Keeping Knit Simple: OMFG

Sunday, September 07, 2008

OMFG

This is why I don't like permanent hair color.

I know better. But once a year I get the bug to color my gray at home, since I've had so many haircolor disasters from professionals.

I chickened out of taking a photo; it's that bad. My hair used to be medium to dark brown; now most of the front is very gray. I can't even tell what color it's supposed to be.

I've been using semipermanent color, but I haven't done well with that, either. So a few weeks ago I bought some medium brown permanent and finally tonight got the courage to try it.

After 10 minutes it wasn't coloring the front white very well, so against my better instincts, I left it on the full 25 minutes. I should have listened to the voices in my head.

It's almost black! I love black hair, but not with my skin coloring. And age. It looks so obviously, badly fake.

Guess I'll get my hair cut really short tomorrow.

Now I'll go to the contest post and see what I have to deal with! This may take a while......

12 comments:

Anonymous said...: Before you go get it cut, try washing it really well with your shampoo and some baking soda. It may remove some of the excess color.

Condition it really well. You may be surprised that in a couple of days, it doesn't look quite so dark.; Sunday, September 07, 2008
rita said...: That's one I haven't heard of before. I did wash it tonight with antibacterial hand soap, and it seemed to help somewhat, but tomorrow I'll try that.

I also cut the bangs and the sideburns--now it doesn't look quite so "Elvis is in the house"!; Sunday, September 07, 2008
Elaine said...: Well guess what - probably at the same time that you were using permanent color on your hair, I was doing the same thing. Yup, I'm also a medium brown with a sort of reddish tinge naturally. This morning I used permanent medium brown and left it on 25 minutes because they said so, and it is very very dark brown. Also ridiculously dark. Now it beats my sister who deliberately dyes her hair carrot red and thinks it looks natural, but yeesh. I figured tomorrow I'd wash it about a thousand times and then some of the dye would fade. I've never heard of using baking soda. What's the theory there?; Sunday, September 07, 2008
Jenny Girl said...: Oh no! I am so sorry to hear about your hair thing. If you could find a good hairdresser, they should be able to straighten you out.
Have you ever considered going permanently silver? I know that's not what you want to hear, but
there are several women I see on the subway every day, who have beautiful silver hair.
It's just something to ponder.
Good luck :) Good thoughts your way.; Monday, September 08, 2008
rita said...: If my hair was actually silver, I'd love it! But it's mostly that iron gray with a little white in the very front. I almost like it, but it washes me out so much. Just like this black does.

At this point I'd be very happy to have nice red hair. I love red hair; the definitely-not-natural deep red. But this time I wanted just plain brown. Maybe I'll highlight it and have some nice unnatural red highlights. As if. They'd turn orange, no doubt.

My sisters have stopped coloring their hair, and now I see why.; Monday, September 08, 2008
kathy b said...: How about covering it up with a wonderful handknit hat? THis calls for Yarn. THe ultimate feel good fix: yarn.; Monday, September 08, 2008
Turtle said...: yup, try the shampoo/baking soda bit and in a day or two so much will wash out i am sure it will be more what you were looking for. I once wanted a darkish black cherry red..unfortunately this was before i went into the salon/spa industry. So i did it myself at home. I have naturally white blonde hair...can you say magenta?? This was the morning of our flight to renew our vows vacation. Oh well, at least our renewal ceremony was gothic graveyard so it fit!; Monday, September 08, 2008
rita said...: I love black cherry hair! I've done that before. But this time I wanted brown, just plain old brown. I'll try the baking soda tonight.

Thank you all for your help!; Monday, September 08, 2008
Debbie T said...: Ok, this is really harsh on your hair, but it works. My redheaded daughter once thought she wanted to dye hers brown too..it came out the blackest black I've ever seen! She was hating it so much so we went to the beauty supply store which has an in house salon also. They told us to use Tide and wash it several times. It would mean some very deep conditioning treatments, but it worked...it didn't remove it entirely, but it lightened it up enough to where she would finally leave the house. So, yep, Tide laundry detergent..never heard of the baking soda idea either. Hope it all worked out for you though!; Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Knit and fall back in it said...: After about a week the color will lighten up and you will probably be much happier with it.; Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Anonymous said...: Betty said...

Wow...Tide! It's good to know that something will work in an emergency!

When my daughter was a teenager she decided she wanted to turn her blond hair red. It looked nice, actually, but after a while she wanted it blond again and found out that red color is pretty much impossible to remove. She ended up having to have the color stripped and her hair looked like straw. It was awful. She colored it blond again and conditioned it a lot, and after a long, long time, she had normal hair again.

The things that we do!; Wednesday, September 10, 2008
rita said...: Tide??? I'd better go wash my hair again! The baking soda helped a tiny bit, maybe I wasn't vigorous enough.

I loved Kara's red hair! It was a very unusual shade, but it looked really good. But then I tend to go for unusual hair colors myself.

Tide. Gotta try it.; Wednesday, September 10, 2008