Hi all just some advice please.

I have had blonde highlights for years now but since starting CG i want to go back to my natural colour which is light brown.  i cant wait for it to grow out so i was thinking of going to my hairdresser and having it all colour over in a colour that is as close to my natural as possible.  myhairdresser suggested using a permanent colour as semi will fade very quickly because of how blonde my hair is. but im worried that a permanent dye will damage my hair too much. ive been doing CG for 4 months now and my hair is in fab condition, i just dont want to undo all that ive done.

should i go for a semi or a permanent colour?  any advice or suggestions would be great

thanks.

I know that permanent dye does damage hair to some extent but to be honest I dye my hair at home with permanent dye every three weeks(!) to no ill effect. Lightening with bleach is the real baddie, so as you will be going darker this will do much less damage especially as you’re only looking at dyeing it the once. As I understand it dyes are formulated to be much better for your hair now than they have been in the past, but I’m hoping someone else will chip in with some more technical information on that!
My hair looks and feels amazing when newly dyed lovely and shiny and bouncy and I’m sure I have read about the ability of dyes to patch up damage to the cuticle similarly to protein. In fact I know clear glazes are sometimes recommended for this purpose but I’m not sure how similar or different to coloured dyes they are?
All I can say is that I could never give up my dyeing but I still get lovely soft shiny wavy locks so I feel no need to worry about the dye in my routine. I think you’ll be surprised by how differently your hair reacts to a simple darker dye than to the blonde highlights. If you were naturally fair and looking at regularly dyeing darker (ahem, like myself) then maybe you could choose to ignore what I say and use a little caution but for a once off to transition to your natural colour I’m sure any damage done will be negligible.

HTH!