Do you dye your hair? Pro/con

I'm a natural redhead but I henna to add strength. I'm getting sick of it but I can't stop because my new growth looks nearly blonde in comparison.

I'm working on a solution.

If you want a change but don't want it to be high maintenance, use a non permanent dye or go slightly lighter. When it grows out it will look okay in most cases.

Keep in mind any non-vegetable dye will damage your hair.

You should dye it if you want. I don't dye mine, I bleach it from black to white, it's a long, dangerous process lol but I like it . My hair does get dry but I use argan oil each day and I only wash my hair once a week, completely fine

Your hair is quite thin so as an alternative I think you'd look great with some layers and bangs cut in. Bangs are a great way to mix up your look

Whatever you do....DON'T use box dye or do it yourself. That is the biggest mistake. Box dye is crap and can easily ruin hair. The products at salons are much more gentle on the hair and if you are worried about it being dry they also have conditioning treatments as well.

I'm having my hair bleached and colored pink/purple next month and I'll be having it done at a salon. Once I stopped using box dye I stopped destroying my hair.

Whatever you do....DON'T use box dye or do it yourself. That is the biggest mistake. Box dye is crap and can easily ruin hair. The products at salons are much more gentle on the hair and if you are worried about it being dry they also have conditioning treatments as well.

I'm having my hair bleached and colored pink/purple next month and I'll be having it done at a salon. Once I stopped using box dye I stopped destroying my hair.

I'm going to disagree because I know a million people who work at Hot Topic and regularly dye their hair themselves. Like every couple weeks.

Bleaching is insanely damaging. If you are going to bleach, you probably should not have hair longer than shoulder length. After bleaching, always use a protein treatment and regularly deep condition your hair. You may want to switch to a sulfate free shampoo or at least one for color treated hair.

Manic Panic and a lot of other "crazy" hair colors are made from vegetables and are not particularly damaging. OP appears to be already blonde, so this might be a good starter option. You can mix dyes if you are careful and use them from the same brand. Some people become good enough at this or use low doses over brown shades and can manage to get natural looking colors.

Chemical box dyes are damaging and so are the salon versions. If you dye your hair, you need to start using color treated hair products. Again, deep conditioning or protein treatments can be helpful here. The longer you leave in a color and the bigger variation there is from your natural color, generally the more damaging it will be.

The main differences in salon dyes is not the formulation so much as that an expert will be more likely to not overestimate leave in time or the strength of dye needed, so that you will get less damage. There's also the fact that in a salon, if a stylist is going to do something that will strongly damage your hair, they will often include a treatment to help keep the hair nice with the purchase.

Whee, I get to tell my hair horror story! Haha.

I'm naturally a light redhead. It's lovely, honestly, but I was 25 and wishing to wear bright, happy colors that always washed out my color. So I decided it was time for a change and dyed it brown. A light brown at first, because I am PALE, and I kept it that way for a couple of months. I was pretty happy - I could wear bright pinks and oranges and reds, but the shade of my hair bugged me a little. I decided I wanted a richer color.

Not wanting to pay the $80 I had at a salon the first time, I got a box dye. The darker the color, the less damage tp your hair, and my sister had been doing her own for years with barely any damage, so I figured why not? I picked a shade I liked - a nice brown with red tints, and slathered it on. Let me tell you - it was *beautiful*. I adored the shade. I kept it up for four or five months, dying once a month or so, since my roots were VERY visible, being so much lighter.

Finally I had to admit the shade was simply too dark for my coloring. I didn't even want to think about it, because I loved the color, but it just didn't suit me. So what to do now? How do I revert to my natural shade? I did all sorts of reading online. Color stripping could damage your hair. Bleach could damage your hair. A lot of salons won't even agree to bleach hair because of how badly it can damage. I wound up deciding to risk doing it myself. I read a million reviews online and picked an easy bleach that was reported to not be too harsh.

The end result? I melted my hair. Yes, that's right, MELTED. It was my own dang fault. My hair is very fine, and I wasn't careful, and doing it myself was a bad idea. But for girls like us, I think you should know that this is a big possibility - melting your hair.

I kept it, melted and all, refusing to cut it off. It's been a few months and it's slowly growing back out after waiting a few extra weeks and dying it close to my natural shade. It's extremely damaged, and I can't wait until my natural hair grows in, but I'll sum this up by telling you what I learned from all of this:

1) If you dye your hair, get one that washes out. You may have to do it once every three weeks, but you'd do that with regular dye anyway, most likely.

2) If you have fine hair, for goodness' sake, don't bleach it. Or if you do, don't do it yourself. Haha.

3) If you don't need to dye your hair, I suggest not doing it. It is a HUGE pain to maintain.

it's just hair. cut it. dye it. it grows back.

on the flip side, nice wigs are affordable and allow you to change hairstyles regularly without chemicals OR scissors.

I've coloured my hair on and off over the years, but never anything wildly different from my natural colour simply because I can't always be bothered to do the roots when necessary.

it's just hair. cut it. dye it. it grows back.

on the flip side, nice wigs are affordable and allow you to change hairstyles regularly without chemicals OR scissors.

THIS!!

hair grows. it's the easiest change to make. even if you HATE it, it won't last. have fun!

Try it It's just hair, it will grow out if you don't like it.

If you're looking for a chemical free dye you can try Henna. It's all I've used the past 3 years and it's pretty awesome. It really makes my hair shiney and smooth, thicker and fixes dry scalp. Oh and the color doesn't fade....ever....it has to grow out. This is great for me because I love the color, but not so much if it turns out a color you don't like

It's not easy to do and colors are limited, but I'll never go back to chemical dyes again.

I love henna as well, but a couple notes-
I have naturally curly hair, henna loosens the curls to a soft wave that falls out within 24 hours of washing it. Using a conditioner with amla will help.

Henna is not damaging like regular hair color, it improves frizz and strengthens hair, and the clear stain means most people will get a nice reddish shade that suits their skintone- BUT it's 100% permanent. As in it is not going to be any other shade but the red-orange spectrum unless you chop it off. The color will get less intense over time but never goes away.

Be sure to buy Body Art Quality Henna, you should get a powder that smells kind of like hay. If it comes with a bottle of "developer," throw it away, it will mess you up. If you want to use henna and mix it with other herbs for conditioning and colors other than red-orange, I suggest a website called "hennaforhair.com."