Hair dye help!!

[UndertheBoredWalk]

Reposted from chat as suggested...please help me!

I have very very light bleached blonde hair, have done for a few years and I want to go back to dark. am naturally a very dark brown.
Can't afford hairdressers (hence going back, sick of paying a fortune for the blonde!)

Anyway I know if I put a brown dye on it will almost certainly go green.
so do I dye it red then brown? Is that how i counteract the green?

I now have the reddest dye I could find, and a med brown dye.

Someone please tell me what to do to avoid nasty hair.

Disclaimer: I have not done this myself (chickened out and went to a salon) BUT what I have read you should do is use a demi-permanent red or reddish brown to "fill" the hair shaft and then do a permanent brown overtop. Go a couple of shades lighter than you want the colour to end up because the pigments will "grab" on the porous bleached hair. That's all I remember.

There used to be a wonderful website where a professional colourist advised people about this kind of thing. Last week someone was having a hair disaster so I Googled to try to find the site and it seems to be gone, alas.

Hi - im a qualified colour technician - you are 100% right - you need a red to fill the shaft, and a lighter brown than you want to be as bleached hair is like a sponge, so putting a dark brown on at this stage would almost certainly result in jet black!!

If it is darker than you desired - dont panic - it WILL lift over a few days of daily washing - anything else dont hesitate to give me a shout!!

Ooh one last tip..... wrap your hair in cling film when you have applied the brown dye - its fab for encouraging colour to develop and 'grab' the hair cuticle.

Good Luck!!!