Blonde to red!!!! Please help

by Emma
(Midlands, England)

Hi, I had blonde highlights just through the top section of my hair for a long time and for a while i've been wanting to go dark brown or maybe dark brown then start my highlighting process all over again as it was getting too blonde so instead of being talked out of this by my hairdresser (who is my best friend, who only ever does what he wants to my hair anyway lol) i decided to by one and do the base colour myself (uhoh!) so i bought a mahogany brown as i know i need to put the red pigment back into my blonde hair first or else it will go green and as much as i like the colour i don't really fancy it on my barnet fair, thankfully it hasn't gone that colour but it has gone very very red (medium to dark red) so what do i do? I can't really afford to go to the hairdressers to have it corrected and i don't fancy having my bestfriend gloating and filling the air with "i told you so". Will putting a dark brown on help get rid of most of the red? The red doesnt look awful it's just not me at all. All advice is welcomed and thank you in advance.

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Blonde to red!!!! Please help

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Mar 29, 2008
 Observations...
by: Michelle

Hi Emma,

You are right about needing to add pigment back to blonde hair when doing a color-back, but not mahogany! lol! A golden brown will usually do the trick unless hair is extremely over-lightened.

When using any color as a filler, it's expected that you're going to apply a second color to get closer to the tone you want. Filler is just step number one. And the filler should be a shade or two lighter than the desired color. The only difference here is that you're now trying to not only deposit brown, but you need to tone out some of that red at the same time.

Because you're starting with a fairly dark color, your result is going to be darker than you may have initially wanted. To tone out the red, you need to add a darker shade over top of it.

I'd suggest using a basic neutral dark brown. NO gold! No warm tones at all. Just neutral dark brown.

Another option, if you simply can't stand to go any darker, is to remove the artificial pigment using an oxidative hair color remover. Learn more about hair color removal here.

Then you'd still have to deposit the darker tone. In this case, you'd likely have exposed the blonde pieces again and will need to use a color that won't turn them grey, so you'd want to either...


  • use a dark gold/warm color and be done with it, or

  • fill just the blonde pieces with a medium gold color and then color everything with a neutral dark brown



... depending on the results you want. So there are a few options.

All the best,
Michelle
Editor, SHM.com

P.S. An option for next time, if you're feeling that your highlights are making your hair too light, is to have a few low-lights foiled in. Dark color can be selectively added, just the same as light color can, which gives you a lot of freedom to create just the right look.

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