Hairdressers! Or anyone with experience going from bleach blonde to dark/ natural

[Christmastree43]

Hello,

Over the past few years I’ve gone from my natural colour (the dark pic) to full on bleach blonde via a number of balayage/ root stretch things...

I’m now so fed up of the cost, time and effort, breakage, inability to grow it that comes with the blonde

How feasible is it to get to something like Sam Faiers hair in this pic via colouring, and then eventually to grow out all colour? Will it look terrible and overdyed? Will the colour hold?

And how do you think Sam did it? Went from bleach blonde back to something much more natural?

Thanks so much for any advice... realism welcomed!!

Is the first picture your natural colour?

If so why not just get balayage top ups as you grow out the blonde?

Hey furrytoebean yes that’s my natural. The problem I had last time I tried to grow it out was the extreme contrast between dark and blonde, it looked so trashy (for want of a better word!!)

In this pic that’s last June with about six months’ growth, I know I know I should have kept on growing it but you can see it looks pretty awful and I eventually snapped in Aug and went back blonde for a holiday

Do you think I could have a darker balayage over the blonde ends?

I would put some face framing highlights in, and put some hand painted highlights of a colour that’s darker than your blonde but lighter than your dark dotted around to break it up.

You could also put a toner on the blonde to make it less brassy.

Kind of like this.

I think the issue with the picture you’ve posted is there’s no blending between the blonde and your natural colour.

Pre-pigment everything orange. Foil out some lowlights in a caramel shade with a hint of blue to counteract the orange pre-pig. Fill in the rest with an ashy level 7.

You'll need a salon. It's not something you can do at home. If funds don't allow buy a copper colour mousse and then a dark blonde box dye but you won't get the lighter streaks that Sam has.

It will fade faster. Colour never holds well on bleached hair as it's more porous but using a decent colour fade shampoo and deep conditioner will help.

Thank you both for the fantastic advice. I do have a great (and v expensive!) colourist and am not averse to paying. In the long game I am wanting to get back to natural.

I think my game plan is let it grow for a couple more months then get some darker colour over the blonde but also get the face framing features and highlights you’ve mentioned to make it bareable/ look decent for the growing out.

Do you have any experience with dying darker over blonde while growing out and were you/ clients happy with it??

Again thanks so much

Do you have any experience with dying darker over blonde while growing out and were you/ clients happy with it??

I've done it a few times. I tend to go a level or two lighter than the client asks for initially as going from light to dark is quite a shock. No-one has ever asked me to go back and make it darker. They've all been happy. One came back for her roots doing and asked to go darker still. Most stick to the darker blonde they end up with.

Blonde was kind of my thing but I've left hairdressing for the moment as I needed more hours than I had and couldn't fit in freelancing around my fulltime job.

Not a hairdresser - but when I had the same issue my hairdresser just dyed my hair to match my natural hair colour and then added a few subtle highlights/lowlights to give it some dimension and stop it looking too flat/dyed/witchy.

You couldn't see the line between my natural hair colour and the dye at all so it was fine as it grew out.

It needed topping up occasionally as the dye faded more over my highlights (but it looked balayage-y rather than totally shit when that happened tbh).

I had a friend do similar just with box dye and it actually looked totally fine.

I've gone from a full head of bleach blonde highlights on below shoulder length hair (over time so you have lots of 'blonde') to a full semi-perm dark - like my natural colour.

What I would say - is don't do what I did and go dark completely - you need a really good colourist who will explain/tell you exactly what you'd miss about the blonde and how to blend in etc. although some people liked me darker, my then boss thought the dark hair looked like a wig (he was quite old though!) and I do think now it was quite a severe colour on me. Have gone blonde highlights again but recently had a few darker colours through to blend and if I were to go dark again I'd have a proper consultation and discuss exactly what I wanted.

People also forget - although you're colouring or blending - as your hair is so long with the bleached blonde then it will take some time for that to come out/be cut out/affect the condition etc - so take that into consideration.

What you could do if you're brave is go for a really good chop - maybe a lob and then do a perm colour, perm/blends/highlights etc from there - as the damaged bleached blonde hair would be gone - then grow your hair again - if it grows fairly fast and looks as if it would from your pics then you'd have better condition hair as it grows. I would also want (even though your colourist you say is good and expensive) to see pics of similar work she's done with clients on this. Also, it will need upkeep.