22 Hair Dye Tips I Wish I Had Known The First Time I Colored My Hair

Please do not use box dye.

Alright, guys. It's time for me to talk to you about something near and dear to my heart.

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And no, it's not teen dramas, for once.

And that is HAIR. Since many of us are still not able to go out and get our hair colored, I thought I'd share my knowledge with you. Here is everything I wish I knew before I started dyeing my hair:

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I've been dyeing my own hair since the start of high school, and boy, have I learned a lot over the years.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional hairstylist, BUT my roommate, Jaya, is (follow her at @hair_by_lovely_loo), and I had her look over this post when I was done.

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Jaya has done hair on set and for music artists Golden and Dominic Fike, among others.

1. Color does not lift color.

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This is probably the number one rule of hair coloring. It basically means that you cannot "lift" or lighten a color by putting more color on top of it. The ONLY exception is if you have completely virgin, never-colored hair, in which case you can use a lighter-color dye and it will lighten your hair. However, unless the lighter hair color is only a few shades away from yours, it's highly unlikely it will come out as light as it's supposed to, and it will probably be brassy (more on that later). If you have dyed your hair darker and put lighter dye on top, absolutely nothing will happen. It'll just damage your hair for no reason.

2. Natural lighteners and products like Sun In work only if you have natural hair that has not been colored.

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You might be able to lift the dye with some natural solutions (crushed-up vitamin C tablets with dish soap usually faded my newly dyed hair when it was a shade too dark), but it's not going to make a big difference. These sprays should be used only on virgin hair, according to the product description.

3. So how do you lighten hair that's had dye used on it before? The only option, really, is bleach.

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You can also use something like Color Oops, which will strip your hair of the dye and leave you with a very ugly shade you'll then need to dye over. However, if you've dyed your hair a bunch of times and have uneven sections, it might be better to go for bleach. Even if you have virgin hair, if you're attempting dramatic lightening, bleach is probably the best option.

4. Leave your roots for last.

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Always put bleach (and dye, if you're lightening your hair) on the rest of your hair before you put it on the inch or so by your scalp. Because your scalp gives off heat and is much more likely to have virgin hair, the dye is processed super fast, so you might end up with something called "hot roots," where your roots are lighter and more brassy than the rest of your hair. If that happens, you'll have to dye them over, and it could be difficult to make them even. People also often have sensitive scalps when it comes to bleach. I'd put the bleach on your roots for less than half the time you put it on the rest of your head. You should definitely keep an eye on your hair to see how fast it's processing the color.

5. You've probably heard that bleach is damaging. So if you're going to bleach your hair, please, for the love of good, do not do it more than once.

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If your hair needs to be lifted even lighter after the first bleach, the solution is NOT to bleach it again. I see this on YouTube and TikTok, and it always disturbs me. Your hair WILL fall out. Please wait at least a few weeks, if not longer, and you should probably consult a professional at that point. Also, sometimes you don't actually need to bleach it lighter. A lot of people bleach a second time because their hair comes out orange or yellow. THAT'S WHAT'S SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN — brown hair lifts to red, then orange, then yellow. That's what toner's for!

6. Which brings me to my next point: YOU NEED TONER.

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After you bleach or even just lighten virgin hair, you'll need toner. You'll need to use a blue toner for orange hair, and a purple toner for yellow hair (it's just the opposite color on the color wheel, guys). I highly recommend a toner like Wella T14 (more blue toned) or T18 (more purple toned) first to get rid of the worst of the orange/yellow tones.

7. And it's a good idea to continue to tone with tinted products.

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Tinted hair masks, shampoos, and conditioners are becoming more and more popular. They're especially helpful for making sure your hair doesn't become too "brassy" (i.e., yellow or orange). It's also important to switch up your products in general after you dye your hair. You'll want to stay away from sulfates and silicones and look for high-quality shampoos and conditioners meant for colored hair. You should also be using hair masks weekly to help keep your damaged hair healthy.

8. Many of these products (including the hair dye you buy) should be coming from a beauty store, NOT a drugstore.

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I like Sally Beauty, but any beauty-supply store should have good products and knowledgeable employees. Not only do they carry better-quality dye and hair products, but they also have mixing bowls and foil and all the other tools needed for dyeing your hair.

9. Don't forget to buy developer!

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You can't just buy a dye and put it on your hair; it won't work. You need to mix it with developer first to activate it. It comes in 10, 20, 30, and 40 units of volume (vol.), depending on the strength you want and damage your hair can sustain. If you're dyeing your hair darker, you can go with 10 vol. If you're dyeing it lighter, you should go with 20 vol. If you're doing an extreme lightening, you can go with 30 vol., but I would NOT use 30 vol. unless you're very experienced at dyeing your hair and know dye's effect on it.

10. You should ALWAYS strand-test.

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If you're curious what dye or bleach will do to your hair, you should absolutely strand-test. It doesn't take long — most dye remains on for about 30 minutes, and then you can just wash that one lock of hair and dry it. You can also cut off a small lock if you want it to be even less messy. This will give you the exact result of the dye on your hair. You should also test some dye on your forearm to make sure you're not allergic.

11. Hair dye expires and must be kept in a cool, dark place.

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Hair dye often lasts for a year or even more, but only if it's stored properly. It cannot be exposed to any air, liquid, or heat. A cabinet in a room with air-conditioning is a good idea. When in doubt, buy new dye! Bad dye can turn your hair green or have other adverse effects.

12. Be careful when dyeing your hair darker, especially if you've dyed it lighter before. Your hair's texture and damage level could cause a color to come out very differently from how it's supposed to.

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If your hair is dry and/or damaged and you're dyeing it darker, it's going to turn out much darker than anticipated. I can't tell you how many times I decided to go back to brown, bought a medium-brown dye, and ended up with black hair. You might want to go with a lighter shade of dye than you want and strand-test it first to see the results. It's also a good idea (especially if you're going from blonde back to brown) to buy a protein filler. This will help repair damaged strands and make color go on more evenly. Using a colored protein filler can also help bring colors like red back into your hair, which is necessary to achieve a more chocolaty and less ashy brown.

13. There is cream and liquid dye. If you're dyeing light hair darker (even just the roots), be very careful with liquid dye because it'll easily bleed down.

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When your hair is very porous, even washing the dye out can affect parts of your hair that you didn't mean to color. Using cream dye helps keep it from running, but it might also be a good idea to put conditioner or a hair treatment on the rest of your hair — or use a protein filler, to be safe — and then be extra careful when you wash the dye out.

14. If you're dyeing your hair an unnatural color, you have to bleach it first.

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This goes back to the first "Color does not lift color" rule. Nothing will happen if you put pink dye on brown hair, as I learned in the seventh grade. You'll have to lift it to blonde before the dye will have an effect, unless your hair is already super blonde. There are more products out now to tint hair that isn't extremely blonde, but only in shades darker than your natural color. They will provide a tint but not a clear color, and only if they're darker than your hair.

15. Unless your hair is white, keep in mind that colored dye will mix with the color of your hair. So if your hair has a yellow or gold tint, that blue dye is going to come out green/teal. (Which is totally fine if that's the color you want!)

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You're going to have to tone it to an ashy or neutral color first, or add some of the opposing color. For example, you might want to put a purple-blue on your hair to counteract the yellow tones. If the color is darker than your hair (a dark blue or purple, for example), it may cancel out these tones a little better, and even give a bit of a tint on lighter-brown hair (for example, if you use Overtone for brown hair). However, these colors are still mixing with the brown of your hair and will not be super bright. If you want bright blue, you'll have to go lighter.

16. You will not be able to achieve a pastel color without very light blonde hair.

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Color dye does not use developer; it only deposits color (the good news is, that means it's less damaging). It must be darker than your base color, meaning that your base color needs to be super light. I'd highly recommend going to a professional for pastel colors so they can make sure you lighten enough and get the proper tone.

17. It can often be difficult to get colors out of your hair.

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It's sort of a double-edged sword: Pastel and colored hair fades really quickly, but it can feel almost impossible to eradicate. You can do something like a bleach wash (where you mix the bleach as usual, then add an equal amount of shampoo and lather, keeping it in for 20–30 minutes) to fade remaining dye, but it's usually not gone completely. It seems to cling to your bleached hair. That being said, you can usually put another color over it and be fine, depending on how faded it is and how dark your new color is. Don't forget what I said about the color wheel, though! If you put red dye on blue hair, it'll come out purple!

18. You can add heat for more extreme results...but that doesn't mean you should.

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When you're lightening hair, heat can be useful. You can use a blow-dryer to heat your hair as it's processing to make it go faster or be more extreme. However, I would not recommend doing this until you know what your hair can handle and unless you've been dyeing your hair a long time, since it can also damage your hair more.

19. Highlights are VERY difficult to do yourself, and there are a ton of methods. Don't get a box dye that comes with one of those weird scalp covers.

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I highly recommend watching YouTube videos first and making sure you have all the correct products, including foil. One method you might find harder to mess up is going for a balayage look, where you decide exactly where you want each highlight to be and use plastic wrap between layers. You don't end up with zebra stripes, but make sure you use a super-thick cream bleach so that you can see exactly where you're placing the highlights. You'll need a steady hand and a really good idea of where you want each highlight to be.

20. If your highlights look way too light, you can use a demi-permanent color that is somewhere between your base color and the color of the highlights and use it on your whole head. Since it's only demi-permanent and contains no bleach, it will not affect the color of hair that's darker than it; it will only affect the highlights.

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If you especially hate the stripes at your roots, you can use a slightly darker color there.

21. Remember that things take time!

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If you're just adjusting a few shades, it's a quick process! But if you're really changing hair colors, be prepared for it to take a while to achieve the exact look you want. The most important part is giving your hair some much needed TLC. When in doubt, consult a professional and watch YouTube videos by professionals. It's especially hard to use dyes on your own head, so don't go with anything extreme your first time.

22. And finally, don't let anyone tell you that you can't pull off a color! You can pull off anything!

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Obviously if you're doing a drastic change, you need to keep in mind the health of your hair. But I hear so often that a bright color is "clownish" or that you can't have hair lighter than your skin tone, which is absolutely ridiculous and based on antiquated Western ideas of femininity and beauty. Do whatever makes you feel happy and confident, and remember that at the end of the day, it's just hair!

That's all! Have fun, and don't kill your hair!

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