Help! Friend has accidentally dyed her hair jet black

confusedmummy

Can anyone help? My friend has accidentally dyed her greyish hair black. She thought she was using dark brown but it turned out to be black. She is really upset and doesn't know what to do and says it looks terrible. Is there any way she can strip the colour or tone it down a bit? Her hairdresser said there is not much she can do except wait for it to grow out. Anyone have any natural remedies or such?

iamana1ias

Head and Shoulders shampoo, rubbed into the hair when dry and then shampooed as normal. If it's a semi permanent it will help remove it, if it's permanent then it will help to fade it.

L'oreal colours are notorious for dying darker than the colour on the box.

shaven-monkey

It's going to look pretty terrible for a while. Sorry. Use of a gentle bleaching compound will fade it to a purple / pink tint over time and then another colour can be dyed on top. Maybe.

http://www.mookychick.co.uk/body/how_to_dye_black_hair_blonde.php

http://www.indianchild.com/beauty/removing_black_hair_dye.htm

There are also many videos on Youtube with talking heads describing how they removed black hair dye.

westcountrymaid_2

I think washing up liquid works to fade the colour too but use a good conditioner after. Sitting in the sun will help it along. I did the same thing years ago, I used a medium brown and it came out black! It looked terrible. I'm sure there is a thread on here somewhere about the same thing.

hethmar

Im sure if she went to a decent hairdresser they could help. At worse they could put streaks of brown in it, surely?

tub28

Warm virgin olive oil applied to hair and left for an hour or so is susposed to help fade colour, also Vosene shampoo

shandyclover

I second the above. It worked to take out about 50% of the colour when I dyed my hair 'copper blonde' and it turned out orange! I saturated my hair in olive oil and heated it with a hair dryer. Then washed with head and shoulders shampoo.

hieveryone

There's a product in Boots called 'Colour B4' - I think it's by Scott someone... I'll try and find a link..
I used it when I did this and it's amazing!

Edit: Scott Cornwall. The extra strength one was about 12 quid but it really worked.

bugbabe1970

Peroxide or bleach is the best solution Im afraid.

When I wanted to get rid of my back hair its the only thing that would lighten it. It took about 4 days in total, had to bleach it twice then put the colour I wanted on top of that. I'm very lucky though as my hair is strong and thick. It dried my hair out a lot though and I had to put a couple of hot oil treatments on it.

Silaqui

I did a similar thing the other week, not so extreme though - I think I must have picked up the wrong box of hair dye and it turned out to be two shades darker than I usually use.
I used Head and Shoulders shampoo followed by an intense conditioner mixed with lemon juice - it doesn't really lighten it, but it kind of takes the harshness out, if you see what i mean?

What colour is her hair naturally (or what was she aiming for?) My hair is usually a dark chestnut brown and I found that although it looked awful and way too dark straight after I'd dyed it and was all pale with no make-up, it actually looked quite good once I'd put foundation/bronzer/makeup on. Has she tried playing around with make up to see if it takes the contrast away?

Failing that, I've also heard good things about the Scott Cornwall Colour B4 (although never used it) but apparently it isn't so good on those Colour XL dyes.

Silaqui

Oops sorry didn't check properly, old thread.