Anyone used a home hair colour remover kit? Help please.

[toomanydicksonthedancefloor1]

Just that really, I'm a bit scared to use it. Can you tell me whether or not you would do it? Or would you go to a salon? And tell me about your experience, and any tips would be appreciated too.

My natural hair colour is a dark mousey brown and I have about 40 stubborn white hairs around my parting.

Have been dying my hair for 20+ years, various browns, sometimes darker, sometimes lighter, sometimes with a bit of red in. Usually do it myself, I've had it done at a salon maybe 10 times over the years. I've had highlights done once. The salon results have never been good enough to make me stick to them, I've always gone back to doing at home.

I have had it stripped once at a salon years ago to go a lighter auburn colour with highlights (didn't suit me). Once stripped my hair was a very scary bright orange until it was coloured again, so I'm fully prepared for that to happen again. I didn't notice any difference in the condition of my hair afterwards.

The last 3 years I've used a gorgeous chocolate brown which was discontinued about 8 months ago. Since then I've struggled to find one I like as much and so it's ended up going gradually darker as I tried various different colours. My hair is shoulder length and the bottom of it is now almost black. I want to strip this out and then go back to a medium-dark brown.

I thought it would be an easy process of application, wait and rinse out. But from reading the box it's going to take a couple of hours and is a little more complex than I thought.

The one I've bought is bleach and ammonia free and is designed for dark coloured dyes and for hair which has been frequently coloured.

My biggest fear is spoiling the condition of my hair, which hairdressers have always complimented me on. It's really soft and lovely and shiny. I would hate for it to end up really dry.

Having it done at a salon isn't an option for a few months for financial and childcare reasons, so that's why I bought a home kit.

What would you do? Would you wait and let a professional do it in a few months? Or do it yourself, bearing in mind I am a very good amateur home hair colourist with 20 years experience .

I think I know the answer, but sometimes MN really surprises me!

Sorry that was wwwaaaayyyyy too long!!

X

DO NOT USE THE STRIPPER, we did DDs the other day, it was orange in an awful state and half the colour still in!!!!

OP DON’T re-dye your hair straight after!!! Google Hair colour removal re-oxidisation. If you colour it immediately, it will go back to the colour it was before. This happened to me, I stripped the black off, re-dyed a chocolate brown and it went back to black.

You need to leave it at least a week until you semi or permanent colour your hair. Use wash-in/wash outs in the meantime.

I don’t know if this is the case in all colour removers, but the colour b4 I used recently had something in it called a ‘buffer’ that went on after the stripper and had to be left on then rinsed, again, for another 5 minutes 😫, but meant that you can use a permanent dye immediately afterwards.

You have to wait at least 14 days between using colour b4 and hair dye (speaks from bitter experience). If you want to attempt to dye it straight away go for an ash blonde and it will come up dark brown....

Hi op, I'm a hairdresser, just a little tip for you. Go ahead and strip the colour, after you've rinsed it use the developer only from a colour you've bought, you'll need to buy an extra one obviously, anyway apply the developer only, don't mix it with the colour, and leave it for a few minutes, 5 should be enough, if your hair stays the orange that it's lightened up to them go ahead and use your target shade, I'd suggest a 6- and if it goes dark again after applying the developer only then you need to strip it again. That's the best way of ensuring it won't go black when you re-colour. Feel free to pm me if you need any more help!

Slowly - yes it does have a buffer. After stripping you out half on and rinse for ten minutes and then do the other half and rinse for ten minutes, then it says you can recolour immediately.

Lorel- thanks so much, really appreciate you taking the time to reply, and thanks for the professional advice. I have a few spare colours at home which I can use the developer from. Would I use the developer after I have used the buffer which comes with the remover kit?

To be honest, if I can't recolour it straight away I wouldn't risk doing it myself as I don't fancy having orange hair for 2 weeks!

I won't have time to do this for a few weeks, as I want to set aside about 4 child free hours to make sure I do it as well as I can. So if the offer still stands I may PM you then for advice.

Thanks again.

I think I may be the exception to the rule (looking on this thread) but my hair didn't go orange even though I naturally have really orangey-copper tones.
I was only going from black to brown though so maybe that made the difference...

I ended up using ColourB4 5-6 times over the last year to try and speed up growing out my hair to my natural grey.
It does stink, it doesn't get it all out, but it does help (and it does go a bit orange !)

I used anti-dandruff shampoo instead of my normal shampoo too, as that's meant to fade colour too - plastered it on, wrapped my hair in clingfilm and blasted it with the hairdryer, then wrapped in a towel and left it in for an hour before rinsing it out.

@toomanydicksonthedancefloor1 yep use the developer after the buffer, it's just an extra indicator that the colour remover has worked. Absolutely pm me whenever you decide to do it if you need any help, you can send me pics if you're stuck and I'll do my best to help you along!😊

I was amazed by Colour B$. I dyed my bleached blonde hair blue- and hated it. I then put Colour B4 on- and it went a bit orange. The I re-dyed it.

the amazing thing- the condition was absolutely fine! God knows what's in it but it's pretty good stuff.