Can anyone out there help with an "ashy" highlights problem?!

CAPTAINBLONDECHICK · 27 March 2011 at 2:53PM

:eek: Here's the story ... I used to always do my own hair colouring but about 5 years ago started getting blonde foil highlights done professionally. My hairdresser described my natural colour as dark golden blonde. It has been about 4 months since my last visit and I decided that I was going to go back to doing it myself to save money. I didn't want to go for anything which would be too dramatic as I knew I was working with these hightlights and had to be careful. I wanted a colour to more blend the highlighted strands with those strands which were still my natural colour rather than trying to lighten the natural colour to meet the lighter colour of the highlights.

I chose L'Oreal Casting Satin Blonde (801) specifically as it says it is suitable for use on hightlighted hair. The only colour info on the box is given as "Satin Blonde" - they don't break it down into any tone or type, e.g. golden, ash, light etc.

The result is a bit dodgy looking! There must be ashy tones in the colourant as the highlights have gone very ashy/greyish. The colourant has slightly lifted my natural colour nicely but all I can see are these ashy/grey highlighted strands poking though, making the whole head of hair look dull and greyish.

Any "experts" out there who can recommend a way to lift the ashy-ness of the highlights without affecting too much the rest of my hair?

Thanks in advance! :beer:

xxvickixx · 27 March 2011 at 4:41PM

You could also try running a toner through in a warm tone. Or if you put head and shoulders on and leave it with a plastic bag over your hair for about 1/2 hour that will strip a lot of the new colour out. It won't be very good for the condition of your hair though.

In future use a warm toned colour - nice and easy say on the box if they are cool, ash, warm or neutral IIRC.

I home colour my hair using a cap and run highlights with bleach through and every other time I put some low lights using the cap using a darker hair colour and find this a good way of avoiding the hairdressers!