How do you dye your hair dark brown without it turning red/auburn?

[MsOliveOyl]

I have light-medium brown hair, no trace of red normally, and would like to go a few shades darker. But when I dye it at home or get it done at the hairdressers, it always ends up with that horrible dyed-looking purple red tinge. Is there a way to avoid this? I always choose shades with 'ash' in the title, but it still ends up red

Choose a cool tone - sounds like you have done that though.

Protect your hair from the sun.

I find garnier dark brown ok. I have had similar problems. Any hint of red turns my hair purple.

Thanks Nuttyprofessor will give it a try. MadAbout, thank you, but its red straight away, not after sun exposure. I wonder if it's caused by a similar thing that causes all lipstick to turn pink on me? I am allergic to grooming, clearly.

Do you mean underlying bleach from past dye jobs Tough?

Ok, I think I usually use ammonia-free, but will double check. Probably I just need to grow it out and start again...but that would take years!

This also pisses me off no end. I just do it at home with the cheapest dye I can find from Aldi as it always looks crap whatever. I am too young to go grey though. Was hoping to find some magical solution here but alas was not to be...

what about henna? you can get dark brown henna (aka "caca" (sic)) from the divine Lush

The best I've found for not turning it too red is Clairol nice n easy semi permanent, but it still goes a bit red. The worst is when the hairdresser does it - they charge loads and they always turn it purple or red.

I'm going to blame the Viking invaders who added red hair into our gene pool

mumeuro isn't henna the reddest dye ever??

not necessarily Olive. Pure henna turns your hair red but adding other herbs / natural additives can give other shades. I think they have 3 or 4 shades in Lush ranging from a bright red via auburn to almost black. I have hennaed my hair for years and love it, it's very a bit messy to apply and you need to be able to leave it on for a good few hours but the results are lovely and natural.

Thanks mumeuro, just been reading about the hennas on the Lush site. They all mention that the dyes contain red tones though, so I'd be worried about the red coming out too strongly on me, or going brown but with the 'red halo' effect.

I have been using the dark brown lush henna for a year now and I really can't see any red tones, it's quite different to the pure red and even the auburn one, I am quite surprised it says that on the website...

Maybe you don't have hair that turns red no matter what colour you put on it?? Or have you had that problem in the past?

Henna is a red dye, 'brown henna', 'black henna' as sold by Lush etc contain henna mixed with something else, eg indigo, to produce a darker, but still red-based, dye.

I actually used the redder hennas for many many years but now that I'm getting more and more grey hairs and the red tones were becoming orange I stopped using them! I really notice the difference with the dark brown one...at the end of the day everyone is different, why don't you try a strand test?

I might give a strand test a go mumeuro, thanks - if all the others give me red tones too then I might as well!

Oooh mine always has a reddish tinge despite being almost black naturally.

The hairdresser said its my natural tones.

I've used every brown dye ever invented and this never happens to me, and I have red tones in my hair

I'm going to try Aveda Black Malva shampoo and conditioner - claims to deposit colour and remove gold/red tones, expensive but has good reviews - anyone tried it?

I have found the same- always use a semi permanent but my hair is orange now in sunlight! Am trying to deal with the grey and let it grow out, but it's depressing. Anyone know if a permanent colour would be better?

Havent tried Black Malva constance but heard good things and thanks for reminding me about it!