From Brown to Red Hair! Say Wat???

I lovee red hair and I been looking into dying it for quite some time now. I had tried sooo many drugstore box hair dyes and none of them seemed to work. They will give me a red tint but nothing really noticeable. The only one that somewhat gave me a more noticeable red was the Garnier-Nutrisse Ultra Color for dark hair in R3. It washed out within a week :( . I wanted a more red color not Rihanna red but more like a deep red but not too deep.

I did my best to try to find a dye that will give me that color without me completely bleaching my poor hair. I came across this one hair dye called L'Oreal Excellence HiColor. They had quite a few reds to choose from and this dye is specifically made for DARK HAIR ONLY, which was perfect for me bc I had dark brown hair. I searched videos, read reviews, blogs and so many other things. I finally decided to buy it and I choose it in the color RED.

I had read that RED will give yu a very bright and vibrant red but I didn't think it will come out so bright. WRONG! After I dyed it, my roots were screaming red and the rest of my hair was a bit darker, I would've re-dyed the bottom only and not my roots but I thought it was too bright for me so I was like ehhhhh I need to tone this hair down! So I bought the next color in RED HOT and I applied it but my roots were still somewhat bright ;( . but I decided to keep it like that and it seemed to look pretty nice. It gave me the exact color I wanted. I was very exciteddd :D .

I also researched on how to maintain this bomb color ;) . I reviewed soooo many different shampoos and conditioners and finally found a shampoo and conditioner that was affordable and efficient. I bought the L'Oreal Vive Pro color vive Hi-Color Shampoo for dry, damaged color-treated hair (bc my hair is somewhat damaged lol) and the Riveting Reds color refreshing conditioner. The conditioner is a RED COLOR DEPOSITING conditioner so it will deposit red back into your hair. Shampoo is a red heads worst nightmare! It will strip the color out of your hair like no ones business! So when you do wash your hair, every 2-3 days btw, try to shampoo your hair as quickly as possible and rinse it out. If you leave it in for a long time it will probably strip your beautiful hair color out. Now for conditioning, leave it in your hair for as long as possible, (well I do this anyways with or w/o colored hair) bc it's suppose to condition your hair so leave it in for a while and let it work its magic!

Use dry shampoos in between washes if your hair tends to get really oily n greasy looking. I use the Suave dry shampoo it's pretty cheap ($3) and it works super great and has really good reviews. Also try to not use so much heat on your hair bc it will affect your color as well. If you do use heat pleaseeee use a heat protector.

Having red hair is difficult and you have to have the time, money, and patience to maintain and re-touch it! I hope this helped someone lol. I will try to list all the things I used to dye my hair if I didn't mention already. :p


Things I used:
L'Oreal HiColor in Red (2 tubes) & Red Hot (2 tubes)
30 vol developer (first time with red) 2.4 oz per tube so like 5oz for 2 tubes
20 vol developer (when I re-dyed it with Red Hot)
latex gloves
mixing bowl
measuring cup (to measure developer)
brush (the one to dye hair)
Red protein filler (don't think it worked so don't bother using it)
Riveting Red conditioner
L'Oreal Vive pro shampoo

I bought mostly everything at Sally's beauty supply and my shampoo and dry shampoo at Wal-Mart :P

            End result!