HAIRCOLOR TOO DARK

Nubia

I used the natural instincts rinse in "midnight" and my hair came out looking too dark. It's a blue black and I want to lightnen it a little without using chemicals. Please give me any advice on how to lighten up a rinse gone wrong?

CurliLocks

Does NI have a new product? Because the only NI I know of is a semi-permanent color, not a rinse. You could try a DT with heat, a clarifying shampoo, prell, sunlight dishsoap.... all have been known to lighten color.

Nubia

You're right. It is semi permanent but claims to wash out is 28 shampoos (or more). What is a DT with heat? Sorry, Im not too color savvy. Where can I find prell? I looked for it at Target and couldnt find it. Where do you usually find it? Thanks.

CurliLocks

Sorry. DT is deep treatment, using heat (heatcap or hot towel). I don't know where to find the prell, I just hear it recommended here but haven't tried it.

NI has peroxide, so it does lift and deposit color. I don't know how they claim it washes out. More like fades out. Do you have a good clarifying or sulfate/harsh shampoo? Try that and then a nice deep treatment afterwards. Hopefully it will fade the color a bit.

HalfWavyHalfCurly

Any cholesterol treatment like Queen Helene, will pull out some color and condition at the same time, you could try it after a shampoo for double color fading effect. If you don't have a heat cap just use your blow dryer over a plastic shower cap to warm up the hair, then wrap it up in a towel and leave on for at least 20 mins.

Nubia

Thanks. I will try that tonight.

HalfWavyHalfCurly

Oh, and you can use this as many times as you want. Also remember next time you use a dark color to leave it on less time, curly hair is usually porous and now that it's been colored it would absorb pigment very quickly, so it's best to wipe the mixture off a strand and examine it after the first 5 mins.

karenk8

Where can u buy the Queen Helene? I tried to cover the grays on my natural medium to dark brown hair with a medium brown color and it came out black on the bottom half of my hair. I've tried using prell shampoo over and over, but has not helped.

Karen

Brio

If you really don't like the color, you can use ColorFix. You can find it at Sally Beauty. The partial color correction method might work for you.

I copied this from the Robert Craig website:

Situation 1: I colored my hair and it turned out too dark.

Solution: You can do several things but try these in the order suggested.

The first thing to do is shampoo with a mixture of shampoo and liquid dish detergent. You can do this several times but condition well between shampoos as this can be drying to the hair.
The next thing to try is a deep conditioning treatment with a protein pack. Proteins can pull color out of the hair. Saturating the hair with a protein pack and leaving it as long as you can may remove some color. You can protect the hair with a disposable plastic hair cap.

There is also a product called Colorfix (available in our shopping cart) that actually shrinks the dye molecules of permanent color only and is used for fine tuning color (lightening a little) as well as major color removal and is a very gentle product. The instructions are easy to follow and there are a few applications in each box. To read more about it, go to the consumer section of the site. We include a few extra tips and hints in the box that our experience has shown to work really well. Please note that in major corrections the hair will almost always need to be colored again.

If this doesn't get your hair as light as you want, then using a mild solution of bleach mixed with shampoo and conditioner is the next step. Do not use a haircolor to lighten haircolor. It is unpredictable, and is not meant for this purpose. It can actually drive the dark color further into the hair making it harder to remove. To make a bleach shampoo which will lighten a little and be more gentle on the hair, mix an on-scalp bleach per directions and add three tablespoons of Robert Craig Shampoo and three tablespoons of Robert Craig Conditioner. This will buffer the bleach, dilute it and condition as it is lightening. Once the hair has reached the right stage of lightness, you should use cool water to rinse the bleach from the hair. Gently shampoo the hair and rinse well. Wrap hair in a towel to absorb excess water and follow with a Color by Robert Craig shade to tone the hair if necessary.

karenk8

Does this product just take out the dark color? I don't want to re-color my hair.

Suburbanbushbabe

Colorfix used as described above works well. I've used it to strip out color that wasn't working, and was able to re-color with Robert Craig immediately after.

karenk8

But does it take alot of color that u have to re-color it? I just want to take some of the darkness out-but NOT recolor it.

karen

Suburbanbushbabe

karenk8 wrote:

But does it take alot of color that u have to re-color it? I just want to take some of the darkness out-but NOT recolor it.

karen

Used full strength it will do a full strip. Mix it with shampoo and results are gentler

Brio

karenk8 wrote:

But does it take alot of color that u have to re-color it? I just want to take some of the darkness out-but NOT recolor it.

karen

You can do a partial color correction with ColorFix by mixing the solutions with shampoo. It only lightens the color & you will not have to re-color (unless I suppose you leave it on too long.)

Go to Folica.com and do a search for ColorFix. The instructions for both full & partial corrections are on the site.

karenk8

thank you everyone.

CurliLocks

Yes, do the partial treatment with the shampoo mix. Wipe a strand of hair off until mostly dry to check for color. Remember, wet hair is darker so don't go too light while the ColorFix is on your hair. You can control the lift and get the color you want this way. Good luck!

Clarita

I've had this happen with Natural Instincts color. I was able to get most of the darkness out by shampooing with dish soap then coating my wet hair with olive oil. I left the olive oil in for about 4 hours then shampood again with reg. poo. hth

Brio

CurliLocks wrote:

Yes, do the partial treatment with the shampoo mix. Wipe a strand of hair off until mostly dry to check for color. Remember, wet hair is darker so don't go too light while the ColorFix is on your hair. You can control the lift and get the color you want this way. Good luck!

that's always been part of my problem. I can't tell what color my hair is when wet and can't seem to get it dry enough even though I try to dry it as much as I can with a paper towel.

jax

I've used Colorfix with good results. I was wanting to remove years of very dark brown (near black) to my normal med brown. It has 3 bottles, one of which is a Conditioning Catalyst. I did my research online, and everybody said to be sure to mix a 1-1-1 of all ingredients, thereby including the Contitioning Catalyst, so I did.

I mixed & applied it outside on my back terrace. I did a really deep conditioning afterwards as it was very harsh, I left the conditioner on for a good hour under a cap. I had no damage. It stripped out all haircolor and left natural color - well, it left my hair as it is after years of chemical processing with color. It seemed to remove all dyes and leave the hair sort of as it is by now. I wasn't dissapointed.

My hair did seem extremely porous after. I colored 2 days later (I cover grey) and my normal medium brown haircolor seemed very, very dark - like my hair drank it up.

so, my tips if you go this way -

- mix a 1-1-1, so you have the Conditioning Catalyst in there
- mix and apply outside or in a well ventilated area, as it stinks to high heaven
- keep a close eye on your hair - I think the processing time is anywhere from 20 min to an hour; it's kind of left up to you, so don't just wander off and assume it's doing it's job
- deep deep deep condition after
- don't be afraid to dye a day or two later, but chose a slightly lighter color than you think you'll need
- be aware that it will take a good couple washings to get the smell out