Black Hair to Brown

Shoe Lover

Hi All,

I hope this is posted in the right place. I currently have dyed black hair. The dye that I use is Revlonissimo number 3 - Dark Brown (it comes out black). I've been thinking that I would like to go a big lighter (possibly a chestnut brown).

Do you think that I could just buy a shade or two lighter than my current colour or would I have to go to the hairdressers to get them to strip my hair of the black? It's been this colour for about five years.

Thanks!

csi vegas

Get to Boots and buy at 1/2 boxes of Color B4, which is 'the first commercial, salon standard colour remover for use at home'. Or something Around €12. I bought one for a friend who was stuck at home in tears when like you brown became black. Result was mid-dark brown afterwards but with a few washes of Fairy as well.
You can colour again straight after Color B4 but as you're dark I'd leave it a day or two for the hair to 'settle' down.

When my hair was (unintentionally) very dark brown I used to lighten it with Fairy Liquid Lemon, worked really well, but use a good deep conditioner afterwards.
I fell for that 'colour can not lighten colour' line that all hairdressers spun me over my teens/early twenties, so I'd always go for dark brown (same as my natural) in resignation.

Until, as said I took to the Fairy! About three weeks of washes later (every two days) I had almost all the block of dye faded out then went and got Nice N Easy Natural Light Chestnut Brown (114C!), two boxes to cover all my hair, and lightened it by about THREE SHADES!!!
Even now when I get roots come through I love how light my hair is compared to them.
You CAN lighten colour with colour!

Let me know

BTW - don't colour over what you have, it won't work. Do as above!
Plus (in my experience anyway) a salon will only convince you to get lights (which will turn orange) and advise you to keep coming back 'until they blonde'...'which you then can colour over with you chosen shade'....yeah, one year, €400 lighter and hair broken off in all directions...again - MY experiences

Tayla

Colour b4 is really good. It removes all the years worth of dye from your hair (even if you're left with very dark hair you should still be able to feel that a lot of built up dye has gone which is always a plus)

The only bad things about it are the smell (like eggs).
You have to rinse it for ages, I think 15 minutes in total, if you don't do this then your hair will go dark again.
You have to be careful about the colour you choose afterwards. Always pick a colour a couple of shades lighter than the shade you want.

There's another product that works the same way if you can't find the Colour B4, it's called Rusk elimin8 and you can get it in Sally's, it's around €30 but you get twice as much product as the colour b4 so you can just mix up half and keep half for later.


You could also make up a mixture of 3 parts lemon juice to 1 part conditioner, saturate your hair with it, I put on loads, probably about 60ml lemon juice and 20ml conditioner then blow dry that into your hair until it's almost dry.

Wash out and rinse with lemon juice, I use a clarifying shampoo afterwards and tiny bit of conditioner.

My hair feels like silk afterwards

That works really well on freshly dyed hair or hair that's been dyed once or twice, not sure about how well it works on hair that's been dyed for 5 years but it's worth a shot!