How I Went From Blonde To Brown Hair

I’ve had nearly every colour hair in the rainbow but surprisingly, I’ve never dyed my hair brown. After having damaged my hair and dying it blonde for three years, I decided to go for a natural and mature look. I refused to wait until my hairdressers could rebook me an appointment and as I am an inpatient person I decided, again, to take it upon myself to dye my hair at home.

Before going from blonde to brown it’s super important to understand the process. See, when we go from brown to blonde, we lose pigment in our hair. If you have ever dyed your hair from a dark shade to blonde, you will notice that your hair will lift to an orange/ red colour before lifting to a yellow. So when we go from blonde to brown we must do the opposite of this process. We must ‘fill’ the hair. This means that we must deposit a red pigment before dying the hair brown. If you miss this step then your brown hair will turn out dull and can have a green hue. This process is only necessary in some circumstances where you are going at least two shades darker.

As you can see from the chart, we must fill missing undertones in order to get the desired shade.

Products I used

I decided to purchase Wella Illumina as this is a popular salon brand. I purchased the colour 5/81 which is a pearl ash blonde and to fill the hair I used 7/43 which is a reddish gold. When filling the hair you can use a demi or semi permanent hair colour however, I chose to use a permanent colour as my research suggested that if the brown you are dying your hair is permanent, it is okay to use a permanent filler colour. However, it is probably better to use a demi or semi permanent so you hair does not get as damaged. I also had purchased the 6%, 20 volume Wella Welloxon Perfect developer to be mixed with a 1:1 ratio with the dye. I chose 20 volume as we are depositing a darker colour. My thick, long hair needed three boxes of hair dye but for some reason I only brought one box of the filler colour (how does that make sense Kim?).

The process

Firstly, I decided to bleach my roots as they were super dark and I wanted an even brown colour all over. I used the same Schwarzkopf bleach I had spoken about in my previous blog (go check it out if you haven’t already!).

After bleaching my roots, I washed it out and dried my hair. I did use shampoo but on the Wella instructions it says not to (oops.) I then mixed the filler colour with the developer and applied this to my hair. It didn’t cover the whole of my head hence why I was shitting it but it turned out okay.

It isn't as scary as it looks, some how it turned out even?!

I then washed this out with water and dried my hair again. I then mixed the brown dyes together with the developer and applied this to the whole of my head making sure each section is fully saturated.

I then shampooed and conditioned my hair with colour protecting products, dried and styled my hair. Tad ahh!

My Mum cut my hair straight with scissors lol.

Pros:

• The dyes were easy to mix as it had a 1:1 ratio.

• My hair felt ever so soft after!

• There was little breakage.

• The three boxes covered my hair nicely and there were no patchiness.

• The colour came out so beautiful and had different tones so it wasn’t one dimensional and flat.

• The hair dye boxes cost only £9 plus vat from the beauty suppliers which is only slightly more expensive than drugstore dyes but, you are paying for quality which is worth it.

Cons:

• The dye did sting a bit but sometimes that can happen. Always make sure you do a patch test before dying your hair to make sure you’re not allergic.

• This is a con for the brand rather than the product but there was not enough images of how the dye would look like on a model. I was debating between two colours but didn’t know the difference as they were quite similar. I think hair dye companies should produce more images of how the colour would turn out. The lady at the beauty supplier said customers were not allowed to look at the colour chart (due to corona) which made it harder to choose a colour.

This was the best decision ever! I love my new hair and I feel like a new person!

Kritique Rating: 4.9/5.