The Student Room Group

How to lighten hair dyed too dark?

It was supposed to be just a slightly darker brown but it looks basically black. :frown:

This has happened before and it's gone lighter after loads of washes over a few weeks, but does anyone know anything I could do right now to make it a lighter brown?

I've read some things about adding washing up liquid and baking soda to shampoo then using that but it doesn't sound too great, and I don't want my hair falling out.

appreciate any help
Reply 1
Wouldn't recommend adding fairy liquid, I can't see how that'd work :s:

If you can afford it, go to the hairdressers and get it fixed, if you're skint (like I always am!) you could either risk re-dying it a shade lighter, or if you have a week or so to get it lighter, use Pantene shampoo, but not the stuff recommended for dyed hair, just normal hair. I have no idea why, but it seems to work, a friend told me, and when my hair is dyed and it's gone to dark, I use pantene and it fixes it.

Might be worth a shot :smile:
Reply 2
sit in the sun... if there is any :biggrin:
Reply 3
Thanks for the replies

I don't have the money to go to a salon to get it sorted and didn't really want any of that stripping business done, just wanted a way to try and make it fade fast, VERY FAST if possible because I'm going out later and really don't want to look so goth, lol.

I'm just gonna go out and buy Pantene and some Head and Shoulders shampoo, apparently that helps as well, and wash my hair a million times. :redface:
Reply 4
Head and Shoulders works. Put it in your hair and then leave it for ages, then rinse and repeat. Failing that, something called Sun-In works.
Reply 5
go swimming in chlorine every day for a week. not very practical, but it will work :wink:
Reply 6
There is a product called "Colorfix" but I couldn't find any when I last looked around. I live in a small town though so that may be why. It removes the dye out of semi-permanent and permanently coloured hair. I'm really not sure if it's sold in the UK, but I'm sure it might be and if not there are probably similar products.

The Head and Shoulders thing works quite well! It sounds stupid but if you leave it on dry hair for 45 minutes and then rinse your hair the colour fades quite a lot. I dyed my blonde hair a medium brown on Saturday and felt it was too extreme so I've washed my hair about 50 times since! This has been with Pantene but I don't think there's that much difference. It's now a bit of a strawberry blonde colour, which I love. :smile: Keep your washing your hair and it should fade.

Oh and don't risk colouring over the hair again with a lighter colour. When it comes to lightening the hair there's a phrase: "colour doesn't lift colour". This means that simply applying a lighter shade over the darker colour won't make much of a difference unfortunately. It's much better to just wait it out I think and keep washing. Good luck. :smile:
Reply 7
Use pantene clarifying stuff - my hairdresser told me that fades coloured hair. So you could try that for an inexpensive fix?
Don't use Sun-In!