a better solution generally? Thanks for listening to my woes!!!

I've just had caramel colour highlights put in my hair adn I love it- I think its softer than dark brownand altho I havent had a root tint to top it up yet apparently its easier to maintain

I'm confused how your hair lightens in the sun so readily. Have you been tinting your hair for years? Could it be that you are having "colour fade" and that's what's causing the caramel colour? The peroxide in hair dye will lighten your hair "underneath" the brown so if the brown washes out or gets bleached or fades in the sun it will be the peroxide that has caused the lightening effect. So you say you have never lightened your hair, but if you colour it, you have in a sense, in that you have applied peroxide and possibly ammonia to your hair.

When you are at your "caramel" colour you like, but presumably getting dark roots and greys, which makes you dye it, you could try using a colour about a number "7" or "700" on the box, for instance Loreal Recital Preference "Rimini Lightest Brown" which is actually a rich caramel colour and see if it brings your roots up to match the rest of your hair. This should cover the greys.

The risk is that your roots go a bit orange, because it isn't able to "bring up" your dark brown quite enough to match the hair that has been chemically treated over the years. In which case you could just colour over the lot with your usual colour, no permenant damage done.

Is that helpful? Or did I miss something? Your post confused me slightly, possibly because I can't quite understand why your hair does that!

Thank you both - it's kind of you to reply ! I have never knowingly lightened my hair but I use nice and easy medium dark brown every two months - I guess from what you are saying I am dying my hair dark but inadvertently bleaching it?!! About every 8 weeks I have dark roots and warm brown hair . I dye the lot to match the roots and the cycle starts again. . . Is my dark dye in the end lightening my hair??