From Brunette To Bright Red | How I Dye My Hair Bright Colours

Hey guys and dolls, I get asked a lot about how I dye my hair red and this is how I go about it without using lots of bleach!

PLEASE NOTE I AM NOT A HAIRDRESSER OR PROFESSIONAL AND THIS IS HOW I DID MY OWN HAIR AND HAVE DONE FOR THE PAST 6 YEARS!

These are the things I use to get to being a redhead! I have listed all the products in the post.

 

This was the first time I ever bleached my hair (cringey photo alert!) and went red, this was done using bleach and Schwarzkopf Live XXL Real Red 

This red has an orange base/undertone so when it fades out it will fade to an orange shade.

After around a year I went to black then changed my mind almost instantly and wanted to go back to red. I discovered Colour B4 This is a hair colour remover and it removes permanent dyes.

• Colour B4 shrinks the artificial dye molecules in the hair, enabling you to simply wash them away.
• Colour B4 does not touch your natural hair pigment so you are left with the colour which lay beneath your artificial shade
• It will return your hair to its natural colour if the artificial hair colour applied is darker than your natural level.
  
  
  

This means as my hair was bleached before the red it would take me back to the bleached base colour so I didn't have to put it through the hell of bleaching it again. I just put CB4 on my hair as instructed, beware it smells like egg... and this is the usual result -

These photos are from different applications, I've used this method SO many times, as you can see this makes a really good base for red/yellow/orange hair dyes!

You can now put on a red box dye OR skip this and go SUPER bright by just using Lariche Directions / Crazy Colour / Manic Panic.
I recommend the L'oreal Ferier dyes as they're much more glossy and in my opinion the colour is much better looking, I find the XXL ones to be brassy and flat? If that makes sense. However I have a stockpile from being red for so long so use them for root touch ups.
You can dye straight after the CB4 but PLEASE wash for as long as possible as the peroxide in the hair dyes will make your hair go darker because of a chemical reaction with any CB4 residue. Again I am not a professional but this is what has happened to me and countless friends who have not washed CB4 out of our hair properly.
 TIP: I usually blow dry my hair after washing it to draw out the moisture then re wash for another 5 mins to be super sure I won't have any product left in my hair!

PLEASE READ IF YOU'RE CONSIDERING GOING BLONDE FROM THIS POINT AND NOT RED!!! 
DO NOT put bleach over your hair after CB4 until you've left it a week or at least 5 washes, if you haven't got all of the CB4 out of your hair it will oxidise and go darker, I have made this mistake twice and it was only after searching online for ages that I found why! If you want to go blonde from here wait a few washes!!!!!, bleach, then box dye or bleach and tone etc. 

After a box dye I will use a La riche Directions colour in Pillar Box Red, they have some amazing hair colours from white to fluorescent green with brilliant colour pay off, they're vegan and animal cruelty free as well as being gentle on your locks. They're only semi permanent and if you're thinking of going red you may have already heard all about how hard it is to keep red vibrant and happy but thats a whole different blog post.

So basically in short I Colour B4, box dye & then Directions for around an hour, or how ever long I want. They say 15 mins but I find the colour intensity is much better if you leave them longer!

This method gives me the best colour results without using any bleach.

I hope this helps anyone wanting to change hair colour and I didn't bore you too much, Let me know what you think in the comments below!

(AGAIN - I'm not a hair professional and I only do it this way so I don't bleach my hair continually when I go between colours. Please take care when using any product or stripping hair as It can seriously damage your hair!)

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