DIY Hair Stripping - How to Naturally Strip Hair Colour

In this blog post you will find...

Background - A little bit of information about my hair, how many times I have dyed it, how many colours it has been and why I wanted to strip it

What? - The products I use to naturally strip my hair

How? - The method I use to naturally strip my hair

Overall Opinion - Pretty much explains itself doesn't it

Background

For as long as I can remember I have never been happy with my hair colour. I'm one of those people who, as a child, had blonde hair which naturally darkened to a medium brown as I got older. Since I have dyed my hair lots of colours, some intentionally and some unintentionally... Red, purple, blonde, orange, green almost black and many shades of brown. You can probably guess the unintentional hair colours I have supported, where my hair dying skills have failed me... Orange and green! At this moment in time I have brown hair. Well I have bleached hair, which I dyed over brown after having a bit of a attempted home ombre disaster the day before I was due to go on holiday! My only option was to reach for the brown box dye and so I dyed my hair with L'Oreal Preference Mousse Absolue Permanant Hair Dye in the shade Natural Dark Brunette 400. I couldn't face going on holiday with a half blonde, a quarter orange and a quarter brown hair.

What?

It has now been three weeks since I dyed my hair dark brown and it has started to fade (yipee!!!) However, impatient little me has been doing some 'googling' into how to speed this fading process up at home. DIY hair stripping you could call it. The most commonly suggested method was anti-dandruff shampoo, bicarbonate of soda and vitamin C. So for the past two weeks I have been washing my hair four times a week with these three items. I can certainly say I have noticed a huge difference in my hair colour. The ends of my hair which were bleached blonde before I dyed it brown have really lightened up again, as has the top but not as dramatically as the ends. 

Unfortunately I haven't got any pictures of my dark brown hair without extensions in, but as you can see my hair completely matched my extensions and was a very dark brown. The picture on the right is my hair now, a medium brown on the top and dark blonde at the ends. 

How?

I'm no DIY hair stripping expert but I am under the impression you can buy whatever brand anti-dandruff shampoo, bicarbonate of soda and vitamin C tablets you fancy because they all do the same job, don't they. Here are some pictures of the ones I am currently using.

Before washing my hair I make the mixture. I firstly use a rolling pin to turn my vitamin C tablets into a fine powder, I then add a spoonful of bicarbonate of soda and a generous amount of anti-dandruff shampoo and then I mix it all together. I then proceed to the bath or shower to wash my hair. I use it as I would shampoo, I layer it on, leave it for a few minutes and then rinse it off. However I have read other blogs where people put the mixture on their heads, wrap it in clean film to keep the heat in and leave it on anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour. Although I would recommend doing it the gradual way, as I am, because I find even when I leave it on for 5 minutes my hair can be left feeling very dry... So don't forget to use plenty of conditioner afterwards, and even use an intense conditioning mask on your hair once a week to keep it looking nice and glossy!

Overall Opinion

I would definitely recommend this DIY Hair Stripping method to anyone who's had a hair disaster or has lots of colour build up and doesn't want to:

A) Spend a fortune at the hairdressers
B) Use chemicals to strip their hair

It is obviously not going to give you an overnight result BUT I can see a change in my hair after two weeks, so it's proving to be not too long of a process. 

I hope this blog has helped anyone like me who's indecisive and can't keep their hands off home box dyes... I am 99% sure that in a months time I will have changed my hair colour yet again and I will be here writing another blog post about it!

Until next time,
Hayley x
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