I Dyed My Hair and Its a mess...HELP!

If you hate it because it's too dark or has gone wrong and you want to lighten it asap , wash it with dish soap or an anti dandruff shampoo....strips that color right out.

I'm so jealous! I always wanted to be red head. Keeping your color treated red intact is extremely difficult. You should, as a rule, never try to lift ( lighten) hair at home unless your hair is already light colored. It rarely goes well. You have a few options, home hair color - especially red- fades quickly on it's own. You can was it several times and then wash it daily for a week or so and see if it fades then try a diffeent home color. Or you can go have it professionally color corrected. That is your best bet. Take a picture of the color you want and tell the colorist what you used and they can fix it for you. Once your hair is how you want it try to only shampoo it every 2or 3 days to preserve the color. You can use dry shampoo in between or spritz the roots with water to style and freshen up. Good luck !

If it's a total disaster, then go to a salon and have them fix it. If you have an Aveda salon nearby, their color is pretty gentle (so, good for fixing home dye disasters). A lady in the next chair over from me came in with a brassy blond and left with auburn hair last time - so I'm guessing that they could help you achieve the color you want! I know it's probably more than you want to spend, but... if you are miserable with your hair right now, maybe it's worth it? I am blond naturally and have some help from the salon with that these days, and one time I tried to do it myself... oh man, it was terrible! I had to go the next day and have my colorist fix it. She was nice and didn't laugh at me or anything. =)

I personally love the dark, auburn shades. Being light blonde, that was practically impossible for me. I found out the hard way once when my hair turned out the equivelant of a fuschia color that matched a throw on my couch.
The one good thing is that reds do not stay in the hair long at all.
When I had my pink accident, my hair dresser neighbor told me to wash several times with clarifying shampoo, Suave, as a matter of fact.
I was surprisd how well it worked. I still had a little pink tint to my hair, but believe it or not, people thought I actually meant to do that. Little did they know!

If it's just darker than you're used to, it might not be that bad. Red fades so quickly. After several shampoos, it might level out to the way you wanted it.

Best wishes!

You will have to have your hair stripped of the dye. But it will cost you. Go to a salon and tell them exactly what you did so they can make it right. In the future do a test strip. I find it hard to spend money at a salon since my mom is a hairdresser. But once in awhile I have to go and suck it up :( My mom lives in another state and paying for a $15 haircut kills me. It should only be $5-$8. But then again I'm cheap when it comes to hair LOL.

Updated

You will have to have your hair stripped of the dye. But it will cost you. Go to a salon and tell them exactly what you did so they can make it right. In the future do a test strip. I find it hard to spend money at a salon since my mom is a hairdresser. But once in awhile I have to go and suck it up :( My mom lives in another state and paying for a $15 haircut kills me. It should only be $5-$8. But then again I'm cheap when it comes to hair LOL.

I mix in a little laundry detergent with water and carefully put it in my hair to tone down the color when it's too dark. Probably a bit harsh, just do it once and rinse well. Don't use the color remover from the drugstore - I used it once and my hair turned bright orange!

When I worked in a hair salong people would call ALL the time wanting to lighten up a dark color...dyers remorse =) We always recommended to wash with Pert Plus or Prell shampoo and it should lighten up. If after a week it is still too dark you may have to go to a salon because you don't want to damage your hair by lightening it at home.

Being that it is a red dye it shouldn't take too long for it to wash out...just don't use a light colored towel to dry it after. Red ALWAYS "bleeds" onto a light towel.

Good luck!

Hello: I use henna on my hair and it turns the white parts of my hair (front and temples) a copper/bright red. In fact, I have problems because it makes my hair too red. The rest of my hair where it is brown and grey takes the henna in an auburn color.

May I suggest trying henna to do future colorings? try www.hennaforhair.com and gets lots of good advice about how to do it.

As far as lightening up your color, I would use dishwashing soap. It does a good job of stripping color for me. Good luck with whatever you decide to do. L.

So...does it look bad ? Like all blotchy ? or is it just too dark ? Also remember that after a few washes the color always lightens up....

moisturizing shampoo will strip color. Also...red is one of the first colors to come out of hair.

I am a hairstylist and have to warn against using the henna. It may work for some, but if you do it on your own, inexperienced, the only way to fix it is to cut it. Also, it will not fix your current condition, which is to lighten the hair color.

You could always visit a good salon to fix it. They can safely lift the color without using bleach. There is a professional product by Schwarzkopf that used to be called Phantom, but it's name has changed and I can't remember it. It's really safe and lifts that color right out without damaging your hair and they can recolor right over afterwards. I have seen it work wonders in my old salon, even remove reds from natural blonde hair. (It's true, red fades quickly, but is actually difficult to fully remove).

In the meantime, start this "shampoo train" technique in the link below to start to work out those color molecules now, so if your colorist is incompetent without a proper/professional color remover and resorts to a bleaching shampoo, then at least it won't have to be on quite as long:

http://killerstrands.blogspot.com/search?q=remover

Haircolor from a store is sometimes okay if it is a deposit only (meaning not lightening) and only a few shades different and on natural hair. But since your hair was already colored and you were trying to go lighter, that explains the reaction.

I remember I did my hair a black and was shocked every time I looked in the mirror. It was horrible. But it eventually grew out through a lot of shampooings. ON the other hand you might simply not be used to it.