Worried I’ve wrecked my hair and don’t know what to do with it

[helpmyhairpls]

Had never dyed my hair until last year when I decided impulsively to permanent black box dye to cover greys. Realised I felt a bit pale so wanted to go lighter - my idea was a warm caramel vibe. Used hair dye remover on it twice and have realised warm caramel is probably only achievable at a hairdressers and I’m on maternity leave so my budget doesn’t really stretch to a £300 balayage 😅 I have less than 5 weeks til baby is here and would like it fixed asap so I don’t have a weird red/brown patchy mess in pictures to look back on. Where can I go from here please?? Just cover with a dark brown? Would a medium/light brown lift it at all or would it not work?

Picture didn’t load

I don't know but I actually don't think it's that bad...I was expecting much worse!

I think the same as the poster above, I think it looks ok.

What dye remover did you use?

If it smelled of eggs you probably just need another application to get the rest of the dark bits out. When you rinse, rinse thoroughly. If you think you've rinsed enough, you're wrong keep going.

That type of remover works by shrinking the colour molecules so they can be washed out. If you don't rinse them all out they re-oxide.

What @Frequency said.

Rinse way more than you think is necessary and do not dye over it till you've washed it a couple more times. If you do dye over it chose a dye a couple of shades lighter than the result you want. Dyes take better after using a colour remover, so they will end up darker than pictured on the box.

I tried provoke which didn’t do much. Then tried revolution colorless one - both stank of eggs and both said rinse for about 15 minutes which I did but it just seems so patchy. I wouldn’t have cared if it turned it all coppery but this just looks a bit odd 😅

Thank you pp’s saying it doesn’t look too bad! Tbh I didn’t think it did in the mirror - it’s my husband who says it looks bad from his angle and when I took a pic of the top of my head I see what he means 😅

If you have used a dark box dye, the only way it will lift now is with bleach. Been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. Now growing my own grey hair out!

the dye remover seems to have lifted all of the black out. It’s just lifted some of it copper-ish is the issue 😭 my natural colour is pretty dark brown anyway though

The black tones fade quickly anyway. You could use something like head and shoulders a few times but it's really not that bad and probably not worth extra damage to change.

Or failing that I find swimming lightens mine whether I want it to or not and it's wonderful to take the bump weight off so win win!

A good hair colourist will make amends🙂! My hair turned orange once, I even had to wear a hat 😂 to get to the salon! I found a good colourist who made a great improvement and impact. No need for balange or to spend £300 either!!!