[Katkainlondon]

Hi, does anyone know how to deal with the following: my natural hair is very dark brown with a lot of greys. I have been colouring it with L'oreal excellence mixing N6 and N5 (which gave very dark brown). The greys are only very slightly covered and are still shining through. Then I started mixing N6 and N7 to get a lighter shade. It is a bit lighter now, but greys are yellow. Went to hair salon for highlights and stylist said the hightlights with bleach won't work on hair coloured with N5 (b/c it is a very dark tint and they would go orange) and highlighted it with lightest tint. So now the hightlights are only slightly visible. Now I would like to lift the overall colour and reapply with much lighter tint like L'oreal N7&8 and then hightlight. My question would be how can I lift the overall colour slightly without it going orange? And how can I make sure that the hair colour is even, not patchy due to different tints? :confused::)

[Perito]

I think you're going to have to use color remover to remove the artificial pigment in the hair and then recolor (possibly bleaching the hair).

I would recommend ColorFix, Color Zap, Color Oops, Igora Phantom, or Color Charm Color Corrector. Other color removers (L'Oreal Effasol, for example) are simply bleaches and are horrible on the hair.

Once you've removed the artificial color, your hair will be a very unnatural and undesirable color (usually red, orange, or yellow). You'll have to recolor after that. Bleaching over dyed hair -- especially dark dyes -- is not recommended because artificial pigment bleaches out much more slowly (or not at all) than natural pigment.

Single-process haircoloring uses hydrogen peroxide to both lighten the hair and also to develop the color. Hydrogen peroxide is very limited in its ability to lighten hair. It can only lift a couple of "levels" without going red or orange. Even though you select a lighter tint, the hair won't turn out that much lighter. That's because the same developer is in the mixture, but less pigment or lighter pigment is deposited. You still have the problem that the undertones (natural pigment left in the hair) can't be lightened very far with hydrogen peroxide.

If you want to get past that stage, you have to bleach the hair and then tone it. This is done even though you don't want to be blonde. I don't know how light N7&8 is, but it might be light enough to be able to highlight over. You still have to be careful.

Here are some sites that I would recommend where you can get more information. These sites aren't just for those who want to go blonde.

Bottle Blondes Board

The Going Blonde Message Board