Dying my bleached hair back to black/dark brown.

[Guest lovegood]

any tips?

So I bleached my hair over the summer, and I guess it was fun while it lasted. But since i'm tired of dealing with the roots and the accidental platinum streak in my bangs, I've decided to just dye it back to black and get a bob so I can let it re-grow into its natural state.

Problem is, I don't really know how to do it. Just purchase black dye and dye it? I'm afraid some parts will turn green or grey because some sections in my hair are SUPER light blonde.

or will regular black dye turn it black permanently? if theres anything i need to know about dying bleached hair, please reply!

[Guest lovegood]

err, just to bump this thread. anyone? ):

I really want to dye my hair back before winter break is over.

I heard that dying it red first will help the brown/black color become more apparent. should I go about doing that??

[Guest andrealove]

A friend of mine had to dye her hair black twice in order to get the full effect of the black dye. She had super bleached hair but after she had dyed it twice, her hair now looks fantastic. Has a sleek glow too (: Hope that helped! And may I suggest using Palty Hair Dye

[Guest runpuri]

I just happen to dye my hair to dark brown recently ^^ I had caramel blonde hair with ashy tones. I used and auburn dye with very red tones to dye the blonde. Then I used a dark brown.

When you bleach your hair, you are stripping the dark pigments layer by layer:

black->brown->red->orange->yellow

So to go back to black you have to add all the layers back and gradually going darker. In your case, I would use: warmest orange shade -> auburn -> medium brown -> finally, black. This way, the previous colors are adding warm toned pigments for the black (cool toned) to grip onto. With just plain dark dye on light hair, expect it to fade in the shower in 2 weeks to a mucky green mess.

I made the mistake last year when I dyed my super light blonde hair with pitch black dye. It came out really splotchy and had a green tinge. This time around, I had darker blonde hair but followed the steps of adding the red back to my hair to combat the ashyness.

You could use demi/semi- permanent hair dye for adding the color layers back, and then use black as the permanent coloring. I recommend waiting 4-5 days between colorings.

Remember to coat every stand evenly, like saturate the hell out your hair. This is just me, but I go nuts if all the strand on my hair aren't one uniform color.

My hair color now is just a basic black brown shade. This was my color before:

Also, this will end up being your best friend:

[Morbi]

Oh yeah.

One of my friends bleached his hair blonde, and after he tried dying it back to black, it turned a light royal blue and he had like a slight bald spot (but that's maybe cuz that was like the 18th time he's dyed his hair that year. LITERALLY.)

[Guest --Lj]

My friend has bleached my hair during one summer and I needed it to be a "natural" hair color for school.

I would suggest using an intermediate between your bleached hair and black like brown.

I don't know how long your hair is

(like if you're a guy, you'll probably get your hair cut more often)

but it took a REALLY really long time for my hair to retain the black dye.

For me it went like this:

Bleached hair

Brown dye (done by my professional hairdresser)

then the brown faded to a horrible shade of ORANGE -_____-

then Black dye (from a drugstore)

then it faded to orangey brown

and then Black dye again

and at that point my hair had grown out a bit so only the ends were really changing color but it was still fading/

My hair didn't really stay black until about the third time dying.

This could be because my hair was really damaged and I didn't get a lot of it chopped off to begin with

(I'm a girl and I wanted to maintain my hair length).

Anyway, I would suggest using a brown color in between the bleached hair and the black dye.

One of my friends had his bleached hair turn blue/green after trying to dye black immediately after bleach.

[Guest soiia]

At least, tell yourself it's easier to go dark from light ^^ But you will have to dye at least twice to have a dark shade from your light blonde.

My advice:

Don't dye your hair black. Black hair dyes tend to look really tacky after a week (especially when you have bleached blonde hair underneath) and doesn't look natural at all. Go with dark brown (as long as the name doesn't state black, but brown, you're good. Now for the shine and all, that's up to you). After two weeks, the colour must have fade a little, but still, redye it once again, any brown colour (it doesn't have to be the same brown from the first one), and this time, the 'dark' shade should stick better to your hair since the colour underneath is now brown and not blonde. So basically, try the darkest shade of brown, but not black.

Also, no need to get the dye up to your roots. Your hair grows black anyways. If you are being too careful, you'll just end up having to retouch your roots after 1-2 months. Just make sure you cover the blonde near the roots and it should be fine, since your goal is to have dark dark hair and let it grow to keep the maintenance as low as possible.

Last, try to avoid brown with a red shine. Red shine tends to wear off really fast and leave a yellow/orange colour which I personally *hate*. If you want something natural, go with ash browns. :)

[Guest kikkie]

If the dye doesn't "stick" on to the hair, you need to use a protein filler. Also, go darker gradually, with demi permanent dyes like runpuri said. It'll look better in the end. If you're at a level 10, step down to a level 8 and then to a level 6, etc.