My hair is bleached. I'm tired of being a blonde, if only because of the maintenance it requires. I thought I'd dye my hair an auburn color. I don't have the spare change to go to a professional right now, but my dark brown roots are getting very long. I thought I'd go the root of box dye, but I've never done it before.

So questions, how is my hair being bleached going to affect things? Every box of color I looked at didn't show the effect of the color on hair as blonde as mine. Is the difference between the bleach blonde and my dark roots after they are dyed going to be very noticeable?

Any tips and suggestions for using box dyes? I am in serious need of a girl friend right now, but I only know two people in this city, and both are male.

Use a lot of brown sharpies.

Although it isn't the exact same, I had a similar dye experience.

My dad's girlfriend had her hair lightened to blonde, with even blonder highlights. She wanted an auburn color - so she grabbed a box and I dyed it for her. Both colors turned an auburn, but the highlights were definitely still visible as being a different color. (it looks nice, because it just looks like highlights with the new color)

Don't know if yours would wind up the same, but I would assume it would.

If you can, try to find a shampoo that strips colour. In the UK we have head and shoulders, it's a anti dandruff shampoo, it also acts as a stripper to dye. A few washes with that usually gets the worst of the colour out.

After that, go with a shade darker than what you want to go as going over blonde will make any colour you put on lighter. You will prob also need 2 or 3 boxes to get the desired colour. I bleach my hair once/twice a year at the most and going over it with red as it's my fav colour will go ginger after 2/3 weeks. So be prepared to have to colour a couple of times.

Good Luck with it!!

i just recently dyed my hair and i usually use head and shoulders. i guess i better stop using it lol.

go for a brown a couple of shades darker than your dark brown roots. dont apply the dye to your roots. dye it to that brown, then once thats darkened, you can dye it to the shade you want :) should only take 2 boxes x

The problem with bleached hair is that when you are going to a darker color you are missing certain pigments. When you go to a salon they will do a filler, the filler is going to fill in the pigments that have been bleached out of your hair (the reds/oranges). When you apply a darker color to your hair without filling it can look hollow and 'off.' I did a color correction project in school where we did this exact same thing. The portion that I used a filler on came out near perfect, but when you look at the section of bleached hair that I did not fill before the color, you can tell it's just not 'right.' IT's not horrible, but my Cosmetologist eye can definitely see the difference. If you don't have the money to do it, just grab some box color and hope for the best is all I can say, however there is a chance that the root area is going to be noticeably different in color, especially when it grows out further.

I also had my hair toned after the bleach. How does that factor in?

Toning is to remove unwanted tones, which is usually done with a demi permanent. Demi permanent will just fade and rinse out eventually. So when you take the bleach off your head you might notice that it looks gold, or brassy. Toning will eliminate those tones but still keep you blonde. This isn't really much of a concern. Once you fill in the reds/oranges you would then determine if you need to tone out extra colors when you apply your darker color.

For example, in my project after I filled in the reds/oranges I noticed she was really gold, so in order to tone down the strong yellow tones in addition to the brown color I put in a little bit of a color with a violet base, to neutralize the gold. So basically any color correcting that needs to be done will be seen after you fill, not before. Color Correction is lengthy and time consuming, which is why it costs so much because you can't pre-determine what you need to do. You have to analyze the situation and then take it step by step.

Let's hope I make good tips this week, so I can go to the salon. T_T

I hope you do too. I wish I could hook you up Sistah. =(

I think I'd rather just have it done right, rather than experiment with my own hair with absolutely no point of reference at all for what I'm doing.

if you do it yourself you need a brown with a reddish tinge to it - or it'll go a greeny colour! or buy a semi permanent reddy colour then put the brown you want on afterwards. but cos its blonde it will fade quicker so you'll be having to dye your hair regularly til the bleach grows out. but may be worth going to hairdressers to do, normally is best if you're having a dramatic change.

to get the bleached part out of your hair, you can go to salon store and buy the stuff to strip your hair. then you could dye your hair the darker color you want.

Um, you cannot strip bleach from your hair. Please do not attempt to do this.

Lightener does not come out of your hair. Lightening your hair is stripping it of color, that's what lightener is made to do. What you're thinking of (i think?) is color stripper. Which is just a different flavor of lightener, mainly used to "fix" your hair when you color it and find you hate the new color. I've seen a brand called Rewind, it removes the new color but the hair underneath is pretty much never the starting color, the damage has been done. But yeah. The only way i know of to properly get rid of lightener, is Repigmenting, and coloring. DONT forget to repigment. It IS important. If you're trying to go from like a level 9 to a level 4, you NEED to put red in it. You will hate the results otherwise.

If you can't afford to have a professional do it for you, you could try calling & asking for advice. A lot of the stylist I know are willing to give advice. If the ones you contact are not, you could call up a school & request to talk to one of the teachers. They should be able to tell you what would be best.

I regularly die and bleach my hair, but then again I use to work at a hairdressers so I kinda know what I am doing.
If you put colour in your bleached hair it will come out very vibrant (bright) you may want to do a strand test first.
I have brown hair naturally and I have just dyed right over the bleached hair and the regrowth but if your going to do this you need to except that it could turn out very different.
The brown may not take the same intensity as the blonde does and you may end up with two different colours.