Dying/bleaching your hair...

[lazy poet]

My hair is quite dark brown with a red tint
but i want it bright red for the summer (bit cliche i know :/ ...)
and the only way i can get it bright enough is by bleaching it and then dying it red
but a lot of people have said to me that you have to leave bleach for a few weeks before dying over it
but i really don't want bleach blonde hair
so has anyone here bleached and dyed straight after before ?
and whats your advice etc

if you want you can also use this thread to show off any wonderful hair colours you have/had or are thinking of getting

[frantastic]

My hair's quite dark naturally as well so I had to bleach it when I dyed it red. I've never heard of that though, that you're supposed to wait, so I did it all in one go. Worked just fine for me, don't see why it shouldn't

[tesla]

Are you talking about a natural sort of bright red color, or the very daring true red look?

[Sorrow By Nature]

I suppose it's not entirely good for your hair, but mine hasn't fallen off yet, and I bleached and dyed it the same day. Just don't overdo it and check the hair frequently while waiting for it.... And you'll be just fine.

/t

[Debs]

My hair's naturally very dark brown but I'm blonde at the minute, which takes no end of bleach because my hair goes through every shade of red/orange/ginger/brassyness on its way to yellow.

Couple of years ago I went down the 'I want my hair RED' route and had it like this:


It wasn't bleached first - this colour was put in in wedges straight on top of my dark hair. As it faded it was clear that it'd bleached my hair a bit and I had to use red conditioner to boost the colour and keep it shiny. It was great. Ruined shedloads of pillowcases and towels though.

[sanssouci]

are you sure that you have to bleach it first? the red dye i use has bleach in it anyway so it lightens and reddens all at once (magic), although if you wanna go for the sort of mrs jonathan ross look... i have heard the wait a few days after bleaching advice, but just make sure you use superconditioner and you'll probably be okay... although i have dyed my hair red so many times even without bleaching it first and just going for the bleaching and reddening brand it's a bit straw-like anyway even when i uber-condition it. but be prepared to be redyeing the red a LOT because when you dye over bleached hair it fades really fast, and it will be twice as bad if we ever get the summertime, fortunately for faux redheads of the world that doesn't look that likely...

oh Debs i wouldn't like to count the number of white pillowcases and towels i have dyed a fetching shade of orange... and in fact my entire bath was tinted pink for a little while.

p.s. red hair is not cliche unless you wear it like it's a cliche. HE COPIED ME. right? of course right!

[lazy poet]

thats quite a good idea debs
but i'm not sure if it would work of my hair, even with a red conditioner

i'm going for the rouge colour on here

although i still cant decide between that or blue black :S
but, even though blue black would be a lot more simple, i think i might go for the red because it's nicer in summer
then i might do blue black in the winter

thanks for the advice anyway guys

[Debs]

I'd kill to be young/confident enough and not in fear of being sacked from my job to have that pink colour.

The rouge colour's very close to what I had put in.

[Rebekah]

I have always wanted to dye my hair blue. But I would never have the self-confidence for it.

Harrr, I tried to bleach my hair once... I rinsed tooooooo early, because I was rushed, someone was all "GO TO THIS THING WITH ME" so I rinsed it out, and I was left with quite fetching orange hair. And uhh.. blonde roots. Luckily, I have almost no pictorial evidence of this situation.

[tesla]

teneraestnox said:

I was left with quite fetching orange hair. And uhh.. blonde roots. Luckily, I have almost no pictorial evidence of this situation.

Like Leeloo from the Fifth Element! I wanted to do that once, but figured I'd better keep my hair alive as long as it can stand.

[lastgoodbye]

doctorwho said:

thats quite a good idea debs
but i'm not sure if it would work of my hair, even with a red conditioner

i'm going for the rouge colour on here

although i still cant decide between that or blue black :S
but, even though blue black would be a lot more simple, i think i might go for the red because it's nicer in summer
then i might do blue black in the winter

thanks for the advice anyway guys

I love the blue/black one... but I would never have the guts to die my hair. Plus my mum wouldn't let me. Plus I would miss being blonde. But my friend who has always had brown hair is bleaching her's blonde with black underneath… I can’t wait to see it, it should look pretty cool.

[Rebekah]

tesla said:

teneraestnox said:

I was left with quite fetching orange hair. And uhh.. blonde roots. Luckily, I have almost no pictorial evidence of this situation.

Like Leeloo from the Fifth Element! I wanted to do that once, but figured I'd better keep my hair alive as long as it can stand.

Only, not nearly as cool, or intentional. Oh, The Fifth Element.. I love that movie.

[mynameisHughGrant]

lastgoodbye said:

doctorwho said:

thats quite a good idea debs
but i'm not sure if it would work of my hair, even with a red conditioner

i'm going for the rouge colour on here

although i still cant decide between that or blue black :S
but, even though blue black would be a lot more simple, i think i might go for the red because it's nicer in summer
then i might do blue black in the winter

thanks for the advice anyway guys

I love the blue/black one... but I would never have the guts to die my hair. Plus my mum wouldn't let me. Plus I would miss being blonde. But my friend who has always had brown hair is bleaching her's blonde with black underneath… I can’t wait to see it, it should look pretty cool.

i did blue/black before. but then i hated it. although now i think that might just be because of a particularly unflattering photo of ymself from the time.


my hair was bright red but it's faded like woooah:(

[indiequeen]

right, get yourself to superdrug and buy their hair lightner for 2.99 (i needed 2 packs and my hairs shoulder length)
it lightened my brown hair to a bright orange, which was a great base for the bright red i stuck over the top. but i used a hair colourant with no ammonia to save it a bit

it feels fine, it was a wee bit brittle at first, but i used pantene time renewal mask which made it amazingly soft and shiney

[Clare]

I used Schwartzkopf's Absolut Platinum (if you have long hair, seriously, buy two packs, it's worth it). Two packs come in at about a tenner, but they really lighten your hair. They made my naturally very dark brown roots almost white blonde, and leave you with a rather fetching blonde. It looks okay if you want to bum about in it until your hair recovers.



Because I had artifical red in my hair, it came out this colour! ^

Between bleaching and re-dying, I waited for about a week. I condition every day anyway; but I gave my hair the SUPER TREATMENT that week. I did a couple of super-conditioning hair masks and avoided washing it every day. Washing it every two days will give it a bit of time to build up a little natural oil.

After re-dying, I used hair masks again, and Dove and Tresseme conditioners to soften my hair and give it back some shine and bounce.

Be careful though! Is your red tint a natural one? If so, that should be okay. If not, your hair may look a bit orange when you bleach it. If you're not intending on keeping the orange, that's cool; but giving your hair time to rest is a good idea, and you may have to leave the house at one point.

At one point, after all the red has grown out of my hair (I am currently dying black over it), I intend to do a soapcap to strip the artificial colours from my hair; then bleach it and use a white toner to get closer to white blonde. I think I'll cut it way shorter too, and wear a lot of bright red lipstick. Does anyone have any toner recommendations? I prefer to do my hair at home rather than go to a salon, since I don't have the cash for that.

My hair has been various shades of red over the last few years, but is now a fairly sensible black:



Hope this novel helps.

[mynameisHughGrant]

schwarzkopf live luminance contains hair lightner, works very well and coems in a dashing shade called radiant red
and isn;t that expensive
eyy!

[abolishconfusion]

OK.

First of all, you need to buy thuis stuff called SMART hairdye. It's amazing, and will bleach and dye your hair at the same time. The red colour is amazing. You can get it from Superdrug. Your hair's quite long and thick so you may need a few boxed though.. It's worth it, it's great stuff.
When it fades, redye it with Cosmic Planet by Schwarzkopf's Live range.

[frantastic]

How do you guys go on about roots (is there a more fancy word? idk)? It's been a while since I've redyed mine now, but the past few times I've had it done in a salon, a friend of a friend's done it for free with all her fancy equipment on the roots separately, but she's not available any more. Now my dark brown's grown out quite a lot (about an inch, maybe more), and it's fading as well, but how do I get everything the same colour without a lot of hassle? I don't wanna have to bleach + dye the roots, and then dye the rest and all that fiddling work. I'm gonna look out for those 2in1 things but then I wouldn't know which colour to go for, though

hah, I should just get a wig, I'm too lazy for this.

[abolishconfusion]

I'm assuming your natural colour is quite dark, I would recommend L'oreal Recital Preference, which will lighten without having to bleach it first. Of course, this depends on your natural hair colour, and the colour you want to redo your roots.

It's not as hard to do it yourself as you'd think, get a friend to help.

[frantastic]

Yeah, I did it with a friend the first time. I'm just worried about the roots turning out not red enough if I just go over everything with one colour/type of dye. My natural colour is quite dark, and I'm aiming for this red; though I didn't have to bleach it completely (we forgot to add some powder that was supposed to be in there, heh) to get that result (though it ended up even lighter/more orange-ish than on the box) the first time, so I suppose that could work.