If Orange is the New Black, then Black is the New Red! How To Escape from a Bad Dye Job

Greetings dear readers!

It's back! I don't know about the rest of you, but I became addicted to Orange is the New Black (truly like heroin) last year when my daughter finally forced us to get a Roku so we could see the amazing things on NetFlix (like House of Cards). This actually led us to several arguments because she likes Alex and I think she's a narcissistic sociopath.

When I started watching, I didn't understood how it worked -- that all of the season's episodes are available at once -- and I binge-watched my way through every episode only to be shocked and nearly despondent when I realized there were no more episodes! I don't know what it is about this show that is so habit forming -- I mean, it is quite shocking, and my husband is not allowed to watch it! That's why I'll have a new season marathon while he's at work.

This blog, however, has nothing to do with this or any other TV show. This is something that happened in my real life, and I bet I'm not the only one who has had to deal with this:  A BAD dye job.  And I mean my hair, not like getting dye packs thrown in when you're trying to rob a bank!

Natural Color

So my natural hair color is a dark brown auburnish shade, and as I have aged and those little sneaky grey hairs started popping up, I began dying my hair to match my natural color.

Well, then when I was getting ready for a public appearance at a conference and booksigning, I thought to myself it would be fun to go a little redder.  I really should not take my own advice. It came out BLACK.  I mean seriously dark - and nothing like indicated on the package! I mean, look at me, and look at that "shade guide."  That's supposed to come out some kind of serious red!

Instead, it came out extremely dark. Now this picture was taken in the sun, so it doesn't look nearly as dark as it actually turned out to be because, to look at me, you would have said I had black hair. Now does THIS look like any of the "color results" in the "shade guide"?

So, naturally, I call my daughter (even if she does like that psycho Alex) to tell her my situation. I did not want this dark, dark hair!  I didn't think it went well with my complexion. And plus it wasn't red!

She told me how to deal with a bad dye job, and I am passing her knowledge onto you, my dear readers.

What you need:

Vitamin C tablets
Dandruff shampoo
Mortar and pestle or bowl and muddler
Shower cap

Seriously, I cannot believe how easy AND effective this was. I have really long hair, so I used several 1000 mg. Vitamin C tablets. I only had a tiny mortar and pestle at the time, so I crushed them in a bowl with a muddler until I had nothing but powder.

Then add enough dandruff shampoo to make a loose paste.

Next, really scrub it into your hair. Be sure to get it all over. Then pile is on your head and cover it with a shower cap for 20-30 minutes.


 And that, my dears, is it!  Rinse it out, dry your hair, and you are no longer serving a sentence with black (or orange) hair!


Then I was back to my natural (dyed) color, which is a reddish brown.  Once again, this photo was taken in the sun, so it really isn't this light. And it is a marked improvement over the black hair I had after the dye job! I hope some of you will benefit from this in case you're ever sentenced to several months with the wrong hair.

Cheers!

 Colette