Hairdressers or hair experts - colour advice?

[ItsMondayy]

My hair is darkish brown - a level 5 apparently. I'm starting to go slightly grey and thought a good idea would be to add highlights to try to blend greys as they come through. I wanted ashy toned highlights- either blonde or lighter ashy brown, just so my hair isn't as stark dark brown with obvious greys.

Hair colourist (top stylist) said it wouldn't be possible and I'd have to have reddish warm highlights. I understand hair goes through a red phase when lightening but I had blonde highlights many years ago so don't understand why I can't have what I'm looking for? It will go to a light level, so then surely it's just about toner?

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Have you been colouring your hair at all? Previously coloured hair, even when it appears as if all the colour is faded/washed out is a pain to lift. Most of the time you're lucky if it lifts 2 to 3 levels.

When you say ash what do you mean? To get platinum/white/silver your hair needs to be lifted to a level 10. For someone with level 5 hair that means either extreme damage or bleaching the hair two to three times over the course of a few months.

You can however, get cool toned level 7/8 blondes. They'll still look warm compared to a level 10 blonde but not as warm as you're expecting. Unless you have previously coloured hair in which case you probably will have to stay warm because that colour is not gonna budge without a fight.

Level 5 is quite dark. There isn’t much difference between level 1-5 imo. It’s almost like different shades of black

@Frequency has a good point about previous colour? Lightening dark hair is difficult enough when it’s virgin hair (it will go through that red-orange stage), but previous dark colour compounds matters. It’s essentially a wild card.

You may eventually be able to get it an ashy blonde, but it will take several appointments of highlights over several months, and will be expensive. You’ll also have to maintain it at home with conditioning treatments and repairing products because you may run the risk of damage.

It’s not impossible, just unlikely to be ashy after the first attempts to the extent that you might not like your new colour to begin with

Hmmm I don't believe it is a level 5 - certainly nowhere near the same as black.

Not sure how I'm supposed to deal with greys in that case, other than turn grey, or block dye my whole head dark, neither of which appeal.

You'll probably get to a level 7 without damage, maybe a high 6 if you have previous colour. It's not recommended to lift more than 2 to 3 levels at a time because of the potential for damage.

You can get the colour of your dreams but it will take several sessions over the course of months.