Brunette to Ginger - My Hair Color Story

 

***WARNING WARNING!!!! Beginning is a huge rant about me and my hair!!! If you just want to go straight to the process, scroll down to the next image!!! :) PS, this is going to be a LONG post, as the process lasted over 2 weeks***

***Update w/ Final Results***

(Sorry for the grumpy face, the sun was very bright!)

 

 Alright, so here's my thing with hair........ I change it a lot :) I've been pretty much every color under the rainbow (except blue, that attempt backfired on me....) but the color I've always gone back to time and time again is red/auburn. I think I'm a redhead at heart and was cursed with brown hair. Don't get me wrong, I love brunettes and I do like my natural hair (a dark brown) but I love red heads more :)

 

If you see back in my history, I actually achieved my desired hair color about a year ago. The perfect auburn, not too red but not too orange, and I LOVED it. At the time I was using Wella Color Touch professional dye, which I was able to purchase with my temporary cosmetology ID. Though I graduated cosmo school, I really decided at the end of it all that I truly had no desire to do hair professionally. An expensive mistake, I KNOW, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. I never paid for my license, and my school ID ran out, thus no more Wella :,(

 

At the time, I was resigned to stop coloring my hair since it was too much upkeep and I didn't want to resort to box dyes. I stocked up on some deep brown professional color right before my license ran out and went back to as natural as I could get it. THAT'S when everything started getting wonky for me :)

My roots started coming in, they were slightly lighter than the dye and I wasn't cool with it. For some strange reason, I got the thought in my head that "Hey, box dyes aren't so bad, maybe I can just start with those!" So I got a box dye and went over everything. The color was fine, but then I kind of realized my error... Sure, box dyes ok, but the thing with it is, is it always comes with a 20 volume developer. It will lift then darken, pretty much jacking up your hair from the get go.

 

And THEN I got the great idea that "HEY, what I REALLY want is to go back to ginger!"...................................................................................................... I know right, I'm a genius :)

 

So below is what I did. It's so far been a 2 week process and I'm not 100% sure if I'm at my desired results yet, but this is the method that has so far worked for me. Biggest bonus? NO BLEACH. So if you're interested in seeing what I did, keep reading :)

 

 

So above is a pictures of me, most recently after going through 2 applications of Wella Color Touch (5/3 I BELIEVE...) about 6 months ago, and then in the last month or so going over it with a dark brown box dye. ISH, I know............ Like I said above, I then got the genius idea that I DIDN'T want to be a level 5 brunette, I wanted to be a level 6/7 ginger. I also didn't want to use bleach, as my hair is f*&%^ enough as it is from hair school, and any bleach would probably melt the ends off. I did a LOT of research before coming up with my plan, so read on to find out what I did. And keep in mind, this is just what worked for me. I can't guarantee it would work on you, it all depends on your hair type, the integrity of your hair, blah blah blah.

 

After researching all my options on different hair blogs/forums/etc, I decided based on previous reviews, my safest bet would be using One 'n Only ColorFix. The product is bleach free, and the way it works is Part 1 and Part 2 solutions mix together to chemically shrink the color molecules in your hair, so they slip out of the strand, leaving it in whatever condition/color it would be without the added dye. Not necessarily back to your "natural" color, just stripped of the artificial color.

 

1 step to NOT take is Part 3, the processing lotion. The box leaves a warning that after using ColorFix, it is possible for some of the color to re-deposit back to the hair, darkening it a little from the initial removal, and all the reviews for this product I read stated the processing lotion basically guaranteed that. Everything said the processing lotion seemed to un-do everything the remover did, so I'm unsure why it's even in the box, but just don't do it :)

 

One thing also to mention, ColorFix only works well on Permanent color. Due to the different chemicals used in semi/demi permanent dyes, it's not nearly as effective with those colors and you most likely won't see any positive results. It's a miracle worker on box dyes though!

 

For the first week, I used 2 rounds of ColorFix to get my hair to the above lightness. My lights are AWFUL, so the pictures aren't really 100% accurate. The ColorFix did lighten my hair a good 2-3 levels and brought it to a bright brassy yellow/brown/orange. For some, that could be scary, but in my case, I was going red/auburn anyways so the brassiness actually worked in my favor.

 

 

The color I used in the first week was Clairol's Soy 4Plex permanent formula in 5RR Lightest Intense Red and 6RR Dark Intense Red Blonde with the pure white 10 volume creme developer. The ratio for the color was 1:1, so 1 part developer to every ounce of color. I read this brand of creme developer was better for the hair as it filled the holes in the hair to help make it less porous after the process is completed. Basically filling the holes so your hair isn't brittle and dry.

 

I slapped the color on, waited 30 minutes (which I found was a little too long for how damaged my hair was) and the results are below.

 

So a few things.

1. The color turned out pretty alright. A little darker than I wanted and a little more on the red side, but I'll explain why in a bit.

2. I definitely left the color on longer than I should have. The instructions say 30-45 minutes, but based on how damaged/porous my ends already were, the hair just sucked up the color and it had a lot of time to darken. THUS the weird darker at the ends to gradual lightened at the roots haha

3. Pros/Cons to the developer. CON: It left my hair feeling like it was coated in a thick layer of wax...... Very not cool and I kind of freaked out about it for a bit, and you can really see it at the ends of the hair. The extra coating really darkened the results at first, but it did lighten up once the coating wore off.

The weird texture stayed for about 2 days, I tried showering twice the first day but realized it just had to run its course. After a few days, the coating worked itself out, the color lightened about a shade and my hair felt amazing! For as much as I did to it, I do believe the developer did a good job of protecting my hair.

 

Overall Results

All in all, after the first attempt I was pretty pleased with how everything went. Coming from hair school, they teach you the only way to get rid of color/box dye is through bleach... Believing that, I've bleached the living hell out of my hair in the last 2 years or so, so I was completely prepared to deal with a clusterf*&^% but was pleasantly surprised. At the end of everything, I had very minimal fall out/breakage to my hair and I was able to brush it normally. It didn't feel overly dry or over-processed.

 

The ends of my hair were significantly darker than the roots, which I wasn't pleased with though, so I knew I'd be going another round.

 

On to Week 2!

 

Above is Week 2 Round 1 of color fix. As you can see, it once again completely removed the red from my hair and did a decent job of lightening the ends. I did run low on the product near the end of the application though, so I didn't get enough on the left side of my head, resulting in an uneven lift...

 

So I went ahead with round 2! I completely washed out round 1, dried the hair, and got back to work re-applying it. I was much happier with the results after round 2. The ends were still a tad darker than the roots, but I could really tell the majority of the color had been removed. I had an almost even color over the entire head, which I was amazed at.

 

 

 

Final results: Pretty damned pleased.

 

NOTE: The color in these pictures is not 100% accurate. The color is coming off a lot more red than what the actual results is. I included a picture with flash that gave a better idea of what the color actually came out like. Like I said above, the developer leaves a dark cast over the hair for the first few days, so the entire result is a lot darker than it will actually be. I can update in a few days once the developer has washed out to see the REAL end result.

 

I changed up my color the 2nd time around. I stuck to only 5RR and left out 6RR. I also only let the color process for 15 minutes once my entire head was covered. This seemed to help even out the top to bottom. The ends of my hair are still darker, but I feel the difference is more gradual and less harsh, and the ends are definitely a lot lighter than the 1st weeks results.

 

I don't know if I'm completely satisfied yet, but I think I'm going to give it a few weeks to let my hair get some much needed R&R before doing anything else to it. I want to see how much it lightens up and how the color fades after time. I'm expecting it to fade a lot faster than what I used to use, which is fine so long as the color itself is what I wanted.

 

All in all I'm very pleased with the process and am especially impressed with ColorFix. I'm glad I went the route I did rather than bleaching, since I'm sure that would have resulted in a haircut that I DON'T want right now!

Again, this is the process that worked well for ME. I feel like it's a pretty good judge though of how not-damaging the above products though. Again, keeping in mind my hair has been bleached numerous times, dyed and box dyed over and over in the last year or 2 and these products left my hair in tact.

 

Let me know if these tips helped you out at all! Apologies for the long post, but I felt it would be best to be very in depth and hopefully cover any questions. If you DO have questions or if you try this process out, please comment below! I'd love to hear what you think or how it worked out for you!