Has anyone dramatically changed hair colour, did it go well?

[3luckystars]

I have red curly hair, people admire it but I am thinking of a dramatic colour change. Has anyone here done something similar? A big cut or colour change, was it a shock the next day.

Was it a gradual thing or did you just go for it? How did you know if the new colour would suit you. Any advice appreciated. I have a hair appointment tomorrow.

Before

Oh my god you look so different! Wow! Thank you so much, that is a huge change, in 4 weeks? well done to you! Are you saying you did it yourself?

No hairdresser would do it fast enough!
My hair was very healthy and looked after but they said because of how dark it was it would take at least 8 sessions of bleaching to get to a mid-blonde. Which is true, but they wanted £120 a session and it would take 6 months. I am quite impatient

When you bleach at home you do of course run the risk of ruining your hair, but I used olaplex/ colorphlex and similar (its a treatment that goes into the hairdye itself and rebuilds the broken bonds) and its kept my hair in very good condition and allowed me to go lighter without the breakage.
Anyone thinking of doing it at home www.amazon.co.uk/Colorphlex-Hair-Color-Strengthening/dp/B00YNKGP02

I have a friend with naturally red hair who tried to go blonde at home, it went horrifically wrong and she ended up going to a hairdressers who put a dark brown on it to make her able to go out in public. Red hair is difficult to dye, I would be very inclined to believe your hairdresser in this instance. Sorry you aren't happy though, I would go back and explain that you really don't like how dark it is, see if maybe they could add more/lighter highlights?

Ah Im getting used to it, I will just keep repeating that it is a work in progress and will probably take a year. I have put some tan on my face so there is an improvement (Yay)

I am determined now to go blond, I have started so will keep going.
It is a lot more technical than I thought though, the hairdressers are nearly like chemists!

Thank you all again for your help.

Cate
My hairdresser told me I have cool tone skin and I needed warm hair to warm me up not cool as it wd add to my cool tone - so the exact opposite of the advice you were given ! Now I'm confused .

I think it's bullshit when hairdressers tell you they can't do a dramatic change in one sitting. They can - it jut takes time and money.

4 years ago, as a very dark ( almost black) brunette I wanted to go bleach blonde. It took 6.5hours and about £350. I got platinum blonde scalp bleaches for about a year until I changed to full head highlights to create an ashy blonde. I'm now starting to grow out my routes for an ombré dark to blonde look which is still en vouge!

You can see how dark my eyebrows are compared to my hair!

Right, I have managed to take a photo, I will try to post, hopefully there will be a few posts in the mean time because you are beautiful. : )

I saw a woman earlier with lovely ashy hair so I spoke to her and she said there was 4 different colours/lights in her hair. I also noticed that all the photos posted online of nice hair are taken in the actual hairdressers chair, so I think nice hair is very hard to maintain for normal people and it's rare enough where I am to see really nice coloured healthy hair. This week has been a real eye opener!

ginorwine

That's my experience too. I know I'm cool toned but an ashy cool hair colour makes me look seriously unwell. My hairdresser explained that warmth was necessary to 'bring me back to life' - I was really unsure as I have a strong dislike of any red/orange/gold tones in my hair but he was right. I'm now a golden chestnut with lighter balayage and it transforms how healthy my skin and eyes look.

ginorwine When I've gone for a warmer toned colour it always makes me look jaundice and brings out the dark circles under my eyes (the ones that I haven't normally been that bothered about). Cool tones absolutely makes my pale/fair complexion look healthier. The cooler the tone the more contrast I get between my skin and hair.

A good way to tell is that when I develop the yellow brassiness in my hair I always seem to look tired. I know its time to tone my hair or wash with silver shampoo.

I've mentioned this upthread but Ellebangs on YouTube really does explain the skin tone/hair colour issue well.

OP, your hairdresser is right and sounds like she knows what she's doing. She's definitely right about celebrities dramatically changing their hair colours apparently by magic.

I hope she can add more highlights soon and get you closer to the colour you want.

OK. A week on and my hair is absolutely horrendous. It's black with yellow stripes and red coming through.
I am upset I spent so much on my hair and it looks dreadful! I am not a vain person but this has really knocked me.

A friend recommended a colour specialist in another salon so I went to speak to her this morning. She said I can either strip all the colour out and continue to go blond or go back to red.

I have an appointment at the end of January with her to get it sorted so have 2weeks to decide but I will probably go back to red because that colour stripping will damage my hair.

The good news is that because they are a sister salon to the other place she said she would do something about reducing the price which is nice of her. I think she was even shocked at how bad it was.

Here I took a photo last week when it was just done, it doesn't look too bad but it's worse today with the yellow highlights showIng .

I had gone in with long red curls, wanting to go blond and that is what I ended up with. Anways it's not a big deal and can be fixed again so that's great.
Apologies about the photo, I had to print it and take a photo with my phone!

So thanks for the help. The lesson I learned is that if you are making a dramatic change to your hair, go to someone who is an expert and get a recommendation from someone with nice hair.

It doesn't look too bad in the photo but it's your hair and you'll be seeing it good light etc.

It's amazingly shiny! And I'm sooo bloody jealous of your gorgeous curls My hair is absolutely poker straight........

I dye my own hair, have done for years. My hair is naturally a browny auburn shade. About five years ago I died my hair very dark brown, almost with bluey/black glints. I do have almost black irises, so it looked fine. Then I got bored and dyed it bright auburn. Then I got bored again and decided I wanted silvery/champagne/platinum hair. I agree with a pp that so long as you stick to your colour tone, warm or cool, you can wear pretty much any colour.

When I went blonde It took a lot of bleaching (I used olaplex like a pp, brilliant stuff!) and through several horrific shades of gm carrot orange but eventually I got there. I used to cover my hair in coconut oil and leave it to soak for an hour before bleaching, just added bleach straight on top. It helped a lot with my hair condition.

Now when I get roots I bleach them, then the next day add Loreal's Stockholm blonde all over my hair.