Any hair dye experts out there that could help me?

[WheeshtWillYe]

My natural hair colour is very dark brown hair with a very slight reddish colour in bright sunlight if YKWIM. Skin is pale with greenish brown eyes. I have been having salon colours to cover the grey & covering up the roots inbetween with Clairol Root Touch Up in dark brown. Maybe it's been colour build up but my hair was starting to look too dark & draining.

I tried embracing the grey for a while but I'm just not ready to go there yet. Last salon visit I let my colourist talk me into going lighter with some highlights with a view to hopefully making the grey roots less obvious & lightening everything a touch so I don't look quite so like Morticia Adams. I knew it was a mistake as it's a) a lot of work for someone as dark as me to go even a shade lighter & I can't afford the upkeep and b) highlights & covered grey go really gingery on me quickly. I currently have dark & grey roots with nice pinky ginger streaks . I recently tried a root touch up in medium brown but it didn't really take to my hair & my grey streak at the front also looks pinky.

I was thinking of putting on a permanent colour (Clairol Foam?) in a medium brown in the hope that it will cover the grey & the highlights but not be as dark as the reast of my hair & hopefully look like I have some different (natural!) tones to my hair rather than an all one colour dark drown. However I got a bit confused in the store - there is medium brown, medium golden brown & medium ash brown. What is the difference & how do I know which is best for my colouring? Will medium brown cover the grey or do I need to go back to dark brown to solve the dark root problem & pinky grey? Will dark brown cover grey, highlights & rest of hair the same or will I get some difference in tone?

Sorry for the essay, but tired of messing my hair up & faffing around not knowing what I'm doing. Wish there was a magic pill you could take to keep grey hair away. Hope somebody can advise. Thanks so much.

Clairol nice n easy works for me, gives lots of different subtle shades to your hair rather than a single colour. As for which one to choose, copied this from elsewhere:

Find your tone: Achieve a flattering took that's just right for you! Find the tone that works with your colouring. Here's how: If you're warm-toned .. look for shades with Gold for golden tones, Auburn, Spice or Reddish
for red tones.

If you're neutral-toned ..look for shades with Neutral' or Champagne tones with Neutral' or Champagne tones. If you're cool-toned .. look for shades with Ash' tones. Neutral shades are ideal for grey coverage. Ash shades minimize red or gold tones.

I also use Clairol nice n easy. My hair is very dark (almost black), and I use a lighter brown, which usually works to make the hair a nice rich brown rather than too dark.

Word of warning however, sometimes it does make my hair go a bit reddish so if you don't want that (or, as your say, your hair already has a reddish tint to it), be careful.

I'll be taking Eddieshead's advice from now on - Ash all the way :)

DO NOT USE THE FOAM. STAY AWAY FROM THE FOAM. DO NOT TOUCH THE FOAM UNLESS YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.

Seriously it is the messy hard work and actually very shit. You will need to redecorate your bathroom.

John Frieda is much nicer.

Although unless you go pretty dark your roots are going to be a different colour to your hair.

(((((speaks from bitter hair disaster experience)))))

Ha ha guess I'm staying away from the foam then!
Right, might give the ash brown a go then.
Thank you all so much for your help.

This is something I do know a fair bit about at the moment - I have tried the Medium Golden Brown and the Medium Brown as well as the Natrual Medium Cool Brown 117d

I would be VERY CAREFUL about using the Natural Medium Cool brown. I did a strand test on my hair today, which at the moment is a Light Golden Brown. Its a lovely shade, but it is VERY dark - with an almost bluey tinge, which gives it far more "depth" than its counterparts (the 118 Medium Brown and the Natural Medium Golden Brown)

You could end up quite morticia if you use this.

I actually think the Natural Medium Golden brown would be best for what you want to achieve. It has a warm tone, will "blend" well with any residual red tones (it doesn't actually have a red tone to it, or mahogany, its too light for that, it really does have a gold in it though) and the warmth would suit you if you are naturally that way. There is slightly less depth to this shade than the Medium 118 and the Natural Medium Cool 117d - its more of a coating colour than a covering colour (though I am confident it will cover greys)

Unless you have a specific desire to knock out a lot of the warm tones in your hair, I would stay away from the Medium cool, but if you really do want to knock out the warmth, go for the 116 Light Ash Brown. It might be that as your hair grows and your natural roots are coming through you have to switch to the Medium 118 (which will be fine on new hair with no colour build up) BUT for coating previously dyed hair that you are thinking is too dark, it will be fine. You can always add to it, but you cannae taketh away!

Do a strand test!!

For the avoidance of doubt this is the one I think you should use if you want to coat your hair with a lighter but slightly warm colour to blend your red highlights in to the rest of your hair but without going too dark.

This is the shade I think you should use if you want to kill off the warm tones/red tones and get a more neutral brown that isn't too dark. You might need to switch to good old Natural Medium Brown 118 when your "virgin hair" comes through at the roots to match to the rest of your hair. This may also be suitable to cover over the lot - but it might be quite dark on already coloured hair as well. And this is the one that I think you should avoid, as its very dark and deep, and really should be labelled dark in my opinion not medium, AND it has a very bluey purpley tinge to it which will give an even blacker look to it.

Sorry I just realised the links only take you to a chart but not a specific colour.

But all the numbers and names are correct.

Oh thanks Tatty that is really helpful. Will sit down & have a good look at the chart when I don't have kids climbing all over me. Thanks also for the suggestion of a strand test, I have never bothered before but a wise move!

Thanks again Tatty. I have just reread all this info & your posts on the highlights thread & I have learned loads. Still haven't decided between the golden tones & the ash but at least I am no longer afraid of a f**k up when I pick one! Might just get them both & do 2 strand tests. Thanks so much for your time & expertise!

No worries! Strand test is so worthwhile - its so much better than a freak-out when you remove the towel.

Had another look at my strand test done with the Natrual Medium Cool Brown (the one I said comes out really dark) and it is REALLY dark even with the sun shining through it (it was dull outside yesterday but I just put it in a ray of sunshine!) - still really dark, with an indigo/inky hue to it which I think just deepens it even more. Whereas the Light Ash Brown 114 will not be too dark if you want ash tones. Worst case scenario is that it is not deep enough, but it should still cancel out a lot of the reds (did you see the picture on my profile of how red my hair still was and how it did achieve quite a rich neutral brown on that) and then next time you colour, you can go "down" a shade to good old Medium 118 which doesn't have reds and doesn't fade pinky - but isn't as inky-cool-dark as the "medium cool".

Boots have 2 for £9 at the moment so you could get a 114 Light Ash Brown and a 117 Natrual Medium Golden brown and strand test. Or, if you are certain you don't want to add any warmth, get the 118 Medium Brown instead of the 117 Natural Medium Golden.

Dear god I am even boring myself now. Congratulations if you got this far!!!

If you do a strand test, how long is the colour good for? I thought you had to use it immediately?

I have had soooooo many hair disasters... The most recent of which was, I was getting fed up of my dyed almost black hair ("natural" mid brown), felt it was too dark for the summer, so got a red/brown colour, thought it would be finestupid me, whacks it on, and of course, surprise surprise the only place it took was on my roots. So I had a red landing strip down the middle of my head, the rest still black.

So I hot foot to boots and get some of that colour corrector stuff that strips the dye out of hair and takes back to "natural" ha state.

Spent 2 hours doing that, final result... Brown hair..YES... Bright ginger roots....NO!!!!

Back to boots..... Buy a mid brown toner, which although wasn't perfect evened it out a bit.

Right... Must go, have a hair colour to do. Loreal one with the highlighter in too?

You do have to use it immediately. For a strand test, I get a half teaspoon (plastic) measure - 2.5ml - or a medicine spoon - that kind of thing - and measure out 2.5ml of the peroxidey developer and 2.5ml of the colour. If you look at the two bottles in the box, you will notice that they both have the same amount in them (is it 60ml? from memory...something like that) and therefore if you mix the two bottles together you are mixing equal parts together. Thus, you can mix as small amounts together as you like as long as they are equal parts.

When I do my roots (this is really sad, wait for it) I mix together a tablespoon (15ml) of each, and use a foundation brush that I have specially for this to paint the dye on - therefore I'm not overlapping colour and getting colour build up, and also I only use about 1/4 of a box of dye, reducing the cost by 4. So a £5 box of dye does my roots 4 times. Therefore I can do them every 3 weeks or so, because I'm not damaging my hair by overlapping hair that has already been coloured, and I'm not wasting money.

I USED THE FOAM IN MY KITCHEN... did not drop, did not make ANY kind of mess. Could seriously not believe how easy it was and I have never dyed my own hair before. It literally was like putting in shampoo. Colour is completely even. I used the L'oreal Paris sublime mouse. So easy (has an easier bottle than the Clairol which apparently is not easy to use). This one just has a push down pump. It also comes with a bottle of lovely conditioner that I am still using and have plenty of left (I have long hair too!) more than half the bottle. The only thing was it at first came out much darker and then got lighter to the shade I wanted it at. I so want to give it 5 stars because of how simple and clean it was but because of the darkness at the start I could only give it a 3 star :(

I've used the L'Oreal Mousse as well and it's really good. I used to use Nice and Easy, or Garnier permanent colour, but the mousse is so much easier. No mess, either. Maybe the Nice and Easy mousse is a dud?

TattyDevine have you used the colourb4 stuff with success?I have done it a couple of times but it keeps going back to dark brown.My hair is dark brown but I'm probably 80% grey.I don't want to be blond as that really doesnt suit me and looks like straw when I've tried it in the past.
I would love to be a light/golden brown colour.
When I've used the colour b4 stuff it does go light and gets to that gingery colour but because I'm so grey I need to colour it immediately and thats when it goes back to dark brown.Is it ok to colour it straight away?What colour would you use?
Hope you don't mind with all the questions but you seem to know what you're doing
Thanks

Hair disaster #431.... I left the highlighter on too long..... So have chocolate brown hair with gingery orange stripes..... Not good.

Don't suppose you can recommend something to go over the top Tatty? Warm chocolate brown? Perhaps a bit of red?

I am such an idiot. Honestly the amount I spend on home colours, I should really just get it down professionally.

I heard that you should leave a week after colourb4 before putting another colour on... Not sure how true that is.

i have the same colouring as you adn am sitting with 118 on my head atm. it is dark bu tnot morticia. i tried using lighter tones but end up with that horrible brassy red look

i have been using Belle colour dark brown. works well, doesn't sting (like 118 did on me). sat here with it on now have to go wash it off.

just washed mine off pirate!

actually, i have just used the 5, in the Belle colour. i used the 5 last time, it's a bit lighter brown and i find it's more complimentary than their very dark brown one. i have v dark hair naturally but with the red in it, or at least i used to before greydom.

I am now doing my roots and about half my head again, every 4 weeks and it's looking fine. it does fade slightly, noticeably more nearest the scalp where i have covered the grey on the last application. Yet the colour is good.

Belle Colour nice and shiney!

Pirate, I want her hair!

Oh sorry ladies I didn't see that I was needed on Tuesday!!!

Livyliv you MUST wait 7 days and 3 washes before colouring after ColourB4 or it will reoxidise. Okay I admit I folded on day 5 and didn't reoxidise but I did a strand test first. If you really can't live with a temporary colour over the top then you need to choose a week where you are bogging around the house not doing much, maybe half term or the summer holidays and get a nice hat for day trips!!! Who cares for a mere 5-7 days...if you can achieve your ultimate colour? It is shit though but its a shame to go through all that only for it to reoxidise.

Geordiemix - you've probably sorted yours by now but I'd probably have chucked a temporary ash or red over the top just to see what it did if I wanted to keep the highlights, or just coloured over them if I felt it was too much trouble and wasn't really working anyway.

For future reference, if you want to do your own highlights at home I can't recommend enough the Scott Cornwall "foil effects" cap. Its the only way to do home highlights in my opinion.

It comes with a very good booklet that explains it all. What you do is you buy this and you buy some 40 volume peroxide and some bleach powder (Jerome Russell brand, boots or superdrug, fine). You also buy a semi permenant or permenant colour that you want your highlights to be - and you can really look at the colour on the front of the box here because you will be pre-lightening so you don't have to take your original colour into consideration. So if you have chocolate brown hair and you want golden brown highlights, you migth buy Nice n Easy Light Golden Brown. You put the cap on, pull the stuff through, bleach it up to canary yellow, rinse it off WITH THE CAP STILL ON, dry it off, apply your semi/permenant colour, leave that on for the development time, rinse that off WITH THE CAP STILL ON, dry it off to ensure it is the colour you want, then you can take the cap off and I would then recommend washing all your hair to properly get rid of any residue. Its called true toning, and it means that the guess work of how long to leave bleach on to achieve the right "tone" to your highlights is no longer an issue. Its okay for hairdressers - if they get it wrong they can tone your hair at the sink when they rinse you off. But we can't, until this product was invented.

Its all explained in his book which comes with the kit which goes into great detail and I think every home colourist should read it whether they plan on doing highlights or not because it gives a lot of information about home colouring and what the numbers mean and what you can or can't achieve.

Love Scott Cornwall products. Also, he has a facebook page so if you want to ask him a question, you can post it there and he answers in person!!!

Haha "pull the stuff through" should read "pull the hair through"...