Thread: From brown/red to blonde?

I would personally go into my hairstylist with that one. It may be a two step process, but its well worth it

You will have to remove the dark dye from your hair. I assume that you have continued dying your hair the dark brown and red color? You can use a color stripper (I get my dye products from Sally Beauty Supply, though I've seen a strip product at Walmart, I haven't used it) to remove SOME of the dye particles, but you will have to use bleach for any subsequent lightening. You'll probably have to bleach it significantly lighter than the level you want to finish with, just to get out all the yellow/orange tones, then use a regular dye kit to end up with medium blonde.
This can all cause HUGE damage to your hair, much more damage than when you went from dirty blonde to platinum. Bottom line being, you may want to rethink this BIG jump in hair color all at once. Maybe you can strip the dark color out of your hair, settle on a more medium brown, and add blonde highlights gradually? It sucks to wait, but it sucks less than having straw hair.

Hello!

You will need two steps as mentioned. The first thing i can suggest (ive been there!) is wash your hair a few times with either washing up liquid or head and shoulders shampoo. Its a natural stripper. It will take the edge off the colour. Secondly, go to superdrug or sallys and get some 30vol delveloper (6%) and some high lift powder bleach. Shove that through your hair, wait for 40 minutes, (throughout this time check your hair) it will probably go a gingery colour. Believe it or not, this is good!! It will also likely be patchy. Take a semi permanent lightest brown shader and put it through your hair to even the colour and make it presentable for a while.

wash your hair with washing up liquid as previously mentioned, and then a week or so after it was initially dyed, get some 30 vol and some high lift powder bleach and again, leave for 40 mins (all while checking) if you feel its not light enough, leave for up to a further 15 minutes (all the time checking it) then once dryed it will once again be brassy and uneven, get a permanent medium blonde hair dye and put it through your hair.

This should see the entire process complete! ive been there and done that! if you feel your hair is weak after the first stage, wait more time before doing the second stage. Make sure you deep condition twice a week. hope this helps!

I would definitely shy away from a 40 minute processing time. When I tried to dye my hair blonde (from natural dark brown that had been dyed black) at home, I processed for a similar amount of time and ended up losing a great deal of hair as well as burning my scalp. I was warned that much more processing would have "fried" my hair off my head. Be very careful, and like holly said, be sure to check your hair often. If your scalp starts burning, wash it out and try again another day!

My hair didn't "break off," but I did end up having to cut it very short because I couldn't handle the amount of maintenance and caretaking it required. I have had mid-back-long hair my entire life, but the bleaching made it literally act like straw. When I would shower/wash my hair, I would have to blow-dry it and carefully pick it apart afterwards before brushing, because of how much the follicle would swell after getting wet. Doing that every day before work was not worth having blonde hair.

Really think about going to a professional to have highlights done gradually. If you're dead-set on doing this at home, try out the Color Fix that you can get at Sally (I've used this 3 times, though it has a nasty smell that takes a week or so to go away, it is a really gentle way to get permanent color out) and see how light it can get you before making a decision on how light you want to go.