I've been looking at a few sites to answer all my questions, but I'm still a little confused. About 6 weeks ago I dyed my hair Pillarbox Red. I bleached first and the resulting color was a bright yellow-blonde with orange towards the ends. The dye I put in has faded now to a very orange color. I'm wanting to get to a light blonde color and I realize this will take a good amount of work. I want to do this with the least amount of damage to my hair as possible.
So a few questions.
Should I use a color remover instead of bleach to get the rest of the dye out? I figure I'll have to bleach after this anyway so I want to do this only as much as I have to. Will the color remover damage my hair at all? And does Sally's Beauty Supply carry these?
Purple toner to get rid of yellow, right?
And what kind of products would useful to me if the color still needs work after that?
Sorry about all the questions, with all the colors my hair has been through the years its never been blonde. So I'm a little nervous and bewildered. Thanks so much in advance to anybody who can offer some advice.
Just posted this at The Going Blonde Home Page. Yep, I'm doing it. I'm taking the final step towards complete glamor and going blonde. Like I said above I've never been blonde. Its a milestone and in honor of it I thought I'd talk a little about some of my more memorable adventures in hair color.
The Evils of Sun-In
This shit is the devil. No, really. I can't remember exactly how old I was when I first learned of Sun-In. It claims to lighten your hair when used in conjunction with the sun(nope) or a hair dryer(nuh-uh.) It just makes your hair sticky and smell a little like sun tan oil. Lemon juice is pretty much equivalent to this.
Little Goth Goddess
Red-black, blue-black, purple-black. Permanent, semi-permanent, demi-permanent. If it was black I used it. Black was my color of choice in high school and I still remember my first time. Mmm, Manic Panic. I made a complete mess. The whole tub was black by the time I was done(not to mention my ears and scalp) and there were stains on the walls from flinging that crap onto my head with my fingers. Still, I loved the color and soon after that I took the dive and went permanent. It stayed black until I shaved it my junior year. When it grew back I dyed it black one last time before I moved onto my next hair obsession.
Like Blood
Ahh, red. Beautiful, vibrant, mercurial red. A shade for every mood. It was my senior year and black had lost its mystery for me. That Marilyn Manson and his creepy little followers were ruining goth for me. They thought all you needed to be goth was a Marilyn Manson t-shirt and stringy black hair. But I digress(yes, I'm bitter), I had outgrown the black and needed something a little more colorful perched atop my head. Sure, I could have just bought a parrot, but I wanted something a bit less flea ridden than that. I wanted RED. I have traveled the spectrum of reds from one end to the other and back again. From the tamest auburn to the current Pillarbox and most of the colors in between. The quest for red has not ended, from time to time I still get a little itch on my scalp when I see someone with a truly gorgeous red and I'm motivated to try a variation I have not yet. Indeed when I am old and gray I fully intend to cover the silver with the best Lucy red I can find.
Ouch! My scalp is burning!
Bleach. Yep, bleach rocks. I was very timid about bleach in the beginning. It was scary. Talk about your dramatic changes. There were so many things to worry about, like what if my hair falls out or what if I hate the color and I can't fix it. But that's just fear talking and the summer after my senior year in high school I finally got the balls to give it a try. My best friend Josh begged me to bleach his short, piddly amount of hair and when we were done applying there was still a decent amount left. So I streaked a bit through my hair and presto, highlights. And there was no stupid cap or knitting needle that never works. I dyed over them a few days later(red, how'd ya guess?), but the bug had bitten deep and about a year later I went all the way. I bleached this shit white and dyed over it with Special Effects Vampire Red. Which promptly faded to bright pink, but it looked fantastic.
So I've gotten into this pattern of crazy color, normal color, crazy color, and back for the last couple of years, but in all the time I've never been blonde for any longer than it takes to wash the bleach out and put the dye on. That ends now(or ya know, in a week or so, when I've figured out how to do it.) I will be blonde. Oh, yes, I will.
I think this is officially my longest entry ever.