Hair - anyone know about dyeing it?

[WarKitty]

I've been trying to get my hair to a dark auburn color. The trouble is pretty much everything that's supposed to come out auburn just sort of lightens it up. I've tried straight reds also, which come out too orangy-brassy, but closer. I've got naturally dark coppery-brown hair to begin with. Halp!

[Coidzor]

So let me get this straight... adding red, no bleaching involved, to your dark brown hair just lightens it? :smallconfused:

[WarKitty]

So let me get this straight... adding red, no bleaching involved, to your dark brown hair just lightens it? :smallconfused:

Yes. Well, it's the out of the box reds. I understand some of the drugstore dyes may contain some bleach type effects? In any case the resulting color is lighter than what I started with. I suspect the dyes are a lighter color than my hair. Then again, bleaching my hair results in a reddish shade.

[Coidzor]

And I'm hazarding a guess that you've compensated for this after the first attempt by getting the darkest red-brown dye you could find and trying that and it's still gone lighter each time. :smallconfused:

Well, that taps out my knowledge base on such things, certainly. :smallfrown:

[Lady Moreta]

Honestly, I'd say your best bet is to go talk to a hairdresser - you shouldn't necessarily have to have them dye it for you (though that's an option), just go in, tell them you're thinking of dying it and what you want to do, ask what they'd suggest and then say you'll think about it - go away and buy whatever colour they say to use :smallsmile:

Having said that, I would have thought there's not that much difference between the colour you want to die it and the colour you say your hair already is. Can you provide colour examples? I just remember once I died my hair what the box called 'light auburn' (or possibly 'medium auburn', I can't remember) and it came out the exact colour my hair is naturally! whereas I would have described my hair as being light/mid brown. And this is when my hair wasn't died, all it did was even up the tone. My point being that sometimes the colours we call things aren't the colours the hair-dye industry calls things, so learning exactly what the hair-dye industry would call your hair colour might help you figure it out.

Also, hairdressers will laugh at you if you accidentally bleach your hair canary yellow. Just saying.

[Winter_Wolf]

It's been over a decade since I've attempted to color my hair, but I do recall having to bleach it before I dyed it. The reason being (at the time) that the bleaching of hair "preps" it to soak and hold another color better.

I should mention, my one and only attempt to dye my hair failed to net the result I was after. I ended up with an orange lock of hair. Like, ORANGE. :smallannoyed: Which is deeply ironic since my hair is normally dark brown but naturally bleaches to a mid-tone blond with extended exposure to sunlight (half an Alaskan summer working and playing outdoors) without passing through ORANGE territory. So I'd say go and ask a person whose job it is to get paid to color people's hair, if you want it to turn out a certain way.

[Aedilred]

I should mention, my one and only attempt to dye my hair failed to net the result I was after. I ended up with an orange lock of hair. Like, ORANGE. :smallannoyed: Which is deeply ironic since my hair is normally dark brown but naturally bleaches to a mid-tone blond with extended exposure to sunlight (half an Alaskan summer working and playing outdoors) without passing through ORANGE territory. So I'd say go and ask a person whose job it is to get paid to color people's hair, if you want it to turn out a certain way.
Exactly the same thing happened to me. I think it's an occupational hazard of trying to bleach dark brown hair.

Since then I've only dyed my hair darker shades (to disguise grey etc.), and that's turned out fine.

[Coidzor]

I was discussing this quandrary with a few of my friends who dye their hair, and their general consensus was that red dye in general was a pretty wonky substance, and one of them actually has the opposite problem, where dying her hair red will make it darken up considerably and the red just won't hold.

The biggest sentiment was that you should go ahead and talk to someone who knows their kit quite well and who does it professionally, though whether you want to just get it done professionally or not is up to you and your sense of cutting your losses.

Some talk of the size of the pigments ensued but it was about 4 AM at that point so I kinda just passed out, sorry.

[WarKitty]

I used a semipermanent dye, so I'm going to try to fade it out as much as I can. Shouldn't be too terribly hard - I've heard a couple of home remedies that I'll try, and it was only a 3-4 week type. For now I have a temp black spray that I can put in for the mornings to keep my hair natural for work.

Once I get it faded - there's a beauty school nearby, they do a lot of stuff at half the normal price. Of course you're getting students, but they have some training and it's got a guarantee of free fixing if there are any problems.

I've had trouble with the online color matchers because I have brown hair with coppery highlights, instead of the more usual blonde highlights. I imagine that changes how it reacts to reds.

[ForzaFiori]

I should mention, my one and only attempt to dye my hair failed to net the result I was after. I ended up with an orange lock of hair. Like, ORANGE. :smallannoyed: Which is deeply ironic since my hair is normally dark brown but naturally bleaches to a mid-tone blond with extended exposure to sunlight (half an Alaskan summer working and playing outdoors) without passing through ORANGE territory. So I'd say go and ask a person whose job it is to get paid to color people's hair, if you want it to turn out a certain way.

I used to die my hair "midnight black". Like so black it was almost blue (my hair is naturally dark brown, so it was the only shade that made it darker). My GF thought my hair color was awesome, and wanted to put a streak of it in her light blonde hair. It came out almost aqua blue, and it was one of the really long lasting dyes. Stayed in her hair for like a year and a half.


I was discussing this quandrary with a few of my friends who dye their hair, and their general consensus was that red dye in general was a pretty wonky substance, and one of them actually has the opposite problem, where dying her hair red will make it darken up considerably and the red just won't hold.

I've never used red dyes, but I've heard from a lot of people that they fade quicker than any other. Which sucks, cause red hair is awesome.

[WarKitty]

I used to die my hair "midnight black". Like so black it was almost blue (my hair is naturally dark brown, so it was the only shade that made it darker). My GF thought my hair color was awesome, and wanted to put a streak of it in her light blonde hair. It came out almost aqua blue, and it was one of the really long lasting dyes. Stayed in her hair for like a year and a half.

This is why I never used permanent dyes until I cut my hair. I'm a little bit more willing to abuse my hair now knowing that it'll be completely fresh in 2-3 months. Shorter if I do like last time and crop it down.