Home hair dye went wrong - advice please

[Appleseesaw]

I dyed my hair at home at the end of May. I used semi permanent colour. My hair is mid brown and I chose a dye labelled light brown as I’ve heard that dyes can look much darker than expected. The colour was perfect on me and I was really pleased.

I dyed my hair again last week. Same brand and colour. My hair has gone dark brown. It’s too dark on my fair colouring. The colour also looks flat. I was hoping to avoid paying salon prices.

Am I best to visit the salon? Is there a home hair dye you recommend? Do you have any ideas as to what went wrong?

Thank you.

Maybe try double washing it with a good clarifying shampoo and using something like Moroccan oil to give it some shine. I'm sure it will fade out soon enough.

OP I would give it time to fade. Alpt pf box dyes can go darker and fade over time. I use the same brand and sometimes it does come out abit darker. You could try head and shoulders shampoo, vitamin c tablets crushed mixed with shampoo to fade it or your could try the colour b4 which will take you back to the colour you we're before and start again but honestly it will fade in time.

Johnson's baby shampoo is really gentle but somehow has a miraculous ability to fade hair dye like nobody's business.

Thank you for the advice. I am keen for it to fade, but I dyed it to cover white hairs and I don’t want them to show through. I’ve also got wavy/curly hair, so I’m reluctant to put more dye immediately on it. I’m having hair issues anyway as my hair just hasn’t recovered after having my youngest child two years ago.

For future dyeing, should I try a lighter colour do you think, or just go to a salon?

@Appleseesaw

Thank you for the advice. I am keen for it to fade, but I dyed it to cover white hairs and I don’t want them to show through. I’ve also got wavy/curly hair, so I’m reluctant to put more dye immediately on it. I’m having hair issues anyway as my hair just hasn’t recovered after having my youngest child two years ago.

For future dyeing, should I try a lighter colour do you think, or just go to a salon?

Go to a salon if you can afford it...the next time might turn out worse and then you are paying loads to get it corrected

No need to go to a salon, you can buy profissional hair dye and do it at home . I've been doing it for years and it's super easy. Also there's no comparison to supermarket dye. Colour doesn't fade and it's multitonal, not flat.

I use Inoa. You still need to choose a much lighter shade than what you expect the end result to be. I have brown hair and use dark blonde.

Also people advising to go to a salon, if you have a significant amount of grey you need to dye your hair every 3 weeks probably. That's a very significant expense, not many people can afford that!

Next time use a semi permanent and only put it on the ends for the last 5 or 10 minutes

Another vote for washing it with Johnson’s baby shampoo, it’ll really fade it.

I did that too, I ended up very dark brown looked almost black the next day I purple dye on it and it only worked on the roots so I then put dark red on the next day and it took some of the very dark out bits it’s still way to dark. After 3 days of consecutive dyeing I thought I’d better let it be and let it fade

Did you have to mix it with a developer? If so, it’s not a semi permanent but a demi. A true semi is never mixed with developer and will wash out (unless you have a very damaged cuticle layer, then it could stain it.)

It sounds like you have a build up of artificial colour and you can either let it fade over a few normal shampoos or remove it with a proper salon type colour remover.

Using strong detergent shampoos to fade colour will seriously dry out your hair, so I personally wouldn’t recommend that route but perhaps go to the salon and get some highlights added to break up the solid colour?

Thank you all very much for your advice.

Yes, I did have to mix it with a developer. I hadn’t realised it was actually a demi. The box said semi.

To be fair, it doesn’t look terrible, but it’s far from ideal. Taking everything into account, I think I’ll wait for it to fade and then try a professional hair colour. If that’s a disaster, I’ll have to go to the salon. I’ll wait for it to fade first as I think I dislike the greys more than the dark colour. Hopefully I can sort out a cost effective long term solution. It’s frustrating when the first time I tried it, the colour was perfect.

Thanks again for your replies.

And yes, just do the roots. Then comb it through for the last 10 mins or so

Box dyes always used to give me flat colour.
Agree with pp who said about buying the professional dyes but for home if you can’t afford salon prices. I did this is lockdown and while it was nowhere near as nice as when it’s professionally done it was better than box dye.

Thank you for your replies. Professional dye at home it is!