- If you colored your hair with a permanent hair dye, I don’t recommend you dye it again the next day. I’ll tell you later what could happen if you do.
- If you used a semi-permanent hair dye, it would also be crazy to dye your hair again the next day. The result would be an undefined color. If you chose a fantasy color, the result will be even more undefined.
- So, you have an alternative: wait at least two weeks to color your hair again. Also, I’ll tell you how to choose the color for the second application.
“Alejandra, can I dye my hair again the next day?”
“Alejandra, I dyed my hair, and I don’t like the color. Can I dye it again tomorrow?”
“Alejandra, my color is too light. Can I dye it in 24 hours?
Do you want to know my answer to most of these questions?
A resounding no.
A “NO” as big as a 20-room mansion.
A “NO” as resounding as the “NO” we say to children when they go near the fire.
Because he who plays with fire gets burned. Also, if you dye your hair two days in a row, you’re playing with fire, and you’ll get burned.
I don’t recommend coloring your hair again the next day, especially if you’ve used a classic permanent hair color.
Recently, less harmful semi-permanent hair dyes have become fashionable, but I’ll tell you more about them later.
Now, I want to make it clear that if you dyed your hair, either at home or in a salon, with a permanent hair dye, IT’S NOT A GOOD IDEA TO DYE IT AGAIN THE NEXT DAY.
- It doesn’t matter why you want to color your hair again.
- It doesn’t matter if your hair is too dark, too light, or too bright.
- It doesn’t matter if the color doesn’t match your skin tone or if your best friend chose the same color and you look like twins.
Dyeing your hair two days in a row is going to ruin your hair, probably irreversibly.
Don’t you believe me?
Let’s take a look at how permanent hair dye works because that’s a fact.
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If you dye your hair two days in a row with permanent hair dye, you doom your hair to permanent breakage
Permanent hair dyes work by permanently changing the color of your hair. So, they’re applied with a 20-volume developer and ammonia.
- The ammonia helps the color penetrate the inner layer of the hair fiber.
- The developer opens the cuticles for the pigment to set.
Imagine that each strand of your hair is like the body of a fish covered with scales.
Hair cuticles are like scales that protect your hair from the chemicals, sun, and other damaging products you may apply.
It’s due to them that your hair can look shiny, silky, and above all, have a smooth texture. All this is provided by nature.
However, what happens when you use permanent hair dye?
The cuticles are opened by the developer and the inside of the hair fiber is exposed. Then, it’s attacked by ammonia to fix the hair dye.
The cycle ends when the cuticles close after the hair dye is rinsed out.
At that moment, your hair isn’t the same as it was before you applied the hair dye.
That’s why, sometimes it may feel more frizzy, coarser, or even duller.
It’s similar to what happens when you flat iron, curl or dye your hair. You usually lose some cuticles which, little by little, weaken your hair.
Can you imagine what could happen if you applied a permanent hair dye twice in a row?
Your hair would break, and the only possible solution would be to remove the damaged parts, i.e. trim the hair. I’m not exaggerating.
In the salon, I have even cut ten centimeters of hair from people who dyed their hair two days in a row.
So, my advice is to wait at least two weeks if your hair is healthy. Alternatively, wait four weeks if you notice that your ends are split or if you have a lot of frizz.
What can you do in the meantime if you don’t like the color?
There are a few tricks you can try.
- First, wait for the color to settle after three or four washes. At that point, you’ll be able to evaluate the final result.
- If the color is still too strident after those three or four washes, you can neutralize it with toning shampoo. If it’s too yellow, use a purple shampoo, and if it’s too orange, use a blue shampoo.
- If the color is too dark, wait two weeks and apply a hair dye that is two tones lighter.
- If the color is too light, wait two weeks and opt for one or two tones darker than the first time.
Why are you breathing a sigh of relief?
Let me guess. You think that as you used a semi-permanent hair dye, you can color your hair again today.
Don’t count your chickens yet, because there’s more to it.
If you dye your hair two days in a row with a semi-permanent hair dye, the resulting color will be uncertain
Semi-permanent hair dye isn’t applied with peroxide. So, the hair cuticles aren’t affected.
Although it’s less damaging than a permanent hair dye, it still colors your hair.
A semi-permanent hair dye is deposited on the cuticles without penetrating them. It deposits pigments to change the color.
What would happen if you applied another semi-permanent hair dye the next day?
- You would completely wash out the previous hair dye, and the result would be unpredictable.
- If you applied fantasy colors, your hair was probably bleached previously. So, what you would get would be different strands of color. Don’t forget that bleached hair is more porous and tends to absorb pigments differently.
- If you applied traditional tones, your hair would be saturated with pigments. Then, you would remove the hair dye you applied the day before and the new color would not deposit.
I’m sure you apply a moisturizing cream on your face every night.
Have you ever been in a hurry because you were too tired and applied too much of it? What did you feel?
- Let me guess. You felt like your face was dripping from every pore.
The skin can absorb a limited amount of lotion. Then, it expels the excess.
The same thing happens in the hair. When you apply too much hair dye, the hair becomes saturated and starts to get rid of the excess.
- However, the consequences will be somewhat more annoying in your hair than in your face because we’re talking about pigments.
As a result, the color will fade quickly. In the meantime, you’ll be leaving the excess pigments on everything that contacts your hair, such as pillow, t-shirts, towels, and hands.
- Also, and this would be the worst part, if you color your hair two days in a row with a fantasy color, you’ll never know what color you’ll get.
- Therefore, please be patient and remember that the semi-permanent hair dye fades with washes.
So, if you don’t like the color of the first hair dye, wash your hair every other day. To speed up the fading process, use a shampoo with sulfates.
It’s simple math.
If a semi-permanent hair dye lasts for 25 washes, and you use shampoo with sulfates, the color will fade after eight or nine washes. Of course, you shouldn’t overdo it. I’m not saying you have to wash your hair every day or several times a day.
Although sulfates are detergents that fade hair dye, they also dry out the hair fiber. Therefore, you should use some moisturizing hair products such as masks or coconut oil.
Conclusions
If you colored your hair and you don’t like the result, you should not color it again the next day or subsequent days. It applies whether you used a semi-permanent or permanent hair dye.
Hair is as fragile as a sheet of paper. However, you can’t play with hair dyes as you play with watercolors or crayons on a sheet. If you don’t like your drawings, you can throw the sheet away and start with a new one.
However, if you play with the frequency of hair dye application, you’ll damage your hair. Then, what will end up in the trash will be a few inches of your mane.
