by Snow Vandemore

Created on: July 03, 2008   Last Updated: July 07, 2008

Wanted blonde but got orange? What to do?

Correcting a hair color mistake can be done one of two ways - you can try to "reverse" the problem yourself, or pull a hat over your head and go to a salon for professional help. Which avenue you choose depends on the degree of orange that is in your hair, how much damage has been done to the condition of your hair and whether you want to risk further injury by trying to fix the problem at home.

If you want to try the DIY method first, there are a couple of things to attempt that may, at the least, let you leave the house again without looking like a freak show.

Orange Highlights

If your highlighting adventure did not result in light blonde but rather unwanted orange streaks, you can try to recolor the highlighted strands with a shade or two lighter than your base color. Stay with warm tones as cool tones like ash may turn some of the orange to green.

Mix up the hair color according to the directions and do your best to apply only to the orange areas. To minimize further brassiness and red tones in brown hair, add 15 drops of Ardell Unred (available online at www.discountbeautycenter.com - $3.99) to the new color for every two ounces of product. Unred eliminates unwanted red tones, maximizes color deposit, and minimizes future color fading. Leave the color on the highlighted areas until it fully develops, then rinse it out. Allow your hair to dry thoroughly to inspect the results. You may need to reapply more color until the desired effect is achieved.

All-over Orange

If your blonding attempt resulted in an all-over orange color, this will definitely be more tricky to fix. The best remedy is to try to recolor your hair back to its original shade. Again, adding Ardell Unred to the color mixture will assist in getting the color to deposit more evenly and prevent fade-out over time. Depending on how much pigment was originally removed from the first disastrous bleaching process, a second application of your original color may be needed to get rid of the orange-y tones.

Time To Call In the Professionals

If the above processes don't seem to appeal to you, or simply don't work, then it's time to suck it up and seek the help of a salon coloring specialist. Of course, this may mean listening to a litany of reasons why you shouldn't have tried to color your hair at home in the first place - but be assured, they've seen much worse and will do their best to get your hair back to a somewhat normal state.

Hopefully, this situation has taught you a few things about the limitations of at-home hair coloring. In the future, keep in mind that you can only go one or two shades lighter or darker than your current hair color to achieve successful results. Anything other than that will need to be done by a professional colorist.

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