Hey to all those confused girlies wanting to turn their coloured black hair black to brown....my hair is naturally a very dark brown- in the hairdressing world is is a number 2 (with 1 being black and 10 being blonde). I have been colouring my hair now for 20years, been on hair & beauty courses and got a batchelors degree in art. I know my colours lol. Rule number 1: Do not try colouring over black hair colour in a lighter shade, even if it contains strong peroxide. It will not work. It will only work on naturally black hair with no colour on it. Tint does not lighten tint!! Rule number 2: Do not use stronger than 9%/30 Vol Developer, it will break you hair and it will then fall down your plug hole! Rule number 3: Bleach will only lighten your hair up to 6 shades lighter than your own in one go, Eg, if your hair is dark brown naturally (number 2 or 3) but you have coloured it black, you are a number one, the lightest it will go is a number 6 or 7. This is still classed as blonde, but it is a very dark blonde, like a mousy brown. There are a few different ways to lighten your hair at home. The first is to bleach it, but only till the black turns to a reddish orange brown. (do not leave bleach on black hair, coloured or natural, until it goes yellow) as it will break and you WILL cry. Just leave it on long enough to lighten it enough to colour over it in a darker shade. Choose an ash quasi colour and re-colour once lightened. You need an ash to cancel out the orange/red tones that bleach causes. you know that a colour is ash because it always has a .1 after the depth of shade, for example, a medium brown is a number 5, but an ash medium brown is a 5.1, avoid 5.3 as it has gold tones and will make it ginger, brown (unless you want it that colour). The second way to lighten coloured black hair is to apply a gentle colour remover. This will remove permanent colour from out of the hair shaft so you will be left with your natural colour making it easier to re-colour in a lighter shade than your own. I use Affinage ERASER hair colour remover. You can get it online or from a hair/beauty wholesaler. This is the kindest way to remove black hair colourant without too much damage. Make sure you use plenty of clarifying shampoo and deep condition afterwards. The third way is to wash it and wash it several times a day in baby shampoo, clarifying shampoo with a little fairy liquid. This will force the black to fade quick making it easier to re-colour once faded out enough, black hair colourant never completely fades, even semi-permanent ones. The forth way to lighten black colour is to gradually introduce slices of highlights into the hair by having highlights done at your salon every 4-6 weeks, they will bleach strands of hair and then use a colour over the bleach, this will eventually rid you of your black dye, and is probably the safest way. Please choose a well known hairdresser with at least 10 years experience when having your colour corrected as it takes years to understand how chemicals affect the hair and how they work, also it is a very complicated task and only a confident hairdresser will do a good job. Hope my little wisdom helps you decide what to do.
