Do any of you find yourself nostalgic for a former hair color?

As you can see from my avatar and sig pictures, I'm fairly blonde right now. I have been growing blonder and blonder over the years with highlighting to conceal fairly heavy gray on the crown of my head (the nape of my neck is still fairly dark). I found that growout was easier to cope with if my hair was lighter.

I recently started a photo thread and was reminded again at how much more suited to my skin color my former hair color was.

Here's the problem. Most of the pictures I've posted are of a me who was not only brown-haired but younger, thinner, and frankly prettier because of the latter two qualities.

So am I really missing my brown hair? Or my lost youth? If it's the latter, changing my hair color will disappoint me in its results.

"Oh, moment, stay. You are so fair!"

Pani M.

Sometimes I miss my reddish brown hair, but mostly not. My hair is naturally black, so the red definitely took a toll on the health of my hair. Now I want my hair even blacker, so I'm going to start experimenting with some rinses.

Just my :twocents: & I do have an overall bias, but I like the dark. Do you look much different from the halloween pic? One think I have to say about coloring hair dark is that it's a huge pain to get rid of if you change your mind & I'd suggest using some henna/indigo since dark hair dyes have tons of ppd in which is really not good for you at all.

Just my :twocents: & I do have an overall bias, but I like the dark. Do you look much different from the halloween pic? One think I have to say about coloring hair dark is that it's a huge pain to get rid of if you change your mind & I'd suggest using some henna/indigo since dark hair dyes have tons of ppd in which is really not good for you at all.

I've actually lost weight since that picture was taken but that is pretty similar to what my overall look was. That was a black wig so I wouldn't go that dark.

If I go back to brown I am definitely going henndigo (maybe plus amla).

Pani M.

Wellyeah somehow I could guess that wasn't quite the look you were going for, lol, but it does show your face with a dark color. Do you have photoshop or something similar? Sometimes it helps to see a pic first. If you don't have photoshop you could try http://www.lhj.com/makeover/member/index.jhtml?_requestid=168025&_requestid=168025 you have to sign up but you can upload your own pic & try on styles & colors.

That's a good idea. I don't have Photoshop, but it would be good to try it with a current photo. Or I could go try on some wigs.

Pani M.

Hi Pani - I don't have the privilege yet, so I couldn't pull up any pictures with your darker hair, but I know what you mean. I am much ligher than I'd prefer to be, though I don't want to be as dark as I once was, as I don't think it would look well anymore, and everyone has told me that the fair hair goes better with my complexion. I'm planning to gradually go a few shades darker (still some kind of medium blond) - just not bumping it up as much as I have been. Let us know what you decide!

Once I bleached the everloving crap out of my hair, then I dyed it the brightest shade of red. I'm talking briiiiiiiiiiight red--think classic lipstick red then go a shade just brighter.

I loved it, it looked awesome, but the upkeep was just not worth it. Plus the bleach fried my poor hair. I still have about 2 inches left of that hair, and even with henna, I can quite literally see through the ends. I'm amazed it doesn't split more than it does.

Sometimes I miss my reddish brown hair, but mostly not. My hair is naturally black, so the red definitely took a toll on the health of my hair. Now I want my hair even blacker, so I'm going to start experimenting with some rinses.

Is it overstating matters to say you miss the black hair, Buddaphlyy? ETA: Oh, I think you're saying that your hair is back to its regular color, but you now want to enhance that color.

Pani M.

I'll second the idea of using that online program (or another...I think that one of the hair dye companies, like Clairol or Revlon have something where you upload your own photo and change the color from their color wheel)

I can kind of relate: my hair has progressively gotten lighter over the years from sun exposure or chemical mishaps or just aging, I'm not sure, and I rather miss the near-black I had even though the brown I have isn't all that light.

I'll second the idea of using that online program (or another...I think that one of the hair dye companies, like Clairol or Revlon have something where you upload your own photo and change the color from their color wheel)

I can kind of relate: my hair has progressively gotten lighter over the years from sun exposure or chemical mishaps or just aging, I'm not sure, and I rather miss the near-black I had even though the brown I have isn't all that light.

What's holding me back a little from the Photoshop option is the fact that colors on the computer screen always look a little different. I need to try on wigs and then look in myself in bright sunlight.

Of course then I still have the dilemma of trying to match the wig color with my henndigo concoction.

Pani M.

Is it overstating matters to say you miss the black hair, Buddaphlyy? ETA: Oh, I think you're saying that your hair is back to its regular color, but you now want to enhance that color.

Pani M.


Yeah, that's what I meant. :flowers:

Growing up, I never liked having black hair and I begged my mom for highlight and she always said no.

Last summer I dyed it red, but because my hair is black, it was really a reddish brown and I loved it to death. But my hair thinned out and was constantly breaking, so I had to let it go.

It's funny, I still don't like my natural black color, but I think that if I dye it darker, it'll be shinier or something and I'll like it more.

I don't know, maybe I'm just a hair dye fiend.

I hennaed a couple years ago and loved it. After about ten months, I started to get tired of having dyed hair, and I missed my natural color. About a year later, I'm realizing that my natural color is rather boring, and I miss the henna. So I'm going to re-henna! I'm tempted to leave it on for only a short time so that I can get back to my natural color more easily, but closer the weekend (for hennaing time) gets, the more I just want to go back to bright red. It was a fabulous color, and i'm exccited to have it again.

Wellyeah somehow I could guess that wasn't quite the look you were going for, lol, but it does show your face with a dark color. Do you have photoshop or something similar? Sometimes it helps to see a pic first. If you don't have photoshop you could try http://www.lhj.com/makeover/member/index.jhtml?_requestid=168025&_requestid=168025 you have to sign up but you can upload your own pic & try on styles & colors.

I seem to be fairly Internet-dense. I can get this module to change hairstyles but not colors. I wonder if there's any other free site that will let me change haircolors.

ETA: The makeover module (http://www.beautyriot.com/instant_makeover.php) at Beauty Riot seems work out okay, although the hair colors tend toward the Manic Panic end of the spectrum.

Pani M.

I'm nostalgic for my natural color, and I'm sure I idealize it to some extent. Somehow it's always summer in my fond memories of my ravishingly beautiful natural color, and I'm always about fifteen years old ;-). A tell-tale sign for sure.

It wasn't completely my natural color the year I was fifteen anyway, we'd used a bit of my mother's blond dye to bleach a streak to white, and I may have been using cassia with some henna that year too.

The truth is that my natural color lost quite a bit of its depth and variation about a year before I started hennaing. This may have been because I spent that year indoors, writing my thesis - so the hair got no sun that year, and didn't get the light streaks it gets in the sun etc. (and I looked like a ghost all around). Another possibility is it just lost its depth and variation that year period. The first greys and whites had already made their entrance the year before - entirely possible the whole color just changed to blah the year after that due to hormones or whatever.

I'm growing it out anyway, and we'll see.

One thing I've been wanting to say to you about hendigo - I understand you're going to do extensive testing, that is great, - make sure that you check out the color next to your face in various lightings. If you're worried about red, you must know that the red/orange in hendigo will *always* come out in some lightings. I always hated the orange tones in henna, and one time in my frustration about this I put so much indigo over it that it was a very dark gray indoors. Bluish gray with no red at all. It was sort of brown outside in sunlight. But when light would shine through it (bright light coming from behind, sunshine or artificial light), POOF, there the orange was again. No escape. So make sure you can live with that ;-)

ETA: link (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=58792) about the red appearing in hendigo in bright light.

Iris

I'm nostalgic for my natural color, and I'm sure I idealize it to some extent. Somehow it's always summer in my fond memories of my ravishingly beautiful natural color, and I'm always about fifteen years old ;-). A tell-tale sign for sure.

It wasn't completely my natural color the year I was fifteen anyway, we'd used a bit of my mother's blond dye to bleach a streak to white, and I may have been using cassia with some henna that year too.

The truth is that my natural color lost quite a bit of its depth and variation about a year before I started hennaing. This may have been because I spent that year indoors, writing my thesis - so the hair got no sun that year, and didn't get the light streaks it gets in the sun etc. (and I looked like a ghost all around). Another possibility is it just lost its depth and variation that year period. The first greys and whites had already made their entrance the year before - entirely possible the whole color just changed to blah the year after that due to hormones or whatever.


Yeah, I am concerned that my nostalgia is more about recapturing my lost youth for some reason and less about the actual hair color.



I'm growing it out anyway, and we'll see.

One thing I've been wanting to say to you about hendigo - I understand you're going to do extensive testing, that is great, - make sure that you check out the color next to your face in various lightings. If you're worried about red, you must know that the red/orange in hendigo will *always* come out in some lightings. I always hated the orange tones in henna, and one time in my frustration about this I put so much indigo over it that it was a very dark gray indoors. Bluish gray with no red at all. It was sort of brown outside in sunlight. But when light would shine through it (bright light coming from behind, sunshine or artificial light), POOF, there the orange was again. No escape. So make sure you can live with that ;-)

ETA: link (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=58792) about the red appearing in hendigo in bright light.

Iris

I *have* used henna once before...in 1981. I have no idea what kind it was, and I'm sure I didn't use it particularly correctly, but I actually thought at the time that it looked good on me. But it wasn't screaming red, because my hair was still its natural fairly dark brown with only a sprinkling of gray hairs, so I got auburn. Because my hair is so much lighter now I feel like I don't have nearly the margin of error that I did then, when it was 1981 in New York City and I was still a student with brown hair. No one would have noticed if it had been green.

My mother hated it, which I felt at the time was a plus. I still think her dislike of it had more to do with associations she had with the concept of hair dye and redheads and less to do with how I actually looked at the time. Unfortunately most pictures of me from that era are in black and white.

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure that the fairly golden blonde I am using looks particularly good next to my skin either. There's a current face shot of me with no makeup at the end of my photo thread; see if you can see what I mean. I'm used to the gold by now but it's always seemed a little off to me. I don't use ash blonde because I don't really like that color, regardless of whether it might suit my skin tone a little better.

I think I'm going to try on some wigs and take pictures in sunlight and artificial light before I make a final decision. I have plenty of time to explore this because I haven't even ordered my henna/indigo/amla to start running my tests. I didn't find the computer software to add hair that was realistic enough to be of use, although the bright green was kind of fun to try.

Pani M.

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure that the fairly golden blonde I am using looks particularly good next to my skin either. There's a current face shot of me with no makeup at the end of my photo thread; see if you can see what I mean. I'm used to the gold by now but it's always seemed a little off to me. I don't use ash blonde because I don't really like that color, regardless of whether it might suit my skin tone a little better.
I went over to your photo thread (took a while because my own monitor is literally hanging by a thread and I'm happy if I can just read text on it - color display is asking too much of it). To me, the blonde does not look bad (and it's in fantastic condition and I love the bangs), but maybe you mean that you can tell from your skin and your eyebrows that you're naturally dark, not blonde? I do see that. I don't think the gold is a problem or that ash would be better, but I can tell your natural color is dark.

My favorite among your pictures is the one where you've just given birth - the contrast between the dark and the gray hair looks very sophisticated.

I also liked the asymmetric completely gray. I can sort of understand what you say about how it's cuter to be gray when you're really very young than when you're older. But - if this is a weird thing to say I hope you'll forgive me - I think you have the kind of face where looking young or old is really not the point. I can't tell in *any* of your pictures how old you are at that time. For all your pictures, I think 'woman who has personality' rather than 'x-year old woman'. Time somehow doesn't seem to be the most relevant thing in your look.

There was one with a chestnutty color that I thought looked good as well (which bodes well for the hendigo idea). And I liked the wig too.

Iris

That is way I let my hair go gray and at times I have mixed feelings about it.

<snip>To me, the blonde does not look bad (and it's in fantastic condition and I love the bangs), but maybe you mean that you can tell from your skin and your eyebrows that you're naturally dark, not blonde? I do see that. I don't think the gold is a problem or that ash would be better, but I can tell your natural color is dark.

No, it isn't the artificiality--in the literal sense--of the color. I don't mind having a look that is somewhat stylized--I do for example have permanent eyeliner tattooed on--and I would consider gold hair with dark brown eyes as a stylized look. My question was whether the specific gold clashes with my skin color, which I gather you don't see.

Thinking about this a little further, I think what I want to avoid the most if I migrate to a different color is a very "flat" look where there are absolutely no variations in color in my hair. I'm very streakily gray underneath the blond highlights, so I theorize that any henna/amla/cassia/indigo formulation that is dilute enough to be lighter than the remaining brown parts of my hair will leave me with enough color variation to provide depth.

<snip>I can't tell in *any* of your pictures how old you are at that time. For all your pictures, I think 'woman who has personality' rather than 'x-year old woman'. Time somehow doesn't seem to be the most relevant thing in your look.

There was one with a chestnutty color that I thought looked good as well (which bodes well for the hendigo idea). And I liked the wig too.


Well, that's actually rather comforting. Isn't there some expression about how at fifty, one has the face one deserves? The wig was a lot of fun, but I need to wear a lot of makeup to look good in pure black hair. And I can live with a hint of red, but no more than a hint. Which is why I'm running amla and henndigo tests.

Thanks for the comments, and the compliments.

Pani M.

Sounds like you're missing your youth, moreso than the actual color.. It's funny how something as seemingly mundane as hair color can mark distinct chapters in our lives.

I went brunette 6 months ago after being a (dyed) blonde for a few years. Can't say I really miss the blonde. It never really suited me to begin with, I thought. I just wanted to be a blonde because it's glamorous and everyone wants to be blonde at some point.

Sounds like you're missing your youth, moreso than the actual color.. It's funny how something as seemingly mundane as hair color can mark distinct chapters in our lives.

I went brunette 6 months ago after being a (dyed) blonde for a few years. Can't say I really miss the blonde. It never really suited me to begin with, I thought. I just wanted to be a blonde because it's glamorous and everyone wants to be blonde at some point.

You know, I've been thinking that too. I don't want to miss my youth...but it seems that I do. Feelings don't always have a point, though, do they?

Pani M.

I miss dying my hair red all the time, I looked really nice in it :(. I have warm reddish skin tone so it looked natural on me but I don't want to reck my hair again with dyes. I used to get tons of compliments and plus henna doesn't work on my dark brown hair also.

No, it isn't the artificiality--in the literal sense--of the color. I don't mind having a look that is somewhat stylized--I do for example have permanent eyeliner tattooed on--and I would consider gold hair with dark brown eyes as a stylized look. My question was whether the specific gold clashes with my skin color, which I gather you don't see.
No, I don't see it - I actually think the golden blond works better to get the stylized look than ash blonde would. I have a feeling ash blonde might wash you out.


Thinking about this a little further, I think what I want to avoid the most if I migrate to a different color is a very "flat" look where there are absolutely no variations in color in my hair. I'm very streakily gray underneath the blond highlights, so I theorize that any henna/amla/cassia/indigo formulation that is dilute enough to be lighter than the remaining brown parts of my hair will leave me with enough color variation to provide depth.
Yes, - and avoid repeated full-head applications, if you do those the color will end up even over time. (It's tempting to do full-head applications because of the conditioning aspect, but if you want to maintain natural color variation it's a bad idea).

I very much agree with the color variation being key when you go brown. In some of the pictures you had a very uniform dyed dark brown - I don't think they look as good as the ones where there's more variation.

Iris

No, I don't see it - I actually think the golden blond works better to get the stylized look than ash blonde would. I have a feeling ash blonde might wash you out.

Yes, - and avoid repeated full-head applications, if you do those the color will end up even over time. (It's tempting to do full-head applications because of the conditioning aspect, but if you want to maintain natural color variation it's a bad idea).

I very much agree with the color variation being key when you go brown. In some of the pictures you had a very uniform dyed dark brown - I don't think they look as good as the ones where there's more variation.

Iris

I'm thinking that even if I do repeated full-head applications of a golden color, I'll still get some variation because the gold won't "take" on the parts of my hair that are still dark brown, as long as they remain dark brown. I'll have to watch this. My mom's hair is now completely white, but I believe her mother (who died before I was born) had a pattern of gray similar to mine (mostly on the crown of her head, with dark hair remaining at the nape and otherwise under the canopy.

I got a lot of gold from my latest cassia application over the weekend, but there still seems to be some streakiness showing through, which is nice.

As I think through this it is easy for me to see how I got so hooked on adding "just a few highlights" every time I colored my hair. It does look good--then suddenly it's four years later and the highlights have swallowed up the rest of the color.

Pani M.

I miss dying my hair red all the time, I looked really nice in it :(. I have warm reddish skin tone so it looked natural on me but I don't want to reck my hair again with dyes. I used to get tons of compliments and plus henna doesn't work on my dark brown hair also.

It's a real dilemma, isn't it? :agree:

Pani M.

... Isn't there some expression about how at fifty, one has the face one deserves?

I love that quote! Here it is:

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve.