Hair - lightening dark hair

kylie123

OK. I hope someone can help me out. My hair is dark brown. It is naturally dark but I've been colouring it for years. I want to lighten my hair to a light/caramel colour.
Could anyone advise me of the best way to do this. I don't mind if I have to do it gradually or in one go.
I am hoping not to have to strip my hair with bleach if at all possible.
Thanks.

GingerLily

Bleach would be needed to lighten your hair but it's not going to necessarily damage your hair that much (it will cause some damage, that's inevitable). It depends really what look your going for. Do you think Balyage is what your after? It looks quite natural, as if it's sun lightened and is really easy to maintain so far as roots are concerned, you may need to get toner added more regularly if the colour tends to go too brassy.

kylie123

Thanks Gingerlily.
I really want to Lighten my hair because I have to do my roots about every 3 weeks due to greyness. I'm thinking if my hair was lighter then I might get longer between colouring and the grey may not be as noticeable. I've seen the baylayage and it's gorgeous. Maybe that's the way to go for me.
Thanks for your advice.

GingerLily

You'll definitely have to go to a salon and get advice, I imagine highlights would work better as you need to lighten nearer the roots, a professional will definitely be able to help you on that!

kylie123

Thanks for your help Gingerlily

VanishingActs

I have very dark brown hair and got balayage done recently and it turned out great. It grows out very naturally also

kylie123

Thanks Vanishingacts. That may be the way to go. Would you recommend the hairdresser you used?

VanishingActs

kylie123 wrote: »

Thanks Vanishingacts. That may be the way to go. Would you recommend the hairdresser you used?

I don't know where you're based, but I went to Marbles Cruises Street in Limerick and they were great. I've actually moved to Dublin now and reckon I'll just get it done there again next time I'm in Limerick.

I went in and talked to the colourist the day before which really helped. I had never properly dyed my hair before so told her I was clueless and asked her what she would recommend. I had a lot of dye left over in my hair from a box dye (that was supposed to wash out and never did!) so she had to work with that.

kylie123

I'm in Kildare. I'll check it out with my hairdresser. Thanks so much for your advise.

MinnieMinx

If you've been regularly box dying the same sections then your hair will have sustained some damage from the reapplication of peroxide that's in the developer. Professional colour removers are not bleach based and so won't cause any damage but you need a hairdresser who has experience of using them and it won't be cheap. Otherwise, you'll have to use the old fashioned bleach method to remove saturated dye. You will need lots of moisturising treatments to help limit the damage.
Re:Balayage.
Again its something that done well looks fantastic but there's a lot of hairdressers who aren't very competent and will leave you with obvious lines in your hair.