Hi! So, in this post, I’m gonna share with you my experience as a natural dark brown hair girl with dyed red hair.
What shade of red hair? ALL OF THEM. (or almost)
this is my story, from how I first started with a dark wine red hair, how was the experience, how many times I need to retouch and exactly what I do to maintain the color fresh
to bright red hair in fantasy shades, to burnt orange and copper red, you’ll know everything we, as not natural red hair girls, have to go through to get this difficult but STUNNING hair color.
Let’s begin
From natural dark hair to red
Like I mentioned above, my natural hair is dark brown, its actually a pretty dark brown shade almost like black or ash black.
Some of you might have know me for my popular post about hair care tips
So that beautiful long dark brown hair is ME.
And just because I love experimenting, 2 years ago I decided to get highlight like the Californian blondie style.
and I got this:
It was STUNNING. I love my stylist.
Well, then I got pregnant, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to retouch my hairwhile I was pregnant (I have read is actually safe, it was just not me that wanted to do it)
So by the time I wanted a change to RED HAIR, I had my Californian dye still on the points and my natural roots.
And I went to my favorite salon, And I show my hairstylist a photo of a dark red hair like dark wine hair.
She’s an expert!
She first applied something called triple zero (000) which allows my hair to lighten in pigment but is not the same as bleach and it usually less probable to get too much damage.
Because I should say it, bleaching your hair is DAMAGING YOUR HAIR.
the bleach process, is a process where the hair losses 15% to 20% of their protein, so even if you go with the best hairstylist in the world, you still gonna get some damage to your hair and this is inevitable but also you can get too much damage or a little damage
so it is important to go with an expert for bleaching.
After, that I got all my hair with a medium caramel shade.
it was good to see with that hair color, but it also made me realize I don’t look that good on a hair color of that.
Maybe the contrast that makes with my skin tone, is not that favorable for me? I don’t know but I didn’t like it
luckily it was just part of the process and then, my hairstylist proceeded to apply the actual color. my RED HAIR DYE.
And this was the final result:
Red Hair: Aftercare
So getting the hair red is the “easy” part.
Expensive, 3-5 hours long, but “easy”
maintaining a color that is fresh is NOT easy.
if you wash your hair 1-3 times without DOING anything to keep the color fresh, you are getting a red hair dye that will only last 1-3 washes because you lose RED color on EVERY wash.
I have never been a fan of the skip the hair when you take a shower thing
but after I dyed my hair red, this is a MUST if you want your color to last.
What happens if you do nothing is that you see your red color go away with your shampoo in the shower, and after every wash, you see your hair more “orange,” or it depends on the tone you have as a base.
As I showed you, in my case, it was a medium caramel tone, so every time I wash my hair, I’m getting closer to that tone.
And it’s not exactly a bad hair color that I WAS getting, but I really loved my red hair, so I didn’t want that to change.
NOTE: This is not about the quality of the technique or products used by my hairstylist; it is what it is if you want red hair.
This applies to basically ANY hair color you do on top of bleached hair, but let’s say the red hair is a difficult one to keep on the hair.
I became an expert to keep my red hair looking fresh, and here are my tips
How to keep your red hair looking fresh
1. Do not wash your red hair everyday
it’s not good for your scalp, and is not good for your red hair, just don’t do it.
Dry shampoo might be your best friend in those days in between washes. I was doing 2-3 times hair wash days a week.
2. Color depositing hair masks
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The days you do wash your hair, use color depositing hair masks
I recommend the color depositing conditioners instead of the color depositing shampoos.
And this is because the conditioners or hairmasks are really good in hydrating your hair, and the shampoos are only to wash the hair and deposit color, but the result after using a hairmasks or conditioner to deposit the color is like going to the salon again
you end up with a fresh color, healthy, shiny looking hair again and I didn’t get this result with the shampoos.
3. Mix the color depositing masks
I use the orange one with other red one MIXED together, because If I only use the red one, I get a more fantasy red shade and the orange one is not exactly my hair color, so when I mixed them together I get the perfect COPPER HAIR.
4. Go to your retouches
So it is a beautiful color to have, but it actually takes time and MONEY.
Even when I take care of my color on every hair wash day, the color will not be the same as when you go to the salon and also the roots start to grow and after ONE MONTH, I have around 1 in of dark roots that I don’t like.
My husband tells me that it looks good on me, but I don’t like to have my dark roots to grow longer than 1 in.
Which means I need (and I go) to the salon every MONTH. to get my retouch.
It is worth it. I love that ME time, and I love how I look when I get out of the salon with my fresh new red hair.
6-10 Months after my first red hair
Like you can see in the picture, my first red hair was not as red or bright red it was more like a natural red hair.
So It was time for my retouch and I wanted to try something new and I told my hairstylist to make me a more copper/ burnt orange hair.
And she did.
this time she needed it to bleach my hair (from my roots to mediums, my points were already bleached from my first Californian)
and it was a good experience, I loved it!
10-12 months after: Bright red
So one day, I decided that I wanted to get a bright red.
a TRUE RED, intense and bright.
So, I searched for what I wanted and found this post by Karol G.
showed that to my hairstylist and she did this to me:
OOH they did a GREAT JOB.
I felt so pretty!!
before my red hair, I had never had anyone on the street tell me that my hair was cute until my bright karol g hair.
I went on a trip to Las Vegas, and I got like 5 different occasions where strangers told me: “hey, cute hair.” I even got a little girl calling me: “Little Mermaid” !!
I really enjoyed it
How to take care of bright red hair
The steps I took to take care of my bright red hair were similar to the tips I told you above in this post for my red copper hair, but this time, I used a bright red color depositing hair conditioner, and I was very careful about it.
I needed to be BRIGHT RED. I used this one.
Regular red color depositing masks can DARK your red hair, so it needed to be bright red ONLY like this one here because if not,
my hair was getting a deep red shade that wasn’t the beautiful bright red tone I wanted.
Fantasy bright red is a hair color that is SO EASY TO LOSE, so the skip hair washes is ESSENTIAL plus the color depositing hair masks.
And, I also was doing the retouches every month.
I enjoy NOT having my dark roots, even when this get expensive and time-consuming it is just how I enjoy spending my time and money đŸ™‚
This is how It looked in between salon visits:
Still good but not that BRIGHT
After months with this fantasy bright red hair, Christmas went on, and I decided that I didn’t want to match my hair with my red Christmas ugly sweater and ornaments, hehe, so I changed my hair to a red copper again.
I know, my hairstylist is the best!!
she always does my hair exactly the color I want while at the same time she makes sure my hair is healthy and not damaged.
Current: Red Orange copper hair
Im currently enjoying this hair color! And guess what, I just learned that this brunt orange, red/orange copper hair color is on the 2024 hair trends, and I can see why I just love it.
I found that this colors makes my cheeks look more naturally blushed, and also combines well with my skin tone.
Let me know in the comments below if you would try any of this red hair trends this year? If so, which one?
If you have any questions feel free to send me an email to: [email protected]
Hope you enjoythis red hair journey with me!
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