How To Fix A Vibrant Colour Hair Dye Mistake

When working with vibrant colours like crazy colours, the outcome can be unpredictable. There are occasions in every stylist's career when things don't go to plan, so it is essential to recognise these issues before they happen. Thus you can learn from mistakes to avoid it happening again and understand how to correct the issue for your client.

In our client's case, she wanted a lilac colour on her split dye, however, due to the yellow tones in her hair, as well as the crazy colour shade having a high level of blue, the outcome was not as expected, and our client's hair turned green!

So how do you fix issues such as this?

Firstly, we needed to adjust our client's expectations. Due to the lift of her natural hair, lilac was not possible without the colour turning green. By assessing the colour wheel, we saw that once the green had mellowed from a few washes, a pink or coral would be the most suitable tone to try.

We sent our client away for some intensive home care treatment, washing regularly and topping up with olaplex to ensure the hair quality was in no way compromised. After two weeks, when our client returned, the colour had faded considerably, allowing for a much more stable canvas to work with.

Step 1: Firstly, we needed to isolate the side we were working with. This can be time-consuming with split dye clients as it is essential to make sure you don't miss any of the flyaway pieces. Once separated, we secured the darker virgin hair out of the way and placed a towel on the head to prevent any product transfer.

Step 2: Remove the old colour. We used crazy colour back to base to remove more of the leftover colour and further neutralise the base we were working with. We used a tint brush and started at the roots in small slices to ensure the hair was thoroughly saturated with product and avoided the regrowth that had appeared between the appointments.

Step 3: Once the front of the hair was complete, we moved onto the back of the head, continually checking on the development of the front in the same way as you would when applying bleach to a clients hair.

Step 4: Once the hair was fully saturated, we massaged the product into the hair and then left the hair to develop for no longer than 30 minutes.

Step 5: Now it's time to rinse your client's hair to reveal the final lifted colour.

Step 6: Now that the colour has been removed as much as possible, we used our colour wheel to determine the most suitable colour to cover the green tones. As her hair had lifted to a mint green tone, the warmer pink hues were the most appropriate to try, and therefore we selected two colours to strand test on her hair, a more pink one and the other more purple.

Step 7: These both worked perfectly, and each shade developed true to colour. However, our client wanted to try something a little more pastel, so we opted for Crazy Colour Peachy Coral, with a few drops of Crazy Colour Orange mixed in, to add more depth to the colour.

Step 8: Now that our strand test was complete and we were confident about how the colour would develop, we could colour the hair. Splitting the hair down the parting to the ear, we worked on the front first, applying to the roots throughout before applying to the mid-lengths and ends.

Step 9: Use your fingers to massage the product into the hair to ensure complete saturation, and then leave for no more than 30 minutes.

Step 10: Rinse the hair thoroughly until the water runs clear, and wash with Olaplex shampoo and conditioner.

Step 11: Dry your client's hair to reveal your final finished colour. The peachy coral has worked perfectly to neutralise and mask the green, leaving our client very happy with her finished look!