I need some advice and the hair salon I called was no help to me at all!

I dyed my hair. I used some special for dark hair dye that was supposed to lighten and dye it. but apparently i still had some old black dye in my hair, because it didn't cover that. so right now i kinda look like a red panda- red and black hair. and not in a pretty way.

so i dyed it last monday- and hated it. thought if i dyed it a second time & let it sit longer it would help- so I dyed it again yesterday.

my main question is- can i just get some black dye and cover it all? and how long should i wait to do that? i don't want my hair to fall out!!

As you know I can't help you out on this one kiddo....still trying to get my "bald" to look like hair again

Doesn't look bad to me though...pretty much like the pink stripes my nieces put in their hair for my sister with breast cancer...

ah yes- lets say it was all a part of my plan to support breast cancer. that sounds way better then - i'm a dork who can't dye her hair.

i can't lie about considering your bald look for myself....

Ive had a couple "oops" and I always just ended up forking over all the money to the salon to get it fixed. If thats not at all an option I would just dye it dark.
Black is tough though because it takes FOREVER to get it out. I dyed mine black once and I swear no matter what I did nothing working to get it out, including going and having it stripped! 2 years later it was finally gone!

If I were you though, I would just dye it black so that I was guaranteed it would cover it up and you wont have to put anything else in your hair. Ideally you should wait since you've put so many chemicals in it already but Im not patient and would just do it now. BUT if you can make it longer without doing it though I would wait!

Good luck!!

You probably don't want to hear this but you shouldn't try & fix it yourself. Believe me I know. You would't believe how many times I messed up my hair with do it yourself color
Unless you are going for a really artsy, neo-post modern, punk look, you are going to need a salon appointment.
Good luck.

Well then...what about the "pirate" scarf look as in my profile pic?

Oh!!
I just remembered something from one of my hair disasters....

Get some dandruff shampoo like Head & Shoulders. Wet your hair, apply the shampoo, work it in and leave it on for 1/2 an hour. Repeat. It will remove some of the color.

You trying to dye it red or black?

I'd go to the salon honestly. You don't want to do something to make your hair fall out.

Even salons can mess up- I get my hair chemically straightened every 6 months (the roots are touched up) and last time I went a chunk of my hair fell out and my hair didn't straighten- LUCKILY the chunk of hair missing you can't see but I showed it to the stylist two days later when I FELT IT when I was combing my hair. That and two days later the hair was curly again. The stylist has offered to redo the job for free- which she should though lol.

Ive done this so many times, you could try dying it black, color oops(buy it at your local drug store), ive also heard that using the shampoo Prell which is a really harsh shampoo will take color out or go to the salon :/ . Good luck! My hair is black right now from giving up on the do it yourself color war.

Unless you want to have black hair for a long time - then go to salon.

I used to dye my hair dark brown - a lot. It took me TWO YEARS to get it out; and that was with the salon's help. And I had to cut a lot of it to make it look normal.

Good luck!

Tee hee hee I've done this! I don't remember the exact situation. I was in the dorms and experimenting like crazy with my hair, since I came from an (INSANELY) conservative home. Somehow, through out a two week time, I went from black, to bleached, to red, to red-brown. Mine ended up bleach blonde on top where your red is, and dark orange on the bottom where the black was. I looked like the Firefox logo! It was awesome for about a day.

If I remember correctly... I had dyed it black, and my brown roots had grown out.. And then I tried dying it all a dark copper red color, and only my roots turned red, so it ended up with a purple tone. And THEN I went and got 3 dollar box of color stripping stuff from the grocery store and tried to strip everything myself - and ended up as Firefox. Waited a day and dyed it all the same dark tone after that. I would NOT recommend the at-home color stripping stuff. My hairdresser gave me a really long lecture about how awful it is and how there's nothing I could do but grow all of that hair out and cut it all away. Once you try chemically stripping, no other dyes will hold and you'll be stuck with a weird splotchy color all over.

Head and Shoulders, and Johnson and Johnson's no more tears shampoo both strip color really well - so wash, rinse and repeat!!!! But after that, you're probably best going to a salon.

Ps - When I was in high school I also dyed my best friends hair blue on accident. She was trying for a black dye, but was timing it by her CD player (thinking the average song runs 4 minutes so by the time X song comes on it's time to rinse!) and I didn't know that so I skipped ahead a few songs. Essentially, the blue pigment that holds first had done it's job, but the black chemicals hadn't done theirs yet. She looked like Dory from Finding Nemo for a couple of weeks before her mom made her get it fixed. The salon stripped the blue out, and covered everything else with a REALLY dark brown shade, and she had to go in every 6 months to strip the brown lighter and lighter. It was a long process.

..You could potentially skip those steps and try the dark dark brown yourself?

But as for answering your question, it's best to wait about a week between really damaging hair process, to let the hair follicle mend itself.

thanks everyone for the feedback! i'm slightly less panicked right now.

i am going to let it rest for a week or so then just dye it black and call it good. my natural hair color is dark brown so it won't matter when roots come in & now i know- if i want to go red i have to let someone who knows what they are doing do it. some things are not worth the money saved!! lesson learned.
in the meantime- i get to go around looking like a red panda.

Wait!! lol I wans't here to say anything! Go to the drug store and get some Color Oops color remover. They have one kind that removes black. If your hair is lighter, than your orgional color, than it will take it to that color.

If you want to re-dye it, you'll have to pick a shade that is like 3 times lighter cause your hair will grab the color really well and it will come out darker. Or you can let it rest for a few weeks and try again. This isn't a chemical to strip your hair. It supposedly shrinks the color molecules (sp) and leaves your hair feeling like your hair.

I've had a lot of trial and error and LOVE this stuff! Its saved my rear end more than once, I just can't recolor it for a couple weeks.

I did that once. I used to color my hair black, than decided on red. I got the exact same result, and wound up spending $80 to have a salon strip the color out and change it to red. Looked great but expensive. Was like 15 years ago though.

If it's any consolation, I think it looked pretty cool, in an artsy kind of way (at least from what we could see in the picture you posted).