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.

Just to add, the highlights you get by doing true toning using this method are shinier than hairdresser foils...hair that's just been bleached up to caramel and then rinsed is never as shiny as hair that's had actual colour applied to it, which has glossing agents and all that...its probably slightly worse for your hair but its such a small percentage of your hair, and if you don't do it too often, its so worth it for shimmering colour which is exactly how you want it. I do my own these days because I just prefer having complete control over my colour. In a hairdresser you are at the mercy of what they can achieve with their methods and what they think will look best.

omg, nice n easy natural cool medium brown is very dark isn't it! I can't face doing colourB4 again, and I've had lots of compliments on the colour, so I'm washing in head and shoulders which has toned it down a bit. My hair is a veritable hair dye history, but most recently I was using 117a, but I found it a little light and a bit too brassy (i think it was my previous hair colour showing through). I bought the 117d on 2 for £9, and still have one left. Will prob use it on my roots (1 box gives me 3 goes on roots only), and continue with the head and shoulders to keep it less intense. That will give me abou 6 weeks then will re think. Might do the colourB4 before I go on holiday, and just have shit hair on holiday for a week, then sort colour when I get back. Def agree with tatty, much prefer to make and correct my own mistakes than rely on a hairdresser. Would cut it myself too if I knew how!

oh OP, colour can go very dark if you use a lot of silicone products and heat styling. If you use silicone products (it's in lots of good ones), use a product removal shampoo, or "B4 U Colour" by scott cornwall.

Have been trying to cut out the silicone sprinkles but finding it hard to find a decent, inexpensive conditioner without. I have crap hair that goes really flat & limp with most conditioners.

Would you consider henna? I use a brown henna and my hair has a lot of tones/etc, and feels loads better.

Tatty you seem really knowledgeable, please can I pick your brains? I have hair exactly the same colour as the OP's but my eyes are grey/blue. I had my hair coloured with a semi permanent about a month ago at the hairdressers but I've got greys coming through already and want to cover them up. Prior to having it done professionally, I've used the L'Oréal Casting semi permanent colours, which are good but I find they tend to either come out too dark or too red, depending on the shade I use.

Having read this thread I think I'll give Nice & Easy a try, but am not sure if I should go with the Light Ash Brown or the Natural Medium Brown. I don't want it to be too dark, nor do I want to encourage the red - I really like the brown colour your hair is on your profile pic, so want something like that. Also, would it be best to use a semi and re-do it all every 3-4 wks or just go for it with a permanent then re-touch the roots only? I've never used a permanent colour and am wary in case I hate it once it's on - at least with SP's they wash out!

Sorry for hijacking your thread Wheesht .

Hi Kitty - right, did you like the colour your hairdresser achieved? I assume yes, and that you just want to carry that on at home? Or was it still a bit too red for your liking?

If the overall effect was too red and you are looking to cool it down a bit, you could try slapping on the Light Ash Brown, because the ash would tone down any residual redness which would help a bit, though its hard to hide dark reds. The problem you might have though is that you have some fairly dark colours on the ends of your hair and if you keep layering on top of that it might be difficult to match your roots without going too dark at the ends. I wasn't as concerned about this with the OP because she had some faded highlights that should probably have balanced that effect but if you have a block colour you have to be a bit careful.

I would say if you generally like what the hairdresser achieved and your main problem is roots coming through and that previous colours you've used are too dark/red/both, then its just a cautious choice of colour to do your roots with. Slightly tricker too because you can't really strand test - if you put a lighter shade than the body of your hair on your hair, nothing much will happen except some subtle tonal changes (ash balancing reds etc) and you wont really know what will happen to your roots.

So I would start on the lighter ashy or at least neutral side of things on the basis that you can always work your way down or warmer.

Another option for you is the Natural Light brown 116. Its not specifically ashy, but its quite a neutral shade, not too much warmth and not too much ash - you don't want to look green if the base of your hair is warm. If you are naturally reddish brown, or have a gold cast to your hair, too much ash might have a bad effect on your complexion. It works well as an antidote to brassiness, but there are not that many people who need that much ash, most people look better with a more neutral shade which isn't geared as much towards ash. Particularly when we are talking about covering over greys. But if you are specifically looking to tone the warmth of your natural hair, then its the colour for you.

As for semi or not - I find they are all a bit semi to be honest. All colours wash out a bit and fade, and whilst you have to be careful about build up, it doesn't make a massive difference in the long run as this can happen with semis too.

Kitty I tried semis for a while but I found they just don't cover the greys very well & I ended up having to colour more frequently. You get much better grey coverage with a permanent but just don't go too dark as it starts to look a bit blocky after a while. Tatty gave good advice above about going for a lighter shade as you can always add to it but you can't take away. It's amazing how much darker most dyes are than they appear on the box, especially over a dark natural colour.

Oh, and after reading all Tatty's advice, in the future I will use the box colour to touch up my roots as above rather than the Nice & Easy Root Touch Up. The Root Touch Up is very dark & over time has left me with really dark build up in some areas - still fades on the grey though .

When you consider the benefit of the root touch up is a brush applicator thingy and not having to pay for a full dye box and doing the lot, you CAN easily achieve that with the normal boxes - Nice n Easy being liquid colour are easy to measure out in equal parts and you can easily buy a tinting brush. I get much better control with a foundation brush, I know its sad and weird to use a makeup brush to do your roots with but its just so precise.

You can even go SUPER ADVANCED and mix two colours together but I only recommend that if you are able to do a strand test (which isn't always possible for root touch ups...)

Thanks, I think I'll go for a natural/neutral colour to start with. I like the current colour of my hair as it's very natural but he used an ash tone so it's taken a lot of the redness out. I don't mind the red tones as such on my natural, uncoloured hair, but when I colour it at home it tends to emphasise the redness and the greys go an orange/bronzy colour, which I want to avoid. So I think natural/neutral is the way to go.

And I'll try a permanent this time.

Definitely! The natural/neutral will have some warm tones - its probably the right balance for you. Good luck! Let us know how you get on!

Thanks for the help tattydevine.I've just read the instructions again on the colour b4 and it states that if you must colour it immediately it's ok to use a 8 wash semi.will it deoxidise if I use that?
Also,once I've done all this which permanent colour would you recommend for light(maybe golden)brown?I've pale skin and green eyes.as mentioned before I'm nearly all grey(I think) and sick of the obvious regrowth after 10 days.
Thanks again

8 wash semi will not reoxidise, but it probably won't cover well any greys, so you will have to live with a bit of a comprimise for a few days. It will be worth it.

You could try the medium golden brown or perhaps the light neutral brown to start with - depends how warm you want to go.

I have just uploaded another photo to my profile. It is of my current hair colour which I did on Thursday night. It was taken today after a few washes - I washed it Friday, then Saturday, and again this morning to tone it down slightly and it is now where I want it to be.

The colour is Nice n Easy Medium Golden Brown 117 - its how it turned out after I covered my highlights (I was a dark beige highlighted blonde until Thursday!) with Loreal Rimini Lightest brown which got me to a light dull khaki toned brown, and I then applied the Medium Golden Brown which I left on for 35 minutes.

It did seem darkish at first but 3 washes have sorted that. When I do my roots I think I will use Light Golden Brown and see if it is deep enough to colour match from then on. Check it out, it will give you a reasonable idea of what you will achieve if you use the Golden Brown.

I used the number 5 in the end, love it.

Although now realise you are supposed to wait a week after colour b4.... I didn't .... So that's why it went dark again.

Any tips for conditioning treatment? After weeks of colouring my hair is really dry.

Thanks again Tattydevine.I really like your new hair colour and would be that kind of colour I'm looking for.
Geodieminx I've also used colourb4 twice and coloured it too soon.

I'm going to do it again this week will have to put on the 8 wash semi straight away.I don't think I can live with orange/straw hair even for a week.

Yes, a good conditioner/treatment recommendation would be fab.My hair isn't exactly glossy at the moment.

My treatment recommendation is Ojon Restorative Hair treatment

Purchase it from QVC and if you don't get on with it, send it back within 30 days for a full refund - even if you've used it. So apart from the cost and hassle of posting it back if you don't like it, its risk free.

Thanks
Will get some of that

Gorgeous hair Tatty, how do you get those curls, is it with the straightening irons?

Tatty get my hair tinted at the hd a dark brown with blonde hi lites. When the colour washes out after a few weeks i use nice and easy semi perm med ash brown. Do you think that is the right one to use?. I cant stand any red in my hair or alot of warmth, like it quite an icy chocolate

Hi Chipstick, if you don't like any warmth, something with Ash is the way to go. It sounds like its a case of "don't fix what's not broken"

Dark with highlights sort of equates to a medium brown - the highlights lighten the overall effect, and tend to have a neutralising/ashifying effect, generally, which is why you are getting along fine with a medium ash.

If you wanted to come up a bit you could try a light neutral, but it sounds like the medium ash is doing what it is supposed to.

Thanks lemonmuffin yes, I did that with GHD's, took about 10 minutes, lasts about 3 days.

Thanks Tatty. Your a star.

Oooh, that's a gorgeous colour Tatty, think I might have to give the medium golden brown a go! Will pop to Boots this week and see which colour I think will be nicest for me.

Love the curls too. Do you wrap your hair around the GHDs, a bit like a curling iron? I've tried to curl mine with my GHDs several times and it looks crap tbh. I must be doing it wrong.

Thanks SoftKitty. I do something along lines to get the curl. I just have the regular GHD's though not the thick ones.

Practice practice practice...

I have regular ones too. Going to give that a try (when I'm not going anywhere, in case it goes wrong!). I can't get sound on that film though for some reason - what's the stuff she rubs on her hands and runs through the curls at the end? Is it just some kind of finishing cream?