I feel like such a fool

Here's the thing - I've been dying my hair since I was fourteen. Since I am now more than twice that age, I've considered myself somewhat of a expert of sorts..

I decided I was sick of my red hair, so I'd go blonde - I've done it once or twice before, and I went into it knowing there could be trouble - red is the hardest colour to get out.. So you'd think I'd be more careful.. :rolleyes:

I put the bleach in my hair, then started uploading photos on here.. 30 minutes later I went to put the rest on roots (as I should have), and when I did, I took a look and saw a whole tube of stuff that I forgot to add to the initial mixture :eek:

Afraid I might have just mistakenly burnt off all my hair I made an emergency call to my sister the former hairdresser, who, of course, is not home. So I had to be 'that guy' and call the helpline on the box.. Turns out I didn't cause my hair to fall out, but there's a good chance it just won't get light enough, and I'll have to go to a salon to fix it :frustrated:

I feel like such a schmuck.. luckily it IS lightening quite a bit, so hopefully I'll be lucky :fingerscr, but still :loser:

Well hey like you said, at least your hair isn't all burned out nor will it be falling out :laughing:

I started dying my hair at about 19, and only stopped last year. I was a red-head for a very long time. I love the color, but damn it's hard to get out. Not to mention, it tends to just turn orange! Bah!

Last year I'd have enough and just decided to grow it all out. I kept dying my hair it's natural color the entire time, only to still have the red come through. Now it's all natural, even the occasional gray:D

We need pictures:yell::laughing::laughing:

Mmm, and what colour is your natural hair colour? :rolleyes:
I always dyed my hair red too. I did have red highlights. The problem was I am outside so much the sun turns it blonde within a few weeks. So I just gave up and dyed it a light blondish brown and the sun turned it even lighter.
You are very fortunate it turned out as well as it did. :thumbs up

We need pictures:yell::laughing::laughing:

:laughing: don't count on it! :D

I don't really remember my natural colour, but I think it was kind of light brown with natural blonde streaks - it didn't look good :D

It actually turned out okay - turned a bright yellow with a tinge of orange, which is awesome considering red is so hard to get out AND box lady said that it wouldn't work.. take that box lady!

Now i'm on phase two - which is adding an ash blonde colour to take out the orange.. but someone told me not to leave it in too long.. and it's already looking brown, but I know it darkens while it colours and while it's wet.. So I'm having another issue - do I wash it out now? Or wait?

Why do I do this to myself? :yell: :rolleyes: :laughing:

How long did the box lady tell you to leave it in? I am not a fan of box ladies either. I had to talk to one once. :rolleyes:
Anyway, I would probably do about 5 or 10 minutes less than she told you. I think they tend to err on the side of darker. :shrug:

Wait the required time,just don't do extra.

Well, I didn't ask box lady about the second application because, again, today I am a :loser: :laughing: I have no idea why I didn't..

So I left it in for about 5 minutes - definitely less than it said to on the box.. It's still wet right now, but it's definitely darker than I originally wanted, and because of the lighting in my house, I can't tell if it's still orangy or not, but again, it's still wet, so there's no way to tell until it dries.. You'll have to tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion because I have to go meet FH right now :laughing:

Oh drat! And I was on the edge of my seat!! :rolleyes:
Good luck getting the kittens!! :fingerscr

I tried to color my own hair ONCE. That was enough. I only did highlights but it ended up frying my ends. I got a cream to put on the end to help them out but promised myself I'd never do it again. I pay $ and it comes out looking healthy and natural. I've always marveled at people who do it at home and it looks good.

I tried to color my own hair ONCE. That was enough. I only did highlights but it ended up frying my ends. I got a cream to put on the end to help them out but promised myself I'd never do it again. I pay $ and it comes out looking healthy and natural. I've always marveled at people who do it at home and it looks good.

:laughing: I think it goes with having a lot of years where I didn't care what it looked like - if I screwed up, oh well :D I guess my teenage mind thought it was cool :rolleyes:

And now, drumroll please.......

I'm a blonde! It's a tad darker in some places, and I missed a couple of spots because I was terrified of the over processing but I think it came out pretty good.. now I'll probably get sick of it in about a month and will have to go through this all over again :rolleyes:

Congratulations. LOL, the very last time I dyed my hair red I mist an entire section in the back of my head. I thought I got everything. I didn't know this until several weeks later. So I'd been walking around with red hair and a big blotch of brown in the back of my head.:laughing:

We need pictures:yell::laughing::laughing:



And now, drumroll please.......

I'm a blonde! It's a tad darker in some places,

Now can we see pictures ? :goodvibes:

Yes...pictures, please. :D

I greyed in my 20s and have been single processing it to its original auburn shade since - and the big 58 will be in August - so a long time. My hair is very thick and naturally wavy - and dry - I do not get hightlights, yet people think I do, no doubt because it is dry and porous. My sisters had the gorgeous blue black Irish hair which I would have loved to have inherited, but I didn't, but they messed it up big time by bleaching it blonde. Just as well as I once tried on a black wig and laughed myself silly - I realized only then how yellow my complexion is - for all that I am very pale. I then tried on a blonde wig - this was during the Farrah Fawcett stage - and wig was based on her style. That was even worse than the black on me. The only thing I had going for me is that a hairdresser can do absolutely anything with my hair and I can do zip. But that gets you into trouble with hairdressers who want to "practice" what they learned at a new show. So I continue to colour the auburn, but have made it a mission in life not to have it be mahogany red or eggplant - no offense to those that like those shades, but they do not suit me. I wonder though what is next. I would love to have the complexion that goes with the grey - and I would love to have that gorgeous silver grey - my husband does. I am at the point of looking for grey wigs to try on. I coloured it myself for many years - not in a very professional manner - just dumped the stuff on my head and rubbed it in - my hair is so thick you couldn't see mistakes anyway. I used L'Oreal - and then they did away with the colour. So they found 2 shades for me to mix together - and then they did away with those. So now I have it professionaly coloured, but my hair grows very fast - and at week 4 the roots blossom. So very expensive. I expect I will pack it in and go grey when my husband retires. I look terrible with short hair, but will probably get it cut short so that they grey can grow in and put my hat on my head, otherwise the roots would just look worse growing in to my 3 - 4 inches below my ears hair. BUT the big trouble with Red as pointed out my other posters is the fading factor and the staining of the dye. I swear even if someone didn't wash their hair for a month it would fade. I have a couple of red towels I use to wash my hair between colourings because there is always some product that washes off. So if you look better in other shades, I suggest that you don't go red. If any other colour suited me, I sure wouldn't. Unfortunately while I did not get the Irish blue black hair, I did inherit the Roseaca - "curse of the Celts" - facial and ocular. Hope you eventually get your hair to a shade you like. Sometimes your natural shade is best - although had I been born with the black hair, it wouldn't have been.

I know it's expensive going to the hair dresser for colours...BUT....
blonde is a very difficult colour to do on your own...I have seen a lot of ppl try to do an ash blonde and it turned grey on them:eek:
I too had done the reddish blonde for a few years.....I am dirty blonde naturally and wanted a change. I have gone back to the blonde now and have it done professionally as when I tried to do it on my own it went kind of brassy from being in the sun. And honestly I only have to mostly do the roots now as the salon colour stays true. so every 5 weeks or so just roots and about every 4th time have her run the colour all the way through

:laughing: I am too cheap to go to the salon - plus the bleach they use is exactly the same as you can get in the store (my sister, again, used to be a hairdresser) :shrug: If you put in an ash and your natural hair is a little ashy to begin with, your hair can turn green :eek: If it has red in it, it'll take the red out - that's why I went with an ash - they are complimentary colours. Guinness' mom your hair might have turned brassy because there was still red in it..

Snowdancer, I'm sorry, but you cracked me up about cutting your hair short enough to wear a hat :laughing: I'm sure it's not nearly as dreadful as you think - the thing that most people don't realize is that when you change your haircolour, you need to change your makeup as well, and it also takes a couple of weeks to get used to the change on yourself, so while you get an idea if you put on a wig, you don't know for sure if the colour suits you for at least a month :2cents:

I LOVED being a redhead - I always go back to it, even though it fades and is a pain - but I like the vibrant flashy colours - I guess I like to stick out a little bit :p

No pictures (yet?) - I haven't gotten used to it.. FH looked at me and said.. "Oh. Nice" .. so it's either 1. dreadful 2. he needs to get used to it too or 3. he just sucks at giving compliments.. I'm leaning towards 3 because I've known him for some time now :rolleyes:

phoozles - yep, my grey would be bad - as would the short hair! I wore it short until I was 30 and with my thin facial features (all of the weight starts at my waist and goes down) and it looked awful - pointy chin and all - not to mention that with my hair type, to keep it from looking like a giant bush I would need to have it cut every 2 weeks max! Grows like a week. As far as changing makeup goes, that wouldn't work as I basically am lucky to have one foundation, one lipstick and liner, blush and e/s quad. With my pale colouring, severe yellow undertone and the worst thing - my very acidic body, everything changes on me - say a brown lipstick turns hot pink in a couple of minutes. I have tried everythng - top makeup artists are appalled. Actually I have known one of Toronto's top makeup artists for years and if she can't make something work, it won't. I live in fear that my foundation will be d/c - since my skin is so dry I need an oil based, full coverage foundation - not anti-aging as that makes me look older - and the colour is right. One day I tried every possible foundation at Holt's - right finish or not and only mine worked! Then of course my allergies and not being able to use anything with acids, Vitamin C and most botanicals. To top things off, my head is a Size 8 in a man's - that darn Irish head again - and most ladies' hats are of the One Size DOES NOT fit all. When I find a hat it is usually a hat that was made on a bad day - yet strangely enough always seems to be the most expensive hat even though they couldn't sell it. The Irish Shop has lots of ladies with big heads, but no hats to fit them. Then we have Tillery Endurables - only in desperation for me! So I am cursed - but better iron grey than that flat taupe shade that many ladies my age adopt. My hair was last coloured on July 3 and the roots are now appearing, but then it will be 4 weeks on Thursday - so within next week they will grow like weeds. I once sat beside a woman at work. We both started off with hair same length. Six months later she had not been for a haircut and her hair had hardly grown - I had been 4 times. And it doesn't appear to be thinning out either. I hope you get your problems all sorted out - in the meantime I continue to look for a grey wig to try on over my fat head.