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How Can I Get my Natural Hair Color Back?



A recently posted question on getting back to your natural hair color

I want to let my natural (almost pure white) hair grow in. I have very healthy, coarse-textured fairly long hair that I have been coloring honey blonde for years. Is there a way to match this bright white hair with some kind of streaks or highlights? Lately, on TV, I have been seeing young men with beautiful white or silver hair, so it must be possible — surely they could not have gone completely white/grey at such an early age! A couple hairdressers have suggested bleached highlights — but they say they cannot achieve a match with the white that is my natural color — it will just have to grow out, they say. Is this true? What do you suggest I do, especially to avoid damaging my hair?

Comment by Laura — January 18, 2007

,,

From my perspective you have 3 options:

  1. Cut it short and let the color grow out, or bleach and tone.

  2. Bleached highlights, as the hairdressers you mentioned suggested but which won’t match your white hair.

  3. Bleach up and tone back with a semi-permanent color. (My choice)

Find a reputable hair colorist to do this and you’ll be happy with the results. They’ll bleach your hair up to a pale yellow hair color shade leaving your regrowth untouched.

“Find a reputable
hair colorist”

Then they can tone back all of the hair with a semi-permanent platinum shade. Bleaching is the only way to get the blonde hair color out of your hair. A semi-permanent tone back will fade in 6 to 12 weeks or more.

You may need to tone the regrowth to even out the color until the old bleached hair is cut out. As the toner fades, you’re left with your natural white hair. Since your hair is very healthy you shouldn’t have a problem going this route, unless you have extremely long hair. It’s more difficult to lift color out of long hair evenly.

Deep conditioning treatments would be good to do beforehand and afterwards. The young men you mentioned seeing on TV with white hair, no doubt had their hair bleached up and toned back to the hair color you’re seeing.

Got a question, war story or comment about this topic? Click on the "Leave Your Comments" link at the very bottom of this article. Some of my best ideas for future articles come from reading reader comments. I'd love to hear from you!

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    5 Comments »

    1. i am a natural blonde, i first dyed my hair about 2 years ago, it turned out a light brown, luckily all the dye got washed out as it wasn’t perminant or semi perminant.
      i then dyed my hair dark brown the next year about december time, i left it to fade to a light brown until july when i dyed it a bit lighter, but it didn’t really work.
      i left that for a bit, then did a stupid thing by bleeching it blonde, i left that for about 3 months, because my roots came out really dark.
      i dyed it light brown again last week.

      i was wondering if anyone knew if i would ever get my natural hair colour back to blonde without dying it, and if there was a way to get all the hair colourant chemicals out of my hair without damaging it or making me go a horrible colour.

      Comment by becka — October 28, 2007 @ 12:09 pm

    2. My natural hair is a reddish brown but I recently got my hair cut and dyed I had them bleach the under section of my hair so it would be brown on top and blonde on the bottom. They also cut my hair so that it sort of looks like scene hair thicker on top thinner and longer on the bottom. My hair is naturally wavy and the blonde ends up looking very stragely and I don’t really like it how soon can I dye over it ? How do I get my wave and volume back? If I dye over it will it look better if I just get go to a salon and have them dye my whole head a nice choclate brown?

      Comment by Kathleen — February 15, 2009 @ 12:35 am

    3. I had recently dyed my hair a red-ish color, but i don’t like it. Is their a way to get my hair back to its medium brown color? it hasn’t been 24 hours that i dyed it, is their a way to get it back without dying it? Or will the color fade into an almost brown?

      Comment by maria — March 16, 2009 @ 10:01 am

    4. Maria,
      Whether you used a permanent or semi-permanent color, red is likely to show up for quite some time.
      I suggest you call the manufacturers hot line on the back of the box for their advice. They will give you the best options as they know what you’ve used. Also be sure to tell them of any other hair coloring you’ve done that could still be on your hairshaft.

      Comment by Barb Quinn — March 16, 2009 @ 3:43 pm

    5. Hello.
      A few months ago i went to the chemist and found they had $1 hair dye, it was only semi.
      i was a natural strawberry blonde and wanted to go brown.
      I dyed it that night and it went orange so the next day i went to the hairdressers and got a semi brown to see if i liked it or not.
      After a few days it started to go a brownish, red.
      It’s been about 3 months now and i have regrowth.
      How can i have regrowth if it was only a semi and how can i get back to my natural colour without damaging or dying my hair.
      PLEASE HELP ME, I’M DESPERATE.

      Comment by jazzie — June 28, 2009 @ 1:43 am

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