Dying and relaxing your hair

Hello ladies!

So basically I will be home for a month from South Korea in 2 weeks, and I want to get a relaxer in while I'm visiting lol. But I also have grown kind of bored with my jet black hair, and I kind of want a change color-wise, plus I have found a couple of gray hairs recently (I guess I'm graying young!). I've never dyed my hair before so it's all new to me. My understanding is that it's "okay" to dye and relax your hair at the same time, but is it actually better to separate the treatments on different days? I figure since I will be home for a month I could dye my hair in the very beginning and then wait a few weeks til the very end before I go to relax. I guess I'm just wondering if one (doing all in one day vs separate days) is less traumatic than the other hair health wise. I've retained a lot of length in the past year and a half so I'm trying to be as cautious as possible.

Since I'm a huge newbie when it comes to dying hair I also have a few other questions:

-How easy is it to get your natural color back after dying?

-Do people dye their eyebrows along with their hair? Or does it matter specifically to what color you dye your hair (i.e., I know blondes who have dark eyebrows, etc.). My eyebrows are as black as my hair.

-Any suggestions on cute shades of brown that work for yellow under toned women? Nothing too crazy since I am active duty.

Anyway, any help provided is much appreciated. Thanks!

I know that drill. I lived overseas for 2 years and would book my plane ticket around hair appointment!! My hairdresser did use low peroxide to dye me jet black (I didn't want it to run) right after my relaxer. He preferred me coming in a week later for the color, but once I moved overseas he did same day for me. We had to use lye, mild for color treated hair. My hair was off the chain when I was seeing him. If he hadn't retired I would still being seeing him. Mind you all we were doing was depositing coloring with a tiny bit of peroxide so it grabbed. Lifting is a whole another ball game. I have had professional blonde highlights (3 shades with foils) before but my hair quality suffered from it.

In terms of going back to your natural hair color... Going darker after dying light is easy going lighter after being dark can be in some cases impossible.

I just saw some beautiful lightbrown hair on sunnieb done via honey. You might want to give that a try since it is good for your hair. Search for her photo on this link http://www.longhaircareforum.com/showthread.php?t=612349

Also henna gives dark hair a nice slightly reddish cast that works well with yellow undertones. It is not red red but your grays will get a red and in the sun you get a nice halo effect.

Proceed with caution. Trust me. Years ago I lost about 50% of my hair from coloring and relaxing within a few days of each other.

Man, I thought this was about someone wanting to relax their hair while they're slowly dying of an illness or something lol. I got all serious..
Sorry I have nothing to add in regards to the questions though. I tried dyeing my hair right after I relaxed and my hair and it became very gummy and broke easier. Up your protein treatments if you do it though!

No you relax then dye.
Relax first wait a week or so then dye your hair. Go with semipermanent or demipermanent. Permanent color is too much for relaxed hair.

I'm relaxed and just last month I relaxed my hair, waited two weeks and put a Garnier Olia medium Dk brown color in. This is billed as perm color.

There is no problem getting your original color back but it's just a question of how long it will take and that depends on if it's a rinse, semi-perm, or perm.

I don't know about eyebrows I never did that. I went a real light brown before and my hair was so dark it had to be bleached so the color would take. That was harsh and led to a lot of damage it was pre-lhcf I didn't know any better and it seems my stylist didn't either smh.

I have no color suggestions for you for yellow undertones.

I don't have a problem with breakage and color. Space it out a week or two. Use protein the week before to prep the hair.

Fenaxa said:

Man, I thought this was about someone wanting to relax their hair while they're slowly dying of an illness or something lol. I got all serious..

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a little Jolene will get black eyebrows brown, reddish or blonde depending on how long you leave it on .

Sorry I never responded again in this thread, I've been a bit busy pre-vacay. So now at im leaving tonight back home, I am still undecided whether I'm going to dye my hair in addition to relax. I know I will have to dye it eventually with these newfound grays starting to crop up. I'm kind of nervous after reading these responses. Sounds complicated.

kikisf said:

I know that drill. I lived overseas for 2 years and would book my plane ticket around hair appointment!! My hairdresser did use low peroxide to dye me jet black (I didn't want it to run) right after my relaxer. He preferred me coming in a week later for the color, but once I moved overseas he did same day for me. We had to use lye, mild for color treated hair. My hair was off the chain when I was seeing him. If he hadn't retired I would still being seeing him. Mind you all we were doing was depositing coloring with a tiny bit of peroxide so it grabbed. Lifting is a whole another ball game. I have had professional blonde highlights (3 shades with foils) before but my hair quality suffered from it. In terms of going back to your natural hair color... Going darker after dying light is easy going lighter after being dark can be in some cases impossible. I just saw some beautiful lightbrown hair on sunnieb done via honey. You might want to give that a try since it is good for your hair. Search for her photo on this link http://www.longhaircareforum.com/showthread.php?t=612349 Also henna gives dark hair a nice slightly reddish cast that works well with yellow undertones. It is not red red but your grays will get a red and in the sun you get a nice halo effect.

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Interesting! I will have to check this thread out. I didn't know you can color your hair with honey....

I'm not as resourceful hair wise as many ladies on this board, though, so not sure if this would work with me doing it lol.

Yes, my hair appointment is on lock! It's one of the things I am looking forward to. I definitely need a relaxer since its been eight months and I can't with Koreas humidity.

I was thinking of something with a slight reddish cast. I've been told by a few people that would probably look good on me. I don't know much about henna either, though. Can you get this done at salons?

Je Ne Sais Quoi said:

Proceed with caution. Trust me. Years ago I lost about 50% of my hair from coloring and relaxing within a few days of each other.

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Lost as in breakage??? I've had some battles with breakage these past few years so I'm extremely paranoid about it. I had a friend IRL who near MBL hair who had to chop off to SL because of bad breakage due to dying too much. But I didn't think dying just once would be that big of an issue?

crlsweetie912 said:

No you relax then dye.
Relax first wait a week or so then dye your hair. Go with semipermanent or demipermanent. Permanent color is too much for relaxed hair.

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Thanks. I'm going to google.


I never realized how little info there is oti for women of color about dying your hair. I've been trying to find color rec websites or ideas and all the stuff I find is for white women.

drappedup said:

Lost as in breakage??? I've had some battles with breakage these past few years so I'm extremely paranoid about it. I had a friend IRL who near MBL hair who had to chop off to SL because of bad breakage due to dying too much. But I didn't think dying just once would be that big of an issue?

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about 85% of the areas I streaked fell clean off when I hopped in the shower to wash my hair. I had done home made highlights. Thankfully I didn't color all of my hair.