Okay my daughter has bright red hair and as it is school holidays wants to dye it!

Any ideas anyone?
I dont mind what she does really but if |I can help her do it a bit more tastefully......She has blue eyes and very pale skin and white/blonde eyebroews and lashes.
Karen :)

i think she is very blessed to have hair  of that colour,if she wants a change how about a more funky red,that looks like it is dyed red and not naturally red,or go to a salon and have some highlights/lowlights put through,i would recomend doing it proffesionally,last thing she wants bless her is to turn it pink.i have natural mousey hair,i used to dye it blonde,then i went piller box red,loved it,then i went black and now i am settled with mid brown shiny smooth hair,havent got the time or cash now to play around.
good luck and ave fun
jo

The last time I was at the hairdressers they were spending hours (literally) undoing a home dye disaster.  My brother (his salon), was explaining how tricky it can be to get right on red/ginger hair.

As someone else has said, I'd suggest your daughter get it done professionally.  They will also be able to give her good advice about 'care' as the sun will affect both colour and condition.  Good luck, my daughter is asking for colour too ! :)

Thanks for that...........
That is exactly what she is thinking too :)

But she doesn't want to go to hairdresser, so mdear old mum is to aid and abet in this....

I want her to be free and happy to do as she pleases while she can, until the time comes when her own commitments/finances  prevent her.
All advise and comments are really welcome.

Karen  :)

I've never coloured my hair so probably not the best person to give "advice". I remember when i was at school (many moons ago now), there used to be wash in wash out colours that lasted x amount of washes/weeks. If they're still around, how about trying something like this, as I wouldn't have thought they could do the "damage" that the permanent colours can do.

Hair that's on the redder end of the spectrum can tend to be more coarse, so maybe this is why there was mention of having to be careful with dying this colour of hair. Again I'm not a hairdresser, so no expert, I only mention the texture on the basis that I'm a reddish blonde, but I do have some stray hairs that are really copper coloured, they feel very different to the rest of my head, almost like fishing line?!?

Why not a few highlights, not bleach blonde but lighter pieces around her face to add some depth and a tad lighter sunkissed look? Maybe just the t-bar to start with? She sounds like some friends of mine, obe has goner highlights and another jet black hair, both look great!!

Blonde is very difficult to get right on redheads as it is really hard to lift the natural colour (I speak from experience!).  I used to use the wash in/wash out colours (approx 8 washes) and had good effect with them but found that really bright pillar box reds take well too.  The other route she could go down is henna and the lush ones are apparently good but I am pretty sure that you can't dye over hair that has been henna'd.

Okay................
Tomorrow we go to work on it, we will post (somehow) before and after photos, so watch this space!

Karen :)

My daughter has a beautiful shade of dark red hair - when she decided to change her colour she dyed it brown. The colour in itself was fine in that it covered her natural colour and looked fairly natural but the shade was totally wrong for her very fair skin as it was too great a contrast. She has now given up changing the colour and has  gone back to her normal colour which resembles the colour of a conker and looks great on her.

Perhaps some darker lowlights would be acceptable to her - not too drastic a change and she could always go darker next time if she likes the colour.

I think it's Nice 'N' Easy that does a permanent and a 6-8 week one.  They do both in the same colours, so if the temporary colour turns out as you want, you can dive in and get the permanent one.  It does give you chance to decide.

My daughter has bright red hair. When she was 15 her "friend" helped her dye it dark brown. It looked ok until it grew, leaving her with bright red roots!
In the end she had to continue dying it with semi-permenant dyes until the colour had grown out enough to be cut off. This took a long time.
I agree with the others that she should get a colourists advice.  
 

My hair is mousey brown naturally but I dye it so much that I can't remember the last time I saw my natural colour!  This time I stripped the colour off with a pre-lightener then dyed it 'calafonia blonde'.  I love it.  A major mistake people make when dying hair at home is not leaving the dye on long enough to work.  The hair goes that gingery colour and they panic but if they leave it a while longer, they would see that that is part of the process!  Read the instructions and do a strand test but apart from that, leave the dye on till it's the shade she wants.  Good luck.

a good hairdresser will either talk her into keeping her own colour and maybe have a new style or give ideas of what colour is best for her skin colour.

When I was young I had very long brown wavy hair, everyone used to comment on how lovely it was but you know what teenagers are like, so off I went to the hairdressers a good trendy one in the city centre to have it layered and coloured, he wouldnt colour or cut it ...LOL told me how lovely my hair was and talked me into having a little trim and told me  how to care for it ...I was so glad in the end as girls were wearing wigs to have hair that I had naturally.

so find a good trendy hairdressers is my advice.

I have red hair that has been highlighted for 24 years :-)   I would never put dark over light so really a semi is out on red hair.

Would you allow her to have some gentle T-zone highlights maybe. Probably the nicest and risk free was in avoiding a disaster :-)

I have red hair but would never consider home dying it, I have it professionally highlighted with foils at a salon. For a first timmer they will probably recommend subtle blonde highlights that will give a sun kissed tone, rather than a harsh white blonde effect all over that will grow out quickly and have to be redone often.

I too am a natural red head though now blonde, I would certainly recommend going to a salon to get it dyed. I have had many many disasters trying to change from red, one being bright orange!!!

Update.

She had a fright when at chemist choosing a dye.
All the colours she fancied (mainly scarletish), were permanent rather than washin/out.
So we went to town to the hairdressers and I had a brainwave.....model....
I explained that she couldn't afford prices for colouring did they need models and hey presto..
The prices here are the same as London :(
So now she has to wait for a slot....
Thanks for all comments it is helpful for us both, at school she is not allowed silly hair colours, som saw summer holidays as a good time to experiment.

Karen :)

Just you wait till she's older and i bet she begins to love her red hair.
My hairs brown but i've coloured it red for the last ten years or so and my husband loves it. Infact most people think it's my natural colour.
Good luck with your daughter, maybe worth getting a semi permanent colour for here that will wash out over the scholl holidays.

I was going to suggest model... but you thought of it first....No good for now I know, however our local college have training nights, you can have your hair coloured etc I think the charge is minimal. My daughter and her friends used to go all the time to be used for practice , I don't remember any of them ever coming home in tears and I never "tutted" either...

I've often wished for red hair! I used to have light blonde hair, gradually it has turned into dark blonde at the roots for a couple of inches, then golden blonde for the rest of it (I have it long). In the end I got sick of it looking like I was growing out highlights when it was natural, and found a nice home dye which lasts 6 weeks, and looks much more natural than my natural colour! I hope your daughter can learn to be reconciled with her hair though, it sounds like red is tricky to do much with!

Strand test taken, allergy test performed...all on for 12th of August.....
Will keep you posted.
Karen :)

Well, how did it go?  The other thread on hair dye reminded me about your daughter.  Is she red, blonde, brunette.....

Oh Now then..................
She went along and had to get another strand test done.

The allergy one was fine, but her hair wouldn't take the dyes she wanted.

Eventually they gave her three seperate colour streaks....Scarlet, purpley, and sort of coppery/blonde..........
I have to say you have to look hard to see them but at least she got it out of her system (for  now).

She also thinks she will be able to get away with it at school as they are not allowed strange hair dyes any more.

Karen  :)

Thanks for the feedback, i was wondering how she got on.

I am working on a photo................shes become camera shy 
But to be fair it hardly shows anything up.

Karen