Hair color advice please!

by mary
(oregon)

Yesterday I bleached my hair and let me tell you, I used a powder bleach w/ 30 volume developer and I applied permanent color shimmering blonde w/ 30 vol. You probably already know what happened. It turned orange! 6 months ago I went to a professional and lightened on top did dark underneath as my natural hair color is black so my roots were showing a lot and desperate I decided to do it myself as I don't have money to go professional. What do you recommend me doing? I do not want to go out my house. It's embarrassing.
Thanks Mary

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Hair color advice please!

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Nov 15, 2007

It's a chemistry thing...
by: Michelle

The problem here is twofold, as far as I can tell. The lightener (bleach) was probably not left on long enough to get the hair to the right stage of underlying pigment. Especially since you're starting with dark hair which probably has a red/orange underlying pigment. You'd want to lighten it until you see a pale yellow color.

Here's a detailed hair color chart and an illustration of the different levels of underlying pigment.

The second issue is that once you've lightened the hair, you simply want to deposit a more natural looking tone on top of the yellow to neutralize it. Using 30 volume developer for a toning process is ineffective because it'll give you more lift than deposit. 10 volume is the MAX I'd go with a toner, and usually I use less than 10 volume (semi-permanent color).

Also, I'm not sure what a "shimmering" blonde is, but in order to tone out the yellow after lightening, you should use an ash-based color.

I hope this helps you both fix your current color and avoid the same error in the future.

All the best,
Michelle
Editor, SHM.com