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Why does my colour fade back to blonde?

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Hi,

I have dark brown hair and have previously had my hair bleached. I have about 6cm of regrowth and I have tried covering this with permanent brown colours over the blonde, but it just fades back to blonde.

What can I do other than keep applying the brown every couple of weeks?

Anon, UK

Covering bleach blonde hair may seem to be simple and easy but this is often not the case, and it can be quite tricky. The first thing you need to do is to make sure that the colour you are applying is permanent, and the best advice I could give here is to go into your salon and speak with your colourist who can then advise you best on ‘pre-pigmentation.’ This process includes adding an extra pigment to the hair before applying the right tint for you.

Michael Wilkonski, Position Stylist at Joseph Koniak, London 

Bleaching hair makes it very porous, sometimes unevenly so. So it will take on hair colour easily, but just like a sponge it will release it when shampooed just as fast.

The only way to stop it from fading is to keep applying a colour to try and match your natural dark shade. This may sound odd, but when I colour hair in the salon back from being light, I use a long lasting demi-permanent shade. These types of colours only add pigment to the hair and don't lighten and colour (like permanent dyes do). They are also gentler on the damaged strands.

This may need to be done every few weeks if you really don't like to see the difference in your natural colour to the previously bleached hair.

John Clark, Head of Colour at Brooks+Brooks, London