Goodbye Red, its been fun...Colour B4 Extra

Afternoon everyone - hows this week going for you? As ever, school is out of control, we are rapidly rushing towards SATS week and the halfway point of this half term.


So for the past few weeks I've been craving change - I haven't been feeling comfortable in my own skin for a while, I don't dress or look how I want. I've spent that last couple of weeks researching ways of changing my hair colour, especially stripping out the red dye.


I've read lots of posts on Colour B4 and decided that I needed to give this a go, however I've been dying my hair red for the past 2years and so knew I would have a lot of colour build up and would need the Extra version of Colour B4. I finally picked up a box at the weekend, and so nervously on Monday decided to use it.


The product claims to strip hair colour back to its lightest colour. A little bit of hair history for you, I have had my hair blonde, brown, red, black and natural - I can't even tell you the last time I saw my natural colour! 

In the box you get the 3 parts, instructions and the naffest gloves ever!

You mix A and B together and apply it all over your hair. With the extra strength you need to leave it on for an hour, especially as I have long, thick hair but if your hair is shorter then you don't need it to be an hour. The instructions advise you to wrap your hair in clingfilm, or my alternative was an Asda carrier bag, and then a towel over the top - this helps the product work as it keeps it warm - do not use this in a cold or draughty place.

After that you need to rinse it for 10 - 15mins to get all the product out of your hair, this is the most boring part of the process, I literally wanted to cry with boredom.

Next, using half of part C, this is a buffer which helps neutralise the product - leave this for 1 min and then rinse it out for 5 minutes, cue more boredom! 

After all of this, use the rest of Part C like a normal shampoo, rinse out and dry. You will be left with lighter hair. 

The process is fairly easy to do, the product stank of something very nasty, but after a while you don't notice it.

I was never daft enough to think it would take me back to my natural, boring brown. I also knew that there was a strong possibilty of it being slighty coppery...I was not prepared for what I got.

Before

After

Look how bright it is! I was not expecting it to come out this ginger. I have never seen anything like this, and looks ridiculous on me. My natural roots show through at the top, and all my baby hair are white!

Cue mad dash to Asda to pick up a brown to cover it - I picked a semi-permanent as I'm aware of not killing my hair with all these different treatments, as well as a hair treatment for use next time I washed it.

And here is what I've been left with now:

This is a bit darker then I wanted but I can live with this. I know I'm going to have to look after it, and the colour will fade but I can keep on top of it more now, slowly I hope I can go back to my natural - non ginger - colour at some point.


So I've spent a grand total of £15 on two boxes to come to this colour and I'm quite pleased really. A strip and recolour would have set me back a lot more at a salon. The Colour B4 did what it said it would do, and I would use it again if I needed to.


So what do you think? Have you tried it before, or thinking of trying it?


xx