My 13 yr old daughter had her hair colored at a salon going from light brown to a shade 5 with shades hair coloring.This has turned her hair almost black. She has had her hair colored every 12 weeks for the last 8 months. Her last application was in Jan 09. Now that the color is starting to fade it is leaving her hair bronzey looking in the sunlight and in some lighting. Sometimes it looks brown, but when light reflects her hair shines bronze. Also her roots are starting to show. We do not know how to keep her hair from reflecting bronze. Her hair has a natual red tint anyway. How can we keep the bronze toned down with out re-coloring her hair. Every time we color her hair it keeps getting darker, and darker. Please help.

You're running into a set of very common problems: color fade and undertones showing, hair becoming porous. When you color hair using single-process haircoloring, what actually happens is that the peroxide in the haircoloring lightens the natural pigment in the hair. This happens regardless of the shade that is used. The peroxide also reacts with the color precursors to develop the color. The color precursors form a relatively insoluble pigment that is deposited inside of the hair shaft.

The pigment that is deposited is not as insoluble as the formulators would like. Over time, the pigment dissolves and leaches out of the hair. This results in color fading. When the color fades, you see the remaining natural pigment in the hair (usually referred to as the "undertones"). The reaction of hydrogen peroxide on dark to medium natural pigments results in a reddish or orangish color.

What you're observing is the remaining natural pigment (reddish or orangish) being viewed along with the remaining artificial pigment. The result is a bronze color -- especially noticeable in reflected light.

There are several problems here. The first seems to be that the colorist is probably putting color on all of the hair each time instead of just the roots. This results in the hair becoming quite porous. It absorbs the color and the hair appears almost black when first done. However, due to the porosity, it fades very rapidly. It's much preferred to only apply color to the roots and minimize or eliminate putting the color on the ends. If it's necessary to "refresh the color", this is better accomplished using a demi-permanent hair coloring (preferably an "acidic demi-permanent color").

If your goal is to eliminate the bronze tones, the acidic demi-perm (in a lighter shade than you're using now) is probably the way to go. On porous hair, demi-perms are often more "permanent" than "permanent" hair colorings.

Some brands of acidic demi-permanent colors include Shades EQ, Goldwell Colorance, and others. The second best is a normal demi-permanent color (Clairol Natural Instincts, L'Oreal Castings Color Spa). There are many "professional" products in this class.

Hair coloring - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia