Dying dark brown hair to blonde

[slave4shoes]

I've had blonde hair for years and last September I went to a salon and had it dyed a medium brown...Since then i've gone darker and darker...
Last Friday a friend of a friend who works in a pricey salon came over and put a full head of wella bleach highlights in it.. its now a mix of blondes with some of the dark base.. its ash blonde mainly but the front sections are more of a golden colour... I was going to go to another salon on sat and see if they can put more in more highlights to acheive the colour blonde i want.. i put a kerastase treatment in it for an hr last nite and dryed it and its v.dry..

[Bubbles]

Personally i'd hold off with the bleach, or try a high lift tint, it may not make it any lighter but could get rid of the golden colour

[Guest]

That would be ideal I dont mind the colour overall its the brassy gold colour in the front thats bothering me!

[Bubbles]

The problem probably was that the peroxide had lost it's strength, and that's why the front of your head hasn't taken to well

[Guest]

my hair is ginger and i want to dye it a dark brown but cant afford to have it done at a hairdressers. i also want to dye my eyebrows a similar colour 'cause they are currently ginger.

what do you suggest i use???

[Lena]

I tried it and looked like a idiot

[justa guest]

i just used clairol born blonde ultra blue...and it turned my hair orange. now im goin to either bleach it or use a ash brown rinse. juss sharing my experience..

[Guest]

I have brown hair and I want to go blonde. No way would I do this myself. I am going to go to a salon.

[GoToAPro!]

If you have the money, go to a salon. And if you don't have the money, keep your original color, because at home dyes are just such a pain. A few years ago I got bored with my dark brown hair and added some highlights and loved them. It wasn't enough and I wanted more blonde. I went back and said I want more highlights - I want to be blonder. She gave me more and I got home and complained it wasn't enough. Looking back it looked nice and I should have just kept gradually getting more of them and that would have given me the look I wanted. But I got antsy and thought "why keep spending $100 so they can add a few strands of blond each time?" And tried at home dyes/bleaches. It actually looked okay the first time. I used born blonde and the dark hair got yellowish but the previosly highlighted hair was really light and it was actually OKAY. BUt after the roots started growing in I realized this wasn't going to be easy to maintain. Its nearly impossibe to get the roots light enough so that they won't be orange without getting some color onto the previously colored hair. My hair started to break.. BADLY. At one point I think I had like 2 inch sections of hair where It used to be really long.... LUCKILY it only broke on top and the bottom stayed long so rather than have no hair, I just looked more like britney spears when she has the bad hair extensions. I spent tons of money buying expensive conditioners to repair it. The only thing I found that seems to worked was Nexxus Emergencee which is now called Aloxxi Polymedic. It does seem to stregthen hair, and since I have used it my hair has been getting stronger again. But its about 50 dollars a bottle and is really hard to find in the big bottle. So ify ou add cost of hair repair and at home bleach boxes, toner.. You are spending what you would at a salon to end up with broken semi orange hair. I'm finally at the point where the bottom of my hair is a nice ash blonde, and its getting healthier but I am literally constantly putting in conditioners, leave in conditioners, oil treatments. And when the roots get long, I have to go thru the process all over again and am always afraid of breakage. I used to hate the orange but at this point thats not even the scary part, its worrying my hair will break again. And I always had really thick strong hair. My suggestion is if you want to go lighter, go to the salon, and get highlights. Every time you go back get some more. I am looking back at the pictures of myself when I thought my hair "wasn't blonde enough" and I realized that even though there was light brown mixed it with the blonde, it looks so much better than the box blond I have now, and my hair was so healthy looking. Now I am scared to blow dry it or straighten it, and I practically have to wear it in a clip at all times because of the damage. I really wish I had continued going to a salon! I know I keep saying the same thing but I can't stress enough that the salon is better. If you don't think you can afford it every 4-6 weeks, then just keep your natural color. Its not worth the trouble!!!

[learn_from _your_mistakes]

ok i am one of those people who is quite daring when it comes to hair colouring and bleaching. since i was in about year 8 i would bleach my hair to almost white blonde, dye it black a couple of days later and then go back blonde the next week. this i must add is something i would not recommend doing but we all know how hot blonde hair can be. so all i can say about doing it safely is that you find a decent hair dresser and basically ask them about it and if they say they cant do it then they're dick heads because for f#c@s sake it is possible and yes it may be damaging but regular use of treatments, esspecially silicone based ones, can dramatically increase your hairs appearance. so if you are considering going blonde and your dead set on doing it then dont let the hairdressers turn you off it. the only reason they say they cant do it is because they're too chicken S*** to give it a go. yes there are risks that your hair can snap off but that rarely happens, it really only happens if you re-bleach the same hair more than about three times. so come on ladies give it ago. about a month ago i had blonde hair (streaks i might add) (i like them better than the head full fake look) and then i died it brown and it still is, and guess where im going next weekend...? to the salon to get my hair bleached again. i have finally learnt from my mistakes and i am never going brown again (until i get grey hairs coming through. so give it a go. YOU'LL BE SURPRISED AT WHAT A GOOD HAIRDRESSER CAN DO!!!

[Guest_Help]

there is something else you can do if you have brown die over blonde and want to go back blonde. i cant remember what brand it is but there are pre lightners home dyes and they basically work as a stripping agent. people say that strippers do as much damage as bleaches but this one that my friend used worked great on her hair. the only problem was that she had to also buy a bleach to use after stripping.
Good Luck to those who r going to do this.

[BlondeWannabee]

If you have the money, go to a salon. And if you don't have the money, keep your original color, because at home dyes are just such a pain. A few years ago I got bored with my dark brown hair and added some highlights and loved them. It wasn't enough and I wanted more blonde. I went back and said I want more highlights - I want to be blonder. She gave me more and I got home and complained it wasn't enough. Looking back it looked nice and I should have just kept gradually getting more of them and that would have given me the look I wanted. But I got antsy and thought "why keep spending $100 so they can add a few strands of blond each time?" And tried at home dyes/bleaches. It actually looked okay the first time. I used born blonde and the dark hair got yellowish but the previosly highlighted hair was really light and it was actually OKAY. BUt after the roots started growing in I realized this wasn't going to be easy to maintain. Its nearly impossibe to get the roots light enough so that they won't be orange without getting some color onto the previously colored hair. My hair started to break.. BADLY. At one point I think I had like 2 inch sections of hair where It used to be really long.... LUCKILY it only broke on top and the bottom stayed long so rather than have no hair, I just looked more like britney spears when she has the bad hair extensions. I spent tons of money buying expensive conditioners to repair it. The only thing I found that seems to worked was Nexxus Emergencee which is now called Aloxxi Polymedic. It does seem to stregthen hair, and since I have used it my hair has been getting stronger again. But its about 50 dollars a bottle and is really hard to find in the big bottle. So ify ou add cost of hair repair and at home bleach boxes, toner.. You are spending what you would at a salon to end up with broken semi orange hair. I'm finally at the point where the bottom of my hair is a nice ash blonde, and its getting healthier but I am literally constantly putting in conditioners, leave in conditioners, oil treatments. And when the roots get long, I have to go thru the process all over again and am always afraid of breakage. I used to hate the orange but at this point thats not even the scary part, its worrying my hair will break again. And I always had really thick strong hair. My suggestion is if you want to go lighter, go to the salon, and get highlights. Every time you go back get some more. I am looking back at the pictures of myself when I thought my hair "wasn't blonde enough" and I realized that even though there was light brown mixed it with the blonde, it looks so much better than the box blond I have now, and my hair was so healthy looking. Now I am scared to blow dry it or straighten it, and I practically have to wear it in a clip at all times because of the damage. I really wish I had continued going to a salon! I know I keep saying the same thing but I can't stress enough that the salon is better. If you don't think you can afford it every 4-6 weeks, then just keep your natural color. Its not worth the trouble!!!

thanks so much for that piece of info! it really helped!

ok i have dark brown/black-ish hair and im going to the hairdresser on monday to get highlights, i really want to go blonde. but i have a question...she wants to put golden blonde highlights in for me. is that blonde enough? how will it look on my dark brown hair? will it look blonde and will there be a visible difference? or will it look orange?

im planning on putting more and more higlights every time i go. but please someone tell me what exactly golden blonde is??!

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[xLeilax]

I have light brown hair, which is actually dyed, as my natural hair is really dark. What would happen if I put blonde hair dye on top of it, without pre-bleaching?? Would it go orange?
Leila xx

[annieoh]

I've been a hairstylist for years and just happened on this site. If you want my two cents, read on, if not, skip my post. ANY time you lighten hair with no exceptions you are opening the cuticle of the hair and stripping pigment out. Doesn't matter if the pigment is your natural pigment or hair dye, it is still stripping it. Incidently, artificial color is harder to lift than natural pigment thus even harder on your hair to lighten. Whenever you shampoo the lightener out (any lightener is bleach no matter what the package says, highlighters are bleach, if it lifts color more than two levels it is bleach!) you are closing the cuticle back up. The cuticle or outer layer of hair looks like fishscales. With each color service they close back down less tightly than before which is a result of chemical damage. When you dye your hair darker it is always healthier than lightening it. Darker than your natural shade and you are depositing pigment into the cortex rather than stripping it out. Depositing is of course better than stripping (common sense). The developer is what is the strong chemical in any color process. Dyeing darker requires a much gentler strength (say 10 to 20 volume rather than 40) to deposit color than bleach/highlighting/lightening or stipping color out. By each power of 10 that you increase developer (example 10 vol up to 20vol) you are actually making it 10 TIMES stronger. You can only bleach hair so many times before it becomes so dehydrated and porous that you end up with what we call "spaghetti hair" in the business. Coloring hair is ABSOLUTELY NOT LIKE PAINT! People think for some reason that they are just coating their hair another color like painting a wall. Rule of thumb, if you have thick, short hair....have at it. It's going to get cut off sooner rather than later. Your hair grows on average 6" a year. Do the math. If you bleach it, dye it, bleach it, dye it....The hair that is a year old is shot. Might feel okay after conditioning treatments now, maybe even two months from now, if you're lucky six months from now.......But regardless of who you are you will find yourself wondering why your hair won't seem to grow as fast as it used to, and you'll see these sprigs around your part that many fools will say is new growth. HELLO! It's growing as fast as it ever did, but it is now breaking off at the bottom at a relatively uniform length where it is most stressed. And that "new growth" you're talking about isn't new growth at all...it is hair that has broken off. Hair color is great, but if you're lightening it......go to a reputable stylist. Granted it isn't brain surgery, but there is far more chemistry involved than most people realize.