Advice needed on rectifying home hair dye disaster…

[newnamenellie]

So, to cut a long story short, I recently died my natural medium brown/greying hair.

I used Castings semi permanent in ‘iced chocolate’ (shade 415 I believe). I realised that I’d bought a shade too dark but did a strand test and thought it looked okay, so went ahead and did the whole head.

Anyway, needless to say it turned out very dark and with an awful plummy/purply tone which I hated. Some of my natural hair was pretty light where it was greying (especially underneath) and of course these areas took the dye most of all.

I’ve tried various ways of diminishing it including washing in washing up liquid multiple times (took the edge off the darkness, but still bloody purple). I then decided to try the vitamin c/head and shoulders route which has certainly lightened it but left it a bright orangey brown (marginally better than the purply dark brown). I then bought a blue shampoo and conditioner which hasn’t done much really to neutralise it.

So, I’m wondering what to do? As I see it, I could either strip it with a colour remover (which I know would still leave some orange, but hopefully a lot lighter) and then re dye in a more suitable shade or I could attempt an ash brown dye over the top and hope that would neutralise the orangey/red…

Has anyone got any suggestions or advice please? I don’t want to risk making it worse!

When I used the hair stripper, it appeared to work, so then I put a light brown dye over it and it went black . Maybe I did something wrong, they may have also improved in the interim. I'm guessing going to a hairdresser is out?

@Featuredcreature oh no! That’s the sort of thing I’m worried about 😆

The hairdresser is an option, but would rather try and sort it myself

I'd just dye over it again. As long as you pick a darker shade than what it is currently it should work ok. Maybe some sort of auburn or light brown if it's currently orange. Failing that, wait 2 months, chop off the dye, start again with natural hair that's about an inch long. It soon grows.

It will fade after a couple of washes. Head and shoulders will fade it a bit more.

Was it a semi or permanent you put on it?

I've stripped and redyed mine loads of times, it's NEVER gone dark.

@WildBlueAndDitzy thanks. It’s darkish orange now, and I don’t want to go any darker than this. I was hoping that an ash brown would neutralise it?

As for chopping it off, I’m just growing out a pixie crop so don’t want to go back there - good suggestion though!

@notangelinajolie I’ve faded it with Head & Shoulders/vitamin c mask (acts as a stripper) which is what has caused the purply dark brown to go reddy, browny orange!

I just want to tone the orange down but nothing’s worked so far!

@TheCanyon I’m so tempted to do a remover - have used in the past to remove dark browns, but not dark oranges! I know that there’ll be some orangeyness after using it, but if it gives me a base for redying then that would be better?!

I've used this by Scott Cornwall before, with good results.

I've just seen that an orange remover is available by the same brand, which would probably be worth a go.

I would use an ash brown. Slightly darker to cover the orange tones. Then I would use an intensive mask and give your hair a break from dyeing. If you can find some blue shampoo or silver shampoo to use that can help as well if the tone is still fairly orange, and if it is too blue/green then you can wash it with tomato ketchup to balance those tones out.
It will be darker for a few weeks but when you come to dye it next, you use a lighter ash brown/blonde and move in that direction.
I would not use a lightener or lighter colour, I would go for a similar depth but with an ash tone to colour correct.

Could you afford professional colour correction?

When you say semi permanent how many washes is it meant to last?

@AngelaRayner4PM thank you. I’ve ordered a dark ash blond semi permanent dye, I’ll do a strand test and go from there!

The dye I used originally was 28 washes.

Did you have a colour and developer in the packet? If so make sure you get a similar product with a colour and developer and at least 28 washes. Ideally I would go for more washes than the original product you're trying to cover/ colour correct as one is likely to be a semi permanent and the other more likely a quasi (somewhere between semi and permanent) depends a bit on brand with box dyes

@AngelaRayner4PM yes, colour and developer.

I see what you mean about getting a darker ash brown to cover the orange. I’m just not keen on being really dark for weeks until it fades… not keen on the orange though either 😆

If it's just a semi that you put on then the ash blonde should blend alright, might still be too warm though. Ash dye is never ashy enough imo.

Though I like to do a bleach bath sometimes when I really hate my hair colour.

If you do decide to bleach bath or lighten do it before the ashy colour though. I would only not advise lightening because I don't know what your hair quality is like etc. Wouldn't want you to end up with really damaged hair. In a professional setting I would probably lighten it using a balayage technique or scattered highlight and then using a blue ash toner

The nice and easy ash shades are great, their dark ash blonde is more of a light brown and has saved me from it bru hair in the past.

the stripper is worth a go too but it does reek

@Matchingcollarandcuffs it’s a Nice & Easy that I’ve ordered. I think I’ll do a strand test straight on top of the current colour. If that’s okay then I’ll do the full head, if not then I might do a stripper then try it again.

@AngelaRayner4PM @TheCanyon I’m reluctant (scared) about doing a bleach bath! I think if I can’t get any success with the above plan, I’ll ask my hairdresser to sort it 😊

@AngelaRayner4PM my hair’s in pretty decent condition, mainly because it hasn’t been coloured for about three years until now!

Yes I would defiantly recommend any lightening by done by a professional of your already doing a colour correction job.

@AngelaRayner4PM thanks for all your advice, thanks everyone!

I used a castings in Mahogany on my hair once. It was far too dark for me. I washed it a few times, shampooing about 4 times each time and it did go eventually, after about a week

So, I caved and did a colour remover! Wanted to try and get back to a normal ish shade before redying and thought it would be easy considering this is the only colour I had on my hair.

Well, the it was partly successful but my hair is still gingerish. At least know it’s a brown ginger rather than a red orange and I don’t mind it now. The thing I’ve earned from this is that greying hair (you May remember I had quite a bit of grey underneath, particularly at the sides) really grabs colour and does not let it go! The areas which were very light originally are now a light ginger and certainly not back to the original white/grey.

Apologies for the typos!