Should I put box dye on newly highlighted hair?

[user09876543]

I absolutely hate my newly highlighted hair. It was a rich brown and I asked for lots of lighter bits all the way through. The lighter bits are dreadful - uneven, stripey and very ashey blonde which looks awful with my warm skin tone and makes me look like I have salt and pepper type grey. It’s also really dry which I guess I should have anticipated.
Can I put a brown box dye on it? Will it turn green if I do?

Go back to your hairdresser and discuss it with them.

What did you say at the time? Sounds like possibly a miscommunication if you asked for “lighter bits”. I would definitely try and speak to the stylist first as they may do a toner to fix it.

I can't go back unfortunately since she just rents a chair in a salon and it was her last day.

It wasn't a miscommunication. She's done my hair dozens of times before. I went in asking to go lighter (she generally then puts in lots of caramel/toffee tones and balayages it). Instead it looks grey.

The colour I could probably live with but its really striped because the contrast between the dark and light is too much and at the front I have big clumpy bits like early 90s stripey hair.

A toner would probably help but I'm not sure how I work out which one to buy. Is a toner just a semi?

I would grit my teeth and see another stylist. You could end up with a huge mess otherwise which would cost a lot more money to fix!

This happened to me years ago and they put a semi permanent on top to mask it for a wedding I was going to. It wasn't long before the stripes started to show again.

I had a similar experience recently and used a combination of a semi permanent blonde colour and a wella colour refresh mask in caramel. The semi permanent worked but it did go a bit darker than I wanted so would probably advise only to leave it in for 5-10 mins. You have my sympathy op!

Was she moving to a new hairdressers, or moving away, starting a new job? If you don’t have contact details I would contact the hairdressers where she rented the chair and ask them to give you her details or pass a message on.

She should fix it if it’s significantly different from what you asked for before you pay someone else to do it. I wouldn’t put a box dye on it as you don’t know how it will react with the dye already in your hair.

Don’t try a box dye, you’ll regret it!

Can’t you contact her?

The other option is to pay out again to another salon to get it rectified - annoying but much safer than going at it yourself!

I'm in the same boat @user09876543 . Can't face going back to the salon. I'm wondering if I can do something to tone it down myself.

Happened to my sister once, she looked like a zebra with the highlights. She ended up going the box dye route and it worked out fine.

I was a similar predicament 😬 it happened a month ago and I stuck it out, it’s much better now as my highlights always darken and blend a bit with natural hair after a few weeks. But yes, it all did look a bit 2002 for a few weeks…I walked around thinking, God, people might think I actually want to look like this?!
oh, and mine also ended up ashy and very very light, after I said ‘just not an ashy tone or NOT TOO BLONDE’

Many years ago I had something similar happen to me. A school mum who used to be a hairdresser said a semi permanent wouldn’t hurt, it did the trick, toned down the highlights in my brunette hair.

Buy a toning conditioner- colour wow and wella do them. I use them to tone my highlights down when they start looking brassy