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How can I get my dyed red hair back to brown?

Detailed explanation of how to get it back to your original colour here.



I had naturally brown hair, but I've been dying my hair red using Schwarzkopf XXL Real Red for the past year or so, and even though I loved it at first, I'm getting a bit fed up of it now.

I was just wondering if anyone knew of any ways to get back to my original colour?

Please help! :smile:




Advice from the thread:

wait for the ginger to settle in (as it inevitably does ) and then whip out the brown dye. It may take a couple of gos, but that's still probably cheaper than the hairdressers!


Color remover messes up your hair. Just find a dye close to your natural hair color, use it and let your hair grow out.


hate to tell you but once you've dyed your hair red even when you dye back over it the red will still come through a bit, the best thing to do would be to get it stripped, my mom owns a salon on she offers this treatment and also one that just strips artificial colour so it's kinder to your hair
(edited 9 years ago)
Dye it brown?
It's too dark a red to just dye back to brown, it'd just go darker, and I want it a light kind of brown.
Reply 3
Could go to a salon and get your hair 'stripped' though I suspect thats pretty costly. Other than that, wait till the colour has lost its vibrancey and perhaps try a toner to bring it back to a brown?
Yeah, I didn't really want to go to the hairdressers to get it done, cause I know it can cost a lot D;
Thanks, I'll try that :smile:
I've had red hair for four years and have yet to grow bored of it. :awesome:

But yeah, wait for the ginger to settle in (as it inevitably does :emo:) and then whip out the brown dye. It may take a couple of gos, but that's still probably cheaper than the hairdressers!
Reply 6
I'm having the same problem!
You can get colour remover from boots:
http://www.boots.com/en/Beauty/Hair/Colourants/Colour-Remover/

and it is quite cheap:biggrin:
Hope this helps!
Reply 7
Shave it!


No, seriously. Color remover messes up your hair. Just find a dye close to your natural hair color, use it and let your hair grow out.
Reply 8
hate to tell you but once you've dyed your hair red even when you dye back over it the red will still come through a bit, the best thing to do would be to get it stripped, my mom owns a salon on she offers this treatment and also one that just strips artificial colour so it's kinder to your hair =] hope this helps
Reply 9
favouriteworstnightmare
I had naturally brown hair, but I've been dying my hair red using Schwarzkopf XXL Real Red for the past year or so, and even though I loved it at first, I'm getting a bit fed up of it now.

I was just wondering if anyone knew of any ways to get back to my original colour?

Please help! :smile:


I know this is irrelevant but did this dye damage your hair at all? I would like to go red but I'm a bit paranoid as I'm growing my hair
Miooberry
I know this is irrelevant but did this dye damage your hair at all? I would like to go red but I'm a bit paranoid as I'm growing my hair


Nah not at all, it looks in better condition now than when I had my natural hair colour! :smile:
Reply 11
favouriteworstnightmare
Nah not at all, it looks in better condition now than when I had my natural hair colour! :smile:


awesome! thanks :wink:
I put a passion red colour on it was wild, went to hairdresses had a colour on to tone it down, wondering if i put a brown on would it take, and fancy brown
Get a hairdresser to bleach it. I had to have mine bleached to get the black out
You have 2 options;
1. Bleach your hair
2. Grow it out with lighter colours each time

Let me explain....
When you dye your hair molecules of hair dye and permeated into each strand of your hair, and box bought dyes like the ones you've been using permeate deep down into each strand. This means that between dying your hair your natural colour never comes through, as the colour molecules actually colour a lot more of each strand than you can see.

So dying your whole head of hair each time your root come though means that you will have a good 6months of hair dye molecules on your hair in your scalp, so the red pigment will be there for that period of time.

Red is notorious to remove, I've been there myself!

Bleaching your hair will turn it orange, think fanta orange (not even joking) and will damage a good inch of your ends. So with bleaching you would need some length taking off your hair too, well unless you want a mass of split ends! Don't try and bleach your own hair, you should always let a salon do it as so much can go wrong with the process and I'm sure you don't want to risk losing your hair. Obviously once it is bleached you can then dye over it but your hair will be in a really bad condition.
Bleaching is a quick fix, but it will take atleast 2 bleach applications to remove the red pigment, and even then you will have brassy undertones.

The other option takes a lot longer, but means you don't damage your hair.
For this you let your roots grow out as much as you can handle (for me it was about 2 months with fast growing hair). Once you've grown them out to an inch or so you then get your roots, and roots only dyed, and dyed one shade lighter on the colour chart to your dyed hair colour.
You can't tell any much different between the 2 colours so it's doesn't look awful, but it will stop a build up of different colour molecules.
You repeat this growing out and dying a shade lighter until your roots are a colour you want them to be, which by this point you will need to loose some length to your hair. Once you've had some length off you could then dye your whole head the colour of your roots.


Whoah that was long winded and rambly, but I thought it might be if use to you.
I always ask tons of questions when I get my hair dyed at the salon so have sort of picked up a lot of the science behind hair colour along the way haha


Posted from TSR Mobile
There are some great suggestions in this thread. :smile: I think it's best to slowly dye it back - that way you save damaging your hair even more. :h:
Hi really i have had so many colours on my hair now gone from black witch i did not like to copper love the colour but i am worried about every time get it dyed with this colour my hair gonna get worse was thinking going bk brown to try get my hair heathy agine whst think?
Reply 17
Hi I’ve just dyed the two front pieces blond than put a red dy ok yo- i really don’t like it what should I do