Hair Colorists
To begin with, I naturally have auburn brown hair. It’s naturally curly, thick and beautiful. Well, it’s actually considered thin per stand, but there’s a lot of it so it appears thick. For the last 15 years I have had it professionally colored to very light wheat blonde with platinum blonde highlights. It’s been beautiful and very long (past my shoulders) this whole time.
Then, 2 weeks ago, I went to a 2nd new colorist. I asked her if she thought my hair could handle some subtle strawberry blonde highlights in my blonde hair as well as some new blonde highlights on my new root growth. She said yes. Well instead, she ran through a dark violet red through the blonde and put the same dark violet red over the roots! Disaster! So I essentially had blonde hair with dark red roots.
So a week later I went to a 3rd place and the “corrective colorist” gave me a French shampoo and a partial head full of bleached white highlights to cut out the red on my roots. It looked better, but now had an orange-ish cast to it as a result of bringing up the violet red. Perhaps I should have left it alone there, but the knowledge that I had to keep bleaching the “red-orange” color out over time to get it gone did not seem like a healthy long-term solution to me.
So I decided to go dark… and let my natural color grow back in. I’d been thinking about it a while and perhaps it was time. I want to consider the health of my hair for now and in the future… especially since I want long hair back. So I went online and found a board certified hair color salon, and at the go ahead of the colorist, went to a brunette.
So now, I’m a brunette. I am a very, very, very dark brown... almost black. I hate it! I was told I’d be “golden brown”.
The colorist did the process by first applying an orange base which she said would fill the hair, and by second, applying two coats of dark color to tone out the violet reds, orange reds and blonde. Now, it’s all uniform, but awful. She said it’s not the final product and that this is a process, but considering all my awful experiences over the last 6 months, I simply don’t trust her because she told me it would be a “golden brown” originally, and it’s a very dark, flat, muted brown that looks almost black.
As you - no doubt - have assessed, the other part of all this is the health of my hair. I am so very worried about the damage. My hair is so fragile now... as you could imagine. I’m doing Kerastase treatments, which is a professional line from Paris. They have helped immensely, and my hair is hanging in there. But please consider the condition when you answer my questions.
So here are my questions:
1. The colorist said I could never go back to blonde with this hair now because of the orange color base applied. Is that true? A processed blonde is underneath. Can I get this awful dark color out or am I stuck dark? And if I am, am I stuck this dark? And is that orange-base going to show through as it fades? If so, will it be golden or orange? I’m scared.
2. In your opinion do you think she messed up and just made me so dark because she didn’t know what else to do? I just need some peace of mind. She told me we had to cover the violet red, and that’s why she had to go darker and that this will fade, but I can’t imagine how. It’s so dark.
3. If I can do something else, how long do I wait. I’m also dealing with the health of my hair here, but I’m really getting frustrated. I can not stay this dark as I’m fair and look like death. I am really close to shaving my head and getting a wig! But that will send me to tears too!
Please help. I need knowledge and advice. I don’t know who to trust and what to believe.
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