[hair freak]

My hair is naturally a dark blonde/brown. I would like it to be med blonde.
I dye it natural med blonde and it comes out great at first then gets lighter and very brassy.
I need a formula!! Please help:confused:

[puppylove08]

Are you using a shampoo and conditioner for color treated hair? Specifically for blonde hair? Lines like John Frieda "Sheer Blonde" keep your blonde hair from turning brassy. Maintenance after coloring is just as important as the coloring itself to keep a true color.

[Perito]

Ordinary haircoloring is referred to as "single-process haircoloring" because it works in one process. Hydrogen peroxide does double-duty in these products. It lightens the hair and it reacts with the dye molecules to polymerize them (deposit the color pigment in the hair).

As you're discovering, the lightening power of hydrogen peroxide is limited. It doesn't matter what brand of haircoloring you buy, or how light the shade is that you select, hydrogen peroxide cannot lighten hair very far. Further compounding the issue, as hair lightens it turns auburn, then red, then orange, then yellow and finally pale yellow. For most hair darker than dark blonde (and even some dark blondes), it doesn't get to the yellow or pale yellow stage. This is referred to as being "too brassy".

One possible answer is to use a high-lift tint. Most single-process haircoloring is mixed one part of colorant with one part of "20-volume" (6%) developer (hydrogen peroxide). High-lift tints mix one part of colorant with two parts of 30- or 40-volume hydrogen peroxide (9% and 12%, respectively). The stronger hydrogen peroxide might lighten your hair enough to get past the brassy stage. Unfortunately, these products are more associated with brassy hair than they are with real successes. Only a few people who use them get lucky.

After the high-lift tints, the only answer is to use hair bleach to get past the yellow stage and into the pale yellow stage (inside of a banana peel) and then to tone with a hair dye (preferably a demi-permanent that uses a low concentration of developer). This is called "double-process" blonding.

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