[miss_p]

Or will Henna hair dye do the job?

I think bleach is the only thing that actually lightens your hair's pigment, my mom seems to think otherwise.

[Naffy]

Henna makes your hair go rusty-brown-red. But you cant get lighter than that.

IMO you should just use normal hair colouring products, that are specfic to the colour you want.

[EskimoJo]

Sunshine?

[emmers]

I think you'll have to bleach your hair to cover the dark pigmentation and then dye it to the colour you want. Be careful though, I know so many people who lightened their hair from being dark and it faded to this horrible ginger colour

[ChopinNocturne]

Originally Posted by emmers

I think you'll have to bleach your hair to cover the dark pigmentation and then dye it to the colour you want. Be careful though, I know so many people who lightened their hair from being dark and it faded to this horrible ginger colour

This. OP, go to a hairdresser and see what they recommend?

[IlexAquifolium]

Be careful if you do use henna since it's incompatible with normal permanent dyes, should it not go as planned and you want to try a box dye.

[Naffy]

Originally Posted by emmers

Be careful though, I know so many people who lightened their hair from being dark and it faded to this horrible ginger colour

lol their roots would look so epic

[rmn002]

Old Age?

[psychocustard]

Have a look for something called ColourID. I found it on Ebay, and it basically lifts the colour from your hair without any of the rubbish you get in bleach that makes your hair go nasty

[Georgiahoneybee]

Personally I would never try and lighten black hair at home. But I thought lightening hair involved "lifting the pigment" and I don't see how henna can do that!

[issih]

Yepp it's the only way!! If you want to lighten hair you need to take the colour out which means you can only do it permenantly.
I would go to the hair dressers because if your hair is black you will need lot's of bleach if you wanna make it blonde, or it could just go ginger...
Henna just puts colour on the hair and so it's not gonna show up on black hair.
Be careful!!! Bleach can make your hair bad condition.

[a.posteriori]

If you're worried, I'd just go to a salon and get it professionally done. You will regret coloring it wrong far more than having to pay a bit more to color it.

[miss_p]

I've bleached my hair before, then used a nice brown permanent dye over it. There was no ginger cz the bleach wasn't that strong. IT turned out great. My mom doesn't like me using the bleach though cz it's damaging etc... so she says use the Henna but she doesn't believe me when I say it won't actually take my hair from black to a proper brown!!

[miss_p]

Originally Posted by psychocustard

Have a look for something called ColourID. I found it on Ebay, and it basically lifts the colour from your hair without any of the rubbish you get in bleach that makes your hair go nasty

Just checked that- it's for removing permanent colour! My hair is naturally black, so it wouldn't work on my roots lol

[Skylar]

I had black hair and I had brown highlights put through it with some bleach (they used a cap), it lightened it completely and the results were 3 different streaming colours through my hair, black, dark brown and a lighter blonde so you don't have completely bleach it.

[psychocustard]

Originally Posted by miss_p

Just checked that- it's for removing permanent colour! My hair is naturally black, so it wouldn't work on my roots lol

Ahhh, I probably didn't read your first post properly... In which case, a lot of the L'oreal Excellence dyes are for naturally dark hair, so you could try those.