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Box Dye Disaster - PLZ HELP Medium brown to ginger

Hi, my natural hair colour is a medium/ dark brown and literally looks golden/ strawberry blonde in the sunlight.
I dyed My hair with a warm brown box dye thinking it would go a shade lighter but ended up creating a vibrant ginger colour on the crown area of my head and makes my hair look extremely orange/ red toned and reflective when it hits the light and I think it’s because my hair is really fine. My scalp is still orange.
I go back to school in a week and URGENTLY NEED to get it out as “unnatural hair” is not permissible. Please please help
Techniques I’ve tried:
- I’ve read that olive oil tends to strip away colour so ever since I’ve dyed it I’ve been applying a mix of coconut oil and olive oil before bed and washing it out the next morning. The vibrancy has reduced but it’s still incredibly pigmented.
- I’ve used the cheapest shampoo I could find Cien from Lidl it’s around 80p or so and I lather it into my hair for around 15 seconds I then let it sit for around 2 minutes before washing it out. I repeat this again so In total I apply shampoo twice.
- I’ve started washing my hair every day which is something I didn’t do in hopes of it fading before school
- I’ve been using very hot water to wash my hair not painfully hot but pretty hot, rather than my usual warm water which is a bit more on the cold side.
- tomorrow I am going to try to vitamin C and shampoo process and I’ll update you. I also heard head and shoulders anti dandruff shampoo is really good so I will be purchasing that.
Once again please help me out I’m so stressed

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 1

caitlind181

Hiya!

I had this exact same problem, and I mean my hair was carrot orange! Sadly if other techniques haven't worked, your best bet is to buy a dark brown hair dye and apply that. It WILL NOT apply evenly if you have very bright orange roots, but it will just neutralise it to different shades of brown (my lighter orange bits actually turned a nice light brown and people thought I had gotten highlights done!)

In order to not dry out your hair I recommend you get a dye WITHOUT bleach. Most dark brown dyes don't have too much of a lightening agent but actively avoid ones that come with a bleaching product AND a colouring product. If you are willing to risk it like I did - the best bet is bleaching your hair. I can understand why you would not want to do that however as its very risky at home. I have very short hair so bleaching it has always been easy - I understand its much more daunting with longer hair.

Here is a quote from an article I used on how to get the best hair dye:
"Color selection is vital. Avoid colours that contain a red base, which are typically described with words such as warm, chestnut and mahogany. Ash colours contain a green base that neutralises red. Words to look for include cool and ash. Always use cool, ash colors to cover red hair colour if you don't want to see any red tones peeking through.

Hair colour starts to oxidise as soon as it's mixed. As hair colour is oxidising, it continuously gets darker. A medium-brown colour may oxidise to the point that it appears black, but it's no cause for concern. Your hair won't turn black as a result of oxidation."

All the best! Hopefully you won't have to dye your hair but if nothing is working here's my two cents xx

Reply 2

Medusa.D

Thank you so much for the advice I really appreciate it. Unfortunately I’m not going to risk it with the bleaching process my skin is on the lighter side of medium and won’t look good on my complexion. This experience has literally traumatised me so I will never use box dye again. I do agree with the colour correction of using green/ ashy tones to cancel out the orange but once again toooo sacred to use box dye again, I do use a green shampoo and green shower gel as shampoo as that’s my only hope :frown: