Help! Home hair dye too dark - any tried and tested solutions?

[GodDammitAmy]

My usual salon is closed for the holidays so I got a box of Nice and Easy a shade lighter than my usual shade as mine is a bit sun bleached and faded. The medium brown that I got is almost black! I look awful and washed out. I've googled and found that Fairy liquid is recommended if you hair is in good condition, which mine isn't. Or Head and Shoulders. I don't want to throw good money after bad so can anyone give me advice on what I can do to lighten it?

If you can't live with it, (and it will fade), there is a box dye removed - Colour B4 I think, I would use it, I have and it does work.

Read the instructions, wear ear plugs as there is a lot of rinsing.

box dye remover - Superdrug sell it

I have blonde hair with highlights and the same thing happened to me with a light blond box colour. It was dark blonde (very!) and it turned out to be nothing like the colour predicted on the box. I bought a box of dye remover from Tesco’s the next day, it was about five or six pounds. It did the job and took me back to my previous colour and left my hair in a good condition.. I then did some DIY highlights myself instead to hide my root regrowth, unfortunately the colour they promote on the box is often darker in reality. I now look up reviews online if I’m going to buy a box dye.

Thank you! Will go to Superdrug and Tescos tomorrow!

Oh gosh, I am reading really mixed reviews on Amazon on Colour B4! Am I going to smell like a sewer afterwards?

Its a VERY strong smelling chemical that stinks to high heaven...but it does remove colour. Only thing I can say about it, is that you might not get an even result due to colour build up. Good luck.

All home hair dye contains a level of bleach so if you use ColourB4 you will end up with hair lighter than your starting point! I used it when I dyed my hair red and hated it and my hair was VERY blonde afterwards and needed a toner. It was also very dry and needed a lot of conditioning treatments.

I'd really really recommend going to a different salon and getting a professional to sort it out for you. You could end up worse off than you are now and could ruin your hair!

I've used dye remover heaps of times and its been brilliant, condition not affected in the slightest, I used 2 boxes to get good saturation. you will end up ginger though. I loved the colour, I also used the extra strength one
It does smell a bit but it soon goes

I've used box dye re mover and fairy liquid numerous times,much prefer the fairy liquid method, just give your hair a good condition afterwards, plus it seemed a mellower hair removal - colour was better than box dye remover as that stinks and makes hair look really orange / brassy

Just buy some regular head and shoulders and wash several times with it. It'll lighten fairly quickly with it.

If your hair is damaged, I wouldn’t use the colour remover. The colour remover is a bit of a wildcard, it could end up leaving your hair patchy and ginger/brassy and need further correction. I recommend washing it frequenters with head & shoulders to fade it. It will fade to brown on its own accord, it won’t stay black.