Expert: CANDIE KALUGIN - 12/20/2007

Question
Hi
I always get my hair professionally coloured but in August I moved to the Arctic to teach. There are no hair salons within in driving distances and very limited supplies. I brought a Revlon Frost and glow kit with me to die my hair. I have dirty blond hair and it was growing in very dark, which may be because we are in 24 hours of darkness. Anyway a teacher friend of mine decided to help me die it using frost and glow and tried to foil it herself. Anyway my hair turned out very brassy blond with patches of brown especially around the roots. What are my options? Should I just go all brown? I have the under part of my hair a dark brown, should I try to match that colour? How long should I wait before I die it again. Should I do a VO5 hot oil treatment? I can get family to send things from the south if needed. Please Help? Thank you so much

Answer
Thanks for the question April, first I would suggest not to use the VO5 on your hair.  That would only coat the hair with unwanted oils and waxes which would make it very difficult to apply any color in the future, not to mention it will make your hair very limp and weighed down.  What I would suggest to use is a good professional product such as a deep conditioning mask or a repair treatment if your hair seems dry, brittle or over processed.  These products can be found in any professional salon and are guaranteed when purchased in a salon and sold by a licensed cosmetologist.  A Stylist working in the salon should be able to suggest the best type and brand for your hair if you decided to do this.  If there is no hair salon within driving distance then I would try seeing if there are any independent contractors around in your area that freelance, since then they would be qualified to come to you directly to give you service.
 I would also recommend that you do not try putting another box color over the hair as it will not fix your problem but instead it could create an even bigger problem. Best way to explain what I am referring to is to imagine your hair as a page in a coloring book.  If you were to color that page red at the top and yellow in the middle and on the bottom, then you were to color the entire page blue over the red and over the yellow, would you then have a completely blue page?  No, you would have purple at the top of the page and green in the middle and at the bottom of the page.  That is what would happen to your hair only the colors wouldn't be red, yellow or purple those were just colors that make it easy to visualize.  Your hair is that page in the coloring book and your hair color is those colors on that page, so if you were to put a single box color over the entire head you would get the type of effect as I just described only with different colors.  What you are needing is a color correction and that is something no single box color application can do.  It will take more than one color formulation, applied to more than one area of the head, to bring your hair to one color all over, or to even get rid of the brassy blond since you have a grow out that is darker than the rest of the hair. The brassy blond can be easily fixed by applying a toner, but the brown patches (which I assume are bands from applying the kit onto previously lightened hair with a grow out of more than 1/4 inch)will take more effort to fix.  This should be done by a licensed hair stylist or color specialist in a salon. They will need to see your hair first hand to asses the situation hands on. They will need to see the level of the hair, the tone of the hair, the texture of the hair and the condition of the hair.  Then they will find out what level you are wanting to be and what tone you prefer and from there the two of you can figure out which solution would be best for your hair and you.  Everyone perceives color differently so it is best to find a photo or a magazine picture of the color you are wanting so that you can show the stylist and they will be able to see the same color you are wanting.  
Again if no salon is in driving distance to you then you should try and see if there are any freelance independent contractor stylists in your area that can come to you.  
Hope this helped and I hope everything works out for you.
Thanks again