Question about home hair dye only a numpty would ask

[Sl1nkyMalinki]

Sadly that numpty is me

My hair is naturally dark brown. I normally put a semi permanent dark chocolatey colour (Casting Gloss) on it but I fancied a change and used a bright berry red instead. Love it! But it fades so quickly :( My eye has caught the Schwartzkopf Live colours and they look amazing but they're permanent.

Soooo, my question is, if I put a permanent bright red on it, how hard would it be to get back to my dark brown when I get bored of it? Would it simply mean putting permanent dark brown dye over the top?

Thanks in advance :)

I'm not a hairdresser, but from personal experience, when I got bored with a permanent bright red I dyed over it successfully with a permanent dark brown.

Make sure you do a strand test beforehand to see the result, and an allergy test too.

Thank you :)

Did you find the colour stayed brighter with the permanent colour? Also did you top it up with a semi perm colour if it started to go dull? Oh last question! How did you deal with roots?

Hi Slinky, I use the Live XXL reds and they're pretty good. I stick a semi perm red over the top (Directions) though as I have white bleached hair underneath so they're a little orange on their own. You'd have no trouble sticking a brown over the top as long as you don't mind it being darker than the red. You can't lighten tint with tint.

Roots wise, I just add the dye to the root area, leave for half an hour or so then stick some on the ends for 10 minutes or so. It's easy peasy. I've been home colouring for years.

Thank so much ScarletLady :) I used to home colour all the time but in my high maintenance years (aka no kids) I started going to a salon so I'm a bit out of practice!

Sorry for delay! Forgot about this...

I also used Live XXL.

It was defo brighter with permanent colour. I topped it up with another batch of the same product, which made it brighter still (I was ultimately aiming for Jonathan Ross's wife's red!)

I didn't have it long enough to worry about roots (the brightness novelty wore off) but I agree with Scarlet.

I've now abandoned chemical dyes and use only henna. My hair has never been better.

Henna is supposed to be really good but with my bleached white base I'm terrified of my hair going luminous orange! I'm going back to blonde soon anyway as I've had enough of red. I get bored easily...

Be very careful when putting vibrant red on your hair. You can become bored very quickly and it can be the most difficult pigment to remove. Putting a colour over the top will still appear very warm