Feeling it was time to return to my "roots", I visited my salon to have my highlighted hair dyed a semi-permanent brown. This is nothing new. Periodically I like to return back to my natural color, and give my stressed tresses a well-deserved break from the tortures of highlighting.
Egads! Due to a rookie error on the part of my stylist combined with my over-porous highlighted hair, my desire to get back to "normal" resulted in an Elvis-worthy black dye job.
Thus began my quest to answer the age-old question… How do you lift the color black? I conducted some online research and read advice ranging from washing hair repetitively with harsh shampoos (or even–yuck–laundry detergent) to get the color to rinse out, to bleaching the hair and switching to a permanent color. Not what I wanted!
Luckily, my stylist semi-redeemed herself with an idea. One stylist referred to the process as "shampoo bleach" and another stylist called it a "bleach cap". It’s a mixture of 1/2 shampoo and 1/2 bleach. The solution is evenly scrubbed into the hair for only 5-10 minutes. This is enough time to lift the color a bit, but not enough to do any harsh damage. My once jet-black hair is now a deep chocolate brown. Sure, it’s still WAY darker than my natural color, but I’m actually quite fond of it! Plus, my hair is still as soft as silk, so I don’t feel like I sacrificed hair health to lighten my shade.
Just thought someone might find this useful!
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