Home Hair Color 102: Removing Color

Feb 4, 2013

Stephanie D.

1. UNDERSTAND THAT BLONDE IS NOT A COLOR. Blonde is the absence of color. You can't "remove" blonde hair and get your brown back. You can only fill it. Don't buy a color remover if that's your goal, thinking that it's going to be gentle on your hair. It's just going to remove the deposited pigment that gave you the gold, or ash, or strawberry shade of blonde, but you will be left with whatever remaining pigment is in your natural hair.

2. YOU WILL PROBABLY HAVE TO DO MORE THAN ONE APPLICATION. Box dyes are formulated to be tough. They're supposed to work on coarse hair, gray hair, to be fade resistant and so on. If you colored your hair to a level 2 brown-black and it only goes up two levels with a red tint after using remover, don't be surprised. Do it again if your hair can take it.

3. ALWAYS USE A PROTEIN CONDITIONER AFTER REMOVER. It will make your hair porous like bleach will, just slightly less porous. You still have to condition your hair.

4. REMOVER WILL NOT WORK ON DIRECT DYES (like Manic Panic), HENNA OR METALLIC DYES.

5. DON'T SKIMP ON RINSING/SHAMPOOING. We all know that shampoos fade hair color. Previous to removing, you need to fade out as much as you can by shampooing the flip out of it, 4-5 rounds each shower for a week, scrubbing vigorously with a clarifying shampoo (stay off your scalp as much as you can). Shampoo the flip out of it after you've applied your remover. If you have to remove again, shampoo some more. It will help. The less pigment you need chemicals to remove, the better. Some removal jobs are easier than others, and if you have to do it for a month to get all of the color out, then you'll have to live with that. You can't go from blue-black to platinum blonde without doing this first, and even a salon will have trouble with it. They will slap bleach on it repeatedly and ruin your hair. If jumping up that many levels is your goal, remove every speck of color from your hair and THEN go to a salon and let them bleach the remaining pigment of your natural hair. Remember to use plenty of conditioner during this process (protein conditioner directly after application of remover and regular deep conditioner with shampooing), because it is drying.

6. YOU WILL NOT HAVE YOUR NATURAL COLOR BACK. Permanent dyes remove part of your natural color and then fill the hair with their own pigment. You get that I say remove, right? Color Oops and such ONLY removes the ARTIFICIAL pigment. You will be left with whatever your own, remaining, natural pigment is, and if your hair is lifted underneath the dye, that means you don't get your natural color back.

7. IF YOU WANT TO LIGHTEN YOUR HAIR, YOU NEED TO REMOVE YOUR COLOR. You just do. You may not have to remove every speck of it with Color Oops, but you do need to knock a majority of the pigment off so that your next dye can lift out some more of it and refill whatever's left. You can do this as a single process to go up no more than 3 (and more like 2) levels from whatever box color you have on there. Color does not lift color, but sulfur sure as heck does. You can also use it if you've dyed your hair red and want to zap it. A very good portion of the red will come out in a single process and that will help you enormously in correcting the remaining color to the color you want. It is easier to cover a reddish brown with an ash tone than it is to cover an "intense auburn". Believe me.

Questions/comments below. 
HTH

Feb 4, 2013

Elizabeth H.

Truly amazing advice thank you, I enjoyed reading this.
Question: Dark brown dyed hair to blonde. Reccomendations? Coloring products?
I plan on using Color Oops.

Feb 4, 2013

Bethany K.

Thats explained all the mistakes I made as a teen. Now I stick to my stylist. 

Feb 4, 2013

Stephanie D.

Elizabeth: You can't remove the blonde. It's lifted. Using Color Oops will only clear out the toning pigment (like ash gold or whatever you have in there). If you want to go darker, that's pretty straight-forward, just be careful to grab a shade that's 2 levels lighter than what you actually want, because your lifted hair will take up a lot of pigment. Make sure you do a strand test first (your box will have instructions on this).

If you want to go lighter, you can use Oops to remove the artifical pigment, then lighten the natural hair that's underneath the dye with a high-lift blonde {and then tone it if necessary}. It's already been lifted and it's not necessary to bleach it again.