Changing hair colour

[SmileAndNod]

My hair is naturally very dark, but i now have lots of grey and use a box colour (3'5) to do the roots every for weeks or so as I can't justify £ 40 ish on my hair every four weeks.

I think that I want to lighten my hair up a bit as the constant dark dyeing is making it very dark. I don't know how to go about it or indeed how much it will cost roughly. I almost don't want to phone the hairdresser as I'm too scared. Really light hair won't suit me, my eyes and eyebrows are dark. I'm a 'winter' so not warm toned at all . I couldn't afford the upkeep of highlights.

My plan for this year was to grow out my short (chin length) choppy bob and get my hair lightened. However my hair is falling out a lot and doesn't look the greatest. I'm also on various medication for stress/anxiety/trauma/depression so this also may be having an effect.

Would you mess about with your hair in these circumstances? Or just leave it? I want to feel nice again, despite all the crap that's going on in my life. Someone tell me what to do please as I really can't make a decision!

Suzanne the Clairol will have a fair bit of ash in them (cool and ash are pretty interchangeable) but probably the full range of natural tones to avoid any disasters. On the subject of grey hair (and as a lot of box dyes are used at home to cover grey this will also make sense about the full range of tones) once you get to a certain percentage of grey the hairdresser will mix your colour with a "natural" to fill in the gaps in terms of those complimenting tones that are gone from grey hair, so yes if you had a big percentage of grey (over 50% I think it is) it would start to be risky using an ash dominant tone to cover them without looking green, or at least very flat, same with gold tones just looking brassy or orange.

In terms of percentage, 20 volume is 6%, 30 volume is 9% so 7.7 would indeed be 25 volume. And I guess that would account for the shorter developing time - good grey coverage in less time.

tatty please help! I have this problem where I'm naturally a mid brown with grey coming through, anytime I dye it, even with ash or cool box colours it comes out with a gingery tinge. I recently used a colour stripper then put a l'oreal 8 box dye on it & it has gone sort of bronde but still a bit gingery. I like 'bronde' for now but need to get rid of the ginger it doesn't suit me I hate it!

Walt the problem is that the peroxide developer in the dye is having a lightening effect on your natural hair, and when hair lightens it goes through the range of tones all the way up to light yellow but you are stopping long before that around the rusty shades, even though your hair is naturally mid brown, the browner tones give way to the rust.

In theory it is the toners or reflects in hair dye that will counter this effect. I reckon box dyes just don't contain quite enough ash to correct this in your hair, for reasons mentioned above about people using them over highlights and going green, etc.

You might do better with a professional dye where you can pack as much ash into it to correct the ginger whilst still depositing colour.

Something like a Majirel 6.11 would be ashier than anything you could buy in a box. Green ash kills ginger. Try it with a 20 volume developer. Ebay is an easy place to buy. Here's what you do.

Majirel is 50ml tubes, and needs to be mixed with times and a half its amount. So a 50ml tube gets mixed with 75ml of 20 volume peroxide. Squeeze the tube into a non metal dish, then add the peroxide, and mix. Development time is 35 minutes, you then add water in the shower and it will sort of lather up a bit, rinse, shampoo, condition, etc.

If you are only doing roots you need less amount. I find 1 tbsp (half a tube) is a good amount, which you of course then mix with a tablespoon and a half of developer.

A strand test is a good idea if you are doing the whole lengths of your hair, to make sure its not too dark or scary and that it is worthwhile doing in terms of the tone you achieve. To do this mix a really small dab of the dye with a slightly bigger dab of peroxide (aim for the 1:1.5 ratio) , snip off a few strands of hair from an unobtrusive place in the middle of your hair, secure it with a sticky label, paint the dye on, wrap it in tinfoil, keep it somewhere warmish, 35 minutes, rinse and observe in natural light.

Capital hair and beauty is a good website for buying the stuff. Might need to say you are a student, but most supply shops will sell to the general public.

Well I'm back from the hairdressers. I went in to make an appointment (but none for next week anyway) and to have a quick chat about my colour. Apparently because I'm so dark, I'm always going to have warm tones? She suggested not lightening it two shades as it will make me feel like I've suddenly gone blonde or something, but having some highlights or pieces in it to lighten it up that way, gradually.

An somewhat confused as to how exactly that's going to hide the masses of grey. Dd was emptying shelves and I left feeling flustered and without an appointment. Also still none the wiser about whether to go back to chin length bob or try and grow it.

Honestly I feel so fat, grumpy, grey, old and knackered I'm going to give up soon

Highlights do really well to hide grey IME. As the colour is less blocky and all-over, the grey blends in and is much less obvious.
I've gradually gone, over the last two years, from a home-dyed dark brown with reddish tones to an ash blonde. Sounds drastic, but I did it so gradually it doesn't feel like a huge change - and it looks so much healthier, younger and less severe.

The so dark you'll always have warm tones thing comes from what I mentioned above to Walt about the peroxide causing your base colour to lighten a bit but not enough not to be rusty. This is where colours containing a lot of ash to counteract the effect can be useful, but you may indeed find you still show a goldy hue particularly in strong light or where the sun is shining through it. To be honest there are not many natural hair colours that don't have a fair bit of at least neutral goldish tones in it...we all have a combination of these tones that make up our colour, its copper that can be particularly difficult for a winter, as its basically orange and that's a big no-no near your face (Im a Spring, so it suits me just fine, and us Springs are quite lucky in the hardest colours to achieve which are the cool ones are the only ones we can't have). My mother is a Winter, and as a young woman had almost blue black hair, no red or gold tones at all, and she too found this difficult when she started greying. The House of Colour book tells you not to use traditional hair dye on your winter hair - but to cover grey with a cool dark henna type colour. Sounds a bit out there, but they have a point, because the rusty reflect is no friend of a Winter and difficult to eliminate as we know.

So. Here are your options OP. Sorry to hear the hairdresser was a bit uninspiring but you have a few options. I think grey coverage is possibly your biggest priority for not feeling old and knackered, yes? With the secondary objective of getting your ends sorted out so they are not quite so dark and giving way to the Pauline Prescott Effect with the blocky dark helmet of hair.

You are probably not up for fannying around at home trying to strip with a product like Colour B4 (which is excellent but can be tricky getting rid of dark colour build up - in that it can be successful, but sometimes the colour will reoxidise even if you rinse and rinse forever, and then you can't colour back over it for a week due to the same reoxidisation risk therefore you are walking around like an orange clown for a week). It is an option though and can be very helpful in getting rid of a good bit of the build up to ensure a better base colour. But lets park that for now.

Personally what I think is a good option is for you to take care of your greys and regrowth using the best possible colour for you which is closer to the colour you want to be, so perhaps one of the colours mentioned above if you are game to try mixing your own professional colour and doing your roots? Then once that's done, you can make an appointment at that hairdresser for the highlights she discussed, which she can use to do her best to blend your old darker lengths in with your less dark cool toned bits nearer your scalp. In terms of going back to a choppy bob, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea at this point to do that if it means you can be chopping off as much of the dark ends as possible in the meantime till it grows out, and you can carry on doing your own roots with your newer better colour if that works out for you.

It can be liberating to learn to cover your own grey at home in a way that works well for you - it can literally save thousands over the years from not having it done in a salon and the convenience of being able to do it when it suits you (before a night out for instance) without having to have a hairdressing appointment or finding childcare is well worthwhile.

Can you get your head around that?

Yes I want to get away from the harshness of it now, and go to maybe a deep chocolate colour. At the moment, roots are so obvious as they grow through.

Not sure what to do. I'm fed up and have a couple of (very rare) outings with DH and no children. I want to look nice again for that

This is a very good product for putting cool tones or counteracting red tones in brunette hair. Don't be put off by the name "black Malva", it won't make your hair black, and no its not cheap, but you can use it to help tone your hair if there are any cheeky copper tones poking through...

It's all very complex isnt it I wish I had a better understanding of this when I first started colouring my hair.

Tattydevine you seem to do a much better job of explaining it than many hairdressers do!

Then again I suppose hair dressers have a pretty difficult job because on the one hand there are the facts about hair colour and what will happen if you do this or that to your hair, and on the other hand we all have idea's about how we would like to look which dont always fit in with what is feasible.

Also most of the hairdressers I have used are youngish women and, however skilled they are it must be difficult for them to see things from my point of view since I am 20 or 30 years older than they are

It is quite complex. There is no massive skill involved in mixing and applying colour, the real skill is in achieving a target colour and knowing what to mix. The colour numbering system helps with this but there are so many factors like lift and coverage etc that makes it a bit of a minefield.

Strand tests are very very useful at home. Cuts out that moment where you shit yourself because you look in the mirror when your colour is developing and wonder why it is purple, and hope to god your hair won't be! Lol.

Hello Tatty,
You seem to know alot about hair colours. Do you know anything about the Goldwell elumen colours ?

Not a lot, haven't used them, they are those really vibrant colours aren't they?

yes, they are supposed to be non damaging, very shiny and deep conditoning

So I've booked an appointment for the weekend. My plan (unless I chicken out) is to have an all over colour with 'pieces' which I assume are lighter bits put in- will check first. They've booked an hour and half for the colour.

Am also going for the chop. I would love my hair long again as above but the growing it stage is awful and at the minute I end up tying it back into a two inch ponytail!

I'm hoping for something a bit different but not to come out feeling disappointed. Best bit is that I'll have a couple of child free hours to sit with a trashy magazine

Sounds good Smile:)
let us know how you get on!

Well I'm back. Took four hours but I've gone from practically black to this.

I'm worried that as a winter it might be a bit too coppery for me. Still undecided as to whether I like it, is very different but at least it's not a plain block of dry colour.

Didn't go for the chop, have a long bob now instead. Am far too indecisive

Tha looks LOVELY! I'd be thrilled with that (on my dark..greying hair :D )

it looks really good:o
(loooong appointment )

Id say give yourself time to get used to it, a big change of hair colour can take a while to adjust to ime?

Your hair looks gorgeous!
Really nice, you must be thrilled.