I have to make a video on these soon, I’m seriously AMAAAZED that I never heard about these products before, I sure could have used them in the past!
I was walking through Ulta the other day and saw this product called Color Oops that I had never seen before. Basically, it claimed that it could lift out hair dye and leave you with your natural color by shrinking color molecules or something so they just wash out without damaging your hair. Seeing as how I have been wanting to brighten up my color (and have been bleach shampooing my hair regularly so it wouldn’t damage it) I decided to get it and try it out, because what did I have to loose? Worst thing that could happen would be it didn’t work, and then I’m right where I left off.
I tried this out yesterday. You mix two products, then apply to dry hair and leave in for 20 minutes, and then rinse for like an hour (well, 15-20 mins, but thats a LONG time to rinse your hair!) and shampoo once or twice. FYI on this one: it smells. BAD. and STRONG. Day after and my bathroom still reeked. Also, you don’t get a ton of product, so if you have long or thick hair, I’d buy two (I wish I did!)
For reference, Here’s a picture of my hair before using this:
Still pretty dark, but the top 2 inches or so were a much brighter red, and the roots were showing through.
After using Color Oops:
It definitely helped pull the color out, as my hair was MUCH lighter (especially the top, it turned almost golden orange) but it’s nowhere near what my natural color is, so if you’re thinking its going to bring you back to that it definitely won’t. Since the rest was so dark, it made the ends a light-medium brown. Since there is an obvious color difference here, and because it wasn’t nearly as light as I wanted it, I tried for something quite a few of you recommended on Twitter: LOreal Color Zap.
Again, this is one I DEFINITELY recommend getting to bottles of if you have hair that is thick or long. I only got one and IMMENSELY regret it, as it wasn’t enough to cover all of my hair and there were a few spots on my hair that didn’t get saturated enough and were darker than the rest. This one doesn’t smell nearly as rancid as Color Oops, but more like ammonia or hair dye. This one I believe has bleach in it, because the base is a powder and it actually lightened some of my roots to WHITE because I wasn’t being careful. Anyways, this one you leave on longer depending what shade your hair is. Since mine was a medium brown, I left it on for about 40 minutes.
Here’s what it looked like after Color Zap:
Please ignore how frizzy my hair is in these pictures! I just blowdried it FAST to get it dry so I could dye it, and thats why it was a lion’s mane!
As you can see, that one removed the color REALLY well! And in this picture, you can see the lovely spot where I didn’t get enough of the product on, and it stayed a bit darker. AWESOME, right?
Another great thing with these products is that they’re gentle enough to allow you to dye right over your hair after using them, which is great because I really didn’t want to walk around with orange hair longer than I had to. I’ve been craving red lately, but I wanted to make it a bit more dimensional so I added an underlayer of purple. I used LOreal Hicolor Highlights in Magenta for the red (it’s supposed to be a highlight color for over dark hair, hence why its INSANE on light hair haha) and Pravana Violet mixed with Pravana Pink for the purple.
Here’s the end result!
I might go back and make the purple layer thicker because it isn’t nearly as much as I thought it would be, and I really like the contrast. I also am debating if I wanna go over the red again with a slightly darker color. It turned out a LOT brighter than I thought it would, and I was pretty careless when applying it (I was DONE with dealing with my hair at that point, and I honestly didn’t think it would turn out as nice as it did) but we’ll see!
OMG this is probably the most in depth blog post I have ever done, hahaha. Ah well, hope this was helpful to some of you!
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February 1, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Hey! LOVE your hair! Where do you purchase your Pravana colors? Are they professional only? Or can you find them at some beauty supply store?
February 1, 2010 at 4:06 pm
It looks GREAT!!!
February 1, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Dude if I could get away with that shade of red on my hair at my job i would sooo do it. I love it.
February 1, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Thanks for the tip !! I love your hair color . It looks good on you
February 1, 2010 at 11:28 pm
This was a lot of help…I recently died mine red hot.And it did not come out the way i expected.Its red hot at my roots and super dark red at the bottom…And i was told bleaching my whole hair was the solution….But hesitated…Too scared of bleach…This sounds better and less scary…I have a question?I want to add purple to my hair also….what should i do first?Bleach the section i want to color? and if i dye all my hair and want to put purple in how do i do that?which comes first?
February 2, 2010 at 10:32 pm
I was craving red too! and I used magenta too!!!! My hair was a bit darker since I didn’t have my hair stripped but we match!! I got too excited but wanted to share. ;D
February 3, 2010 at 9:08 am
seriously, you should try a strengthening treatment… i have super curly hair, color treated since forever, and i always blow it out then flat iron it….
KERASTASE PRODUCTS are a must!!! they are expensive BUT will make you’re hair look like silk. it’s worth a try! i would recommend their thermique nectar, oleo relax slim to blow it out, an in-salon ritual (which you can find online for way cheaper) their strengthening shampoo is amazing (bain de force). if you find a salon near you that sells their products they always have package deals. i know you’d get great results and your hair would look 300 times healthier!
February 3, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Hey, I’m from the UK and over here we’ve just had a hair colour remover released which is similar to these products called B4 it’s suppose to remove colour from the hair and after using a medium brown which went black I decided to try the extra strong strength designed for darker shades or colour build up and remove the colour it did the trick of removing the brown/black, but with having red in previously it left a horrible orange colour just a bit darker to that of how the colour oops left, but I think they still great products for first time hair dyers or for people wanting to lighten their dyed hair before going a different colour.
Your new hair colour looks really great though the purple looks really good with the red
February 3, 2010 at 3:40 pm
i looooooove the red=) looks aweome!!!
February 4, 2010 at 1:58 pm
the red looks WAY more intense than in the video. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PRETTY!!!!!
February 6, 2010 at 6:27 pm
I’ve got the loreal zap in my hair right now and it BURNS
February 6, 2010 at 8:22 pm
I’ve used Color Oops and it does have a really aweful smell. It will take your breath away. For me, the product didn’t really work but that is because my hair was dyed black and my hair is very porous so it hung onto the black hair dye. Next time I decide to lighten my hair, I’m going to try Color Zap.
February 7, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Now that your hair is red again can you do a product review on bumble and bumble’s hair powder in red. I hear it is what the lead singer of paramore uses in between washes and for root touch ups. Here is a link to it.
http://www.bumbleandbumble.com/product/spp.tmpl?CATEGORY_ID=CAT72&PRODUCT_ID=209
February 15, 2010 at 11:27 pm
I have a review on my site of the Bumble & Bumble red hair powder. You can click on my name to go to my site, but in short, I wasn’t impressed.
February 10, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Your hair looks fucking amazing when its red… I wish my would turn out that way
But I cant really bleach my hair to make it really really red… My hair cant stand me bleaching it.. last time I did I almost lost all my hair :O My hair is red now tho, but darker than that, much darker 
February 11, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Did you just put the Hi lights straight onto your hair after the color oops or did you mix it with a developer like you would normally do ?
February 18, 2010 at 7:50 pm
AWSOME! I didn´t know about them o.o so helpful
and your new hair color mix ended up amazing! BTW I love your “Little Mermaid” necklace =D
February 18, 2010 at 11:46 pm
I had a problem with dying my hair brown, I washed it out, and since SEPTEMBER, it’s STILL shedding D: I’m too afraid of hair dye to ever color it again. of course my hair was highlighted a month before, and flat ironed pretty much every day…
February 21, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Very nice product!
I was tryng to comment at the youtube, but it’s not working!
I loved your video about red hair care. We have much in commun!
I had many, many, many different kinds of hair. My? hair in naturaly straight, but it has long, short, red, purple, blue, half shaved, etc!
When I used Special Effects I had many tecnics to keep the color. One of them is the don’t wash tecnique! lol Sometimes I only washed with hair conditioner. It’s a good option. Now it’s impossible to do this, it’s very hot in here and my hair get oily.
Now I’m using red hair too, and I’m using Wellaton. I’m posting at my blog the resullts. This product promisses 6 weeks of birght color, and I’m having this results! In 2 weeks I’ll post comparative photos, so people can compare by themselves.
http://mandyemais.blogspot.com/2010/02/wellaton-sempre-vibrante.html
That’s not as red as yours, but that’s beacause I didn’t want to uncolor my hair, and it had black ink at it!
I loooove red hair! And with this hair dye my hair care is geting easear!
Byebye =D
Sorry if I made some mistake, but english is not my first language!
February 21, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Very nice product!
I was tryng to comment at the youtube, but it’s not working!
I loved your video about red hair care. We have much in commun!
I had many, many, many different kinds of hair. My? hair in naturaly straight, but it has long, short, red, purple, blue, half shaved, etc!
When I used Special Effects I had many tecnics to keep the color. One of them is the don’t wash tecnique! lol Sometimes I only washed with hair conditioner. It’s a good option. Now it’s impossible to do this, it’s very hot in here and my hair get oily.
Now I’m using red hair too, and I’m using Wellaton. I’m posting at my blog the resullts. This product promisses 6 weeks of birght color, and I’m having this results! In 2 weeks I’ll post comparative photos, so people can compare by themselves.
http://mandyemais.blogspot.com/2010/02/wellaton-sempre-vibrante.html
That’s not as red as yours, but that’s beacause I didn’t want to uncolor my hair, and it had black ink at it!
I loooove red hair! And with this hair dye my hair care is geting easear!
Byebye =D
Sorry if I made some mistake, but english is not my first language!
February 22, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Just FYI, anything with bleach IS going to damage your hair, even just a “bleach shampoo”, and products like Color Oops will damage it as well. I think in your red hair youtube video you mentioned “gently lifting out the color” with bleach shampoo. There is nothing gentle about bleach, and even with a small amount of bleach, repeated bleachings are really really bad for your hair.
That said, this color looks great and I enjoy your makeup tutorials!
February 25, 2010 at 6:14 pm
You should really look into deep treatments for your hair.
February 27, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Color removers only remove deposited color… meaning, it will not reverse any lightening due to bleaching or colors that use peroxide to lighten before depositing… it only removes the toning… It would be stupid to think you can reverse bleached hair. Even on the site (and probably on the box) for Color Oops it says: “Color Oops takes you back to your lightest shade. It can return your hair to its natural color if the artificial hair color applied is darker than your natural color.”
March 27, 2010 at 4:35 pm
you look like a raggedy anne doll.
April 18, 2010 at 1:29 pm
I really enjoyed reading this blog cause I’ve tried to do the exact same thing to my own hair (from black to bright red) a month ago… Sadly, it didn’t work out as good as yours, which by the way looks really, really amazing! But I’m still working on it, lol. By the way, you should try La Riche Directions, they have amazing colours, and even though they’re semipermanent (and don’t damage your hair), their red hues are very longlasting, especially on bleached hair!
April 18, 2010 at 4:37 pm
very nice hair color u have!! love it !!! <3
April 24, 2010 at 12:17 am
how many packets did you use of the red
May 13, 2010 at 2:48 pm
How do you think that color would turn out if I put it on already medium dark red hair. Im really considering it.
May 16, 2010 at 1:12 pm
I discovered color removers 2 years ago too, I’ve been using bleach with 10 volume peroxide before in order to remove color without burning out the hair. pretty awsome products.
May 18, 2010 at 10:43 pm
WOW! The hair is just awesome. Also, it needs to be said, the eye make-up is just down right phenomenal. I am about to dye my hair red, and I do mean R-E-D. Now I am inspired and may try the purple under because it just looks awesome. Not sure how well that will go over with the boss, but you never know.
May 19, 2010 at 3:50 am
i LOVEEE your hair like that.. color & style.. it looks awesome
June 18, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I ALWAYS use color zap and has never let me down. Color oops started to burn my scalp so bad after 5 minutes that I HAD to wash it out. And a little advice… don’t buy the hair color remover in the white box sold at drugstores; it gave me a chemical hair cut and there isn’t even enough to cover my short hair!
July 17, 2010 at 10:55 am
I used the color oops one and it made my hair like a weird blonde-ish color. I told my friend i did it, and her dad is a hairdresser and she got after me sooo bad for using it because it damages hair soo badly. So I haven’t used it since then and I’d suggest not doing it often because it strips hair very badly! Nice end color though, I wanted to do something like that.
July 22, 2010 at 7:57 am
hey there!
gorgeous colour, love the multi-dimensional shades!
I have a question, how dry and damaged was your hair AFTER the product? Did you have to do a conditioning mask afterwards? I am terrified of destroying my hair.
thanks,
devan
August 6, 2010 at 12:59 pm
I have natural super dark brown hair & i wanted to go light brown. I bleached & dyed my hair 2&1/2 weeks ago. I didnt like it @ 1st but then i started to. I still wanted a lighter shade so i dyed blonde (hoping it would lighten a little) Wrong! My hair looks orangy now
im thinking about using color oops or the LoReal & redying light brown. Im really afraid i will do irreversable damage to my hair. Any Tips??*
Ive never been on this site so heres my facebook link ( http://www.facebook.com/people/Quebec-Vasquez/753117817 ) i hope u can give me some tips
oh&& i love ur red =D
August 10, 2010 at 4:41 am
What your doing is AWESOME! I have bookmarked your blog and plan on passing it on to my two daughters. My hair was suppose to me a medium red but i have black streaks and unfortunately around my face where it is not very flattering for me…& i had this professional done!? I went for a redo,, hairdresser didn’t know why this happened…great eh? well, Mrs fix it is going to try your tip with Loreal color zap…i have long hair so i may require two-three boxes…you think this will require another person for help? thank you for your blog, i will check out your videos, love your make-up too, wonderful! BRAVO!! cheers, Audrey
August 25, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Thank you so much for this. My hair is black/dark brown and i have been wanting to go red for a while but just wasnt sure what products to use that wouldnt damage my hair too much. Im gonna attempt using the same products as you did over the weekend.