Vitamin C Hair Color Remover

Ongoing hair disaster backstory:
Natural color- matronly field mouse. Length- just past shoulders. I've used 8.5N (champagne blonde) box color from the drugstore forever. It wasn't working like it used to, the color was sort of dark and muddy. I decided to go to Sally Beauty Supply and buy professional dye, thinking it would 'work better'. I bought ion brand 8N, and Volume 20 developer.
This was upon the advice of the employee at Sally's. Feeling pretty good, I took it home and used it.
Professional grade hair color results:
OMG! Nope, nope nope. It was NOT level 8 neutral color. It was dark chocolate brown. So, I panicked and turned to the internet for help. Found the vitamin c treatment.
Vitamin C- first try:
To be fair, I didn't use actual vitamin c. I was at home, it was night, I was in a panic, and I happen to have citric acid in my pantry for canning. I figured it was almost the same thing as vitamin c, so I mixed a couple spoonfuls with some baby shampoo and applied to dry hair, and left it wrapped in plastic for about an hour. I didn't get much of a result, but I did see a little dye rinsing out. It lightened by less than one level I'd say.
Vitamin C- second try:
The next day, I bought vitamin c tablets and dandruff shampoo. Ground about 50 pills in a coffee grinder, mixed it with the shampoo to pancake batter consistency. I washed my hair with the dandruff shampoo and towel-dried it and applied the solution to damp hair. Wrapped it plastic, left in on about an hour. I didn't see any dye rinsing out, but it worked to lighten my hair at least one level. Side note: My hair. Is. Orange. There's so much red-orange in my hair now it's crazy. Seriously, it looks like I did it on purpose. I'm gonna go with that if anyone asks.
Vitamin C- third try:
Next day. I ground about 60 tablets up and mixed it with the dandruff shampoo. I applied it to dry hair, but it was so sticky that it wouldn't really distribute well, so I sprayed my goobered-up hair with enough water to create enough lathering to where I felt like it was distributed evenly. Wrapped in plastic, left on for an hour. I read that rinsing for a long time is key in this endeavor, so I I rinsed for probably ten minutes in the shower. It lifted probably one more shade. Still mighty red. Still don't love it.
Thoughts:
I might try this again to see if it lightens any more. I want to get back to the color I originally wanted which is a neutral/cool blonde, but now I'm not sure how to get there. I'll probably go back to Sally's and ask what kind of dye I need now. I want this red OUT. I don't know how to do that either. Bottom line, though, I want to use professional grade products and do the color myself. I just need the RIGHT products. I need help figuring out what to buy.
This process really stripped buildup off my hair. The ends of my hair dried out a little, and my hands dried out a lot. But my hair is really super soft and has more body than before I did the vitamin C stripping. And a couple oil treatments will fix the dry ends.

I don't know why my hair is so friggin red. I don't know what to do about it. I don't know if I should try to strip more color out or try to dye over what's already here. I don't know if I need to get this red out before I try to dye it again. Sally's is about an hour drive for me, so it's not like I can just pop in and ask questions. I'm pretty disappointed with... everything hair related right now.

I was really nervous to try this and pictured coming out of the shower with orange, straw-like hair. The truth couldn’t be further from that. I had years of box dyed dark brown and black hair. 45 minutes of the vitamin C/head and shoulders mixture took the severity of the dark shades out of my hair. I now have some of my natural red tones back and my hair looks very natural. My hair feels soft and extra full of body, but it was in very good condition to begin with. I followed rinsing the mixture out with a heavy duty salon conditioning mask (left on for a few minutes) so I’d recommend something like that just to be on the safe side. The great thing about this method is it’s inexpensive and there’s not a cosmetic company behind the advertisements. All reviews are by people who have no vested interest in pushing the product.

I have naturally medium brown hair and decided to dye it black. Although i loved the colour on me, I decided I wanted to grow my natural hair colour out. Its been two years and you can imagine the contrast and line of demarcation. My hair is long and i didn't want to cut it to remove the dyed parts. I also didn't want to try any harsh chemical s on my hair (colour removal). So I was doing research and came across the vitamin c and dandruff removal. I got excited at first because it seemed to really work for people BUT then realised that most of the reviews were of people that had just dyed there hair so the dye was still pretty fresh, so I thought no point, it wont work. So I left that idea, UNTIL last night. I was getting desperate to get this colour out of my hair, so I thought what the heck - just try it. I put some water in a spray bottle - to dampen the hair. Took 500 mg of vitamin C tablets- about ten of them - crushed them with a rolling pin and added Jameson anti dandruff shampoo from Holland and Barrett - consistency was thick and I applied it to my mid lengths. I combed it through - massaged it into my hair. Then I took my hair dryer and blasted it with heat for a few mins and then the shower cap went on. I left it about an hour before i decided to rinse. PEOPLE I was shocked - brown pigment was coming out, i couldn't wait to dry it to see what it looked like. Finally i dried it and I was amazed - it was so much lighter and the colour blended in so well into my natural hair colour!! I didn't expect to see much result on 2 year old dyed hair !! I will be repeating the process and leaving it longer - since I have virgin hair under the black - cant wait to see what round 2 will bring. I highly recommend to try this.

I have had black hair again now for 4 all over colorings. One blue-black, blue-violet, blackest black, to the last one 3 weeks ago. In the color black. I left mine on for too long. I watched many videos and read many articles. For a couple of weeks. Some left it overnight. I decided to do it for 5 hrs. BIG, BIG mistake! I'd advise rethinking that kind of time is better. I actually got burns on my ears. Nothing major. But, enough to make them peel for a few days. That was my own fault. Not thinking how acidic it was. Well, I had decided to do color oops extra strength a week later. To make sure my hair was healthy enough to do so. I did the treatment twice in one day. It had come out a reddish copper color with still some black. Which i knew it wouldn't be super light in any way. At least for the way my hair is. Is this another factor some of these girls haven't considered? My next step is to see how long you can do this treatment after the color oops. Now, mind you I had done color oops in the past. With good results. Dumb ass I wanted to go blonde. As I've seen most people with black hair wanting to go blonde. I was told by someone at my sally's store where I live. To use a 20 developer with a color that was to lift 4 times the color. Yeah, that turned out a disaster and fried my hair. Another thing I knew probably would have happened. But, was too impatient to wait. So I grew it out some and got a stacked bob. My hair grows quick and repairs itself quicker than most. I'm lucky in that standpoint. Then I did the big mistake of going back to black. I had black hair for 15yrs beforehand. So now i
have a dilemma of whether to do the vitamin C treatment or go to a professional. Which, of course, I'm going to hear. GO TO A PROFESSIONAL. I feel I've been doing my hair and others for years. But I'm not a licensed professional. I don't know as much, of course. Pretty much rinsing is a DEFINITE must. That's where so many go wrong and lose their patients. I've been guilty of that also. As I believe we all have at some point in time. So now that I have rambled on. I just need to know if i can try this treatment one more time. To see what will happen. I might end up with splotchy hair. where right now I'm able to live with what i have right now. Does anyone have any advice or tips on this? As I have done enough for my poor hair as is.

I have a lot of my permanent hair color from years of coloring (I'm 100% white hair under the color). Granted my hair just touches my shoulders so hair color is probably five years old. I had brassy red, orange hair. This the 2nd time I did this, leaving the Vit.C and clarifying shampoo on a whole hour. Rinsed in warmest water I could stand washing three times with Antidandruff shampoo. I followed up with a blue shampoo and conditioner. Now I'm a 9 light blonde with a tiny hint of strawberry. So, girls, it's worth a try.

It works pretty well but makes my hair and and scalp feel dry.

After reading for hours about vitamin C vs Color Oops, I decided to do a strand test with the vitamin C/ Head and Shoulders method and it worked! I crushed about 35 500 mg vitamin C tablets into a powder in the Cusinart. I used the powder to make a slurry with some travel size Head and Shoulders. I wrapped my head in plastic and covered it with a towel (for heat) and waited an hour. I then rinsed the heck out of my hair to encourage the color molecules off my hair and down the drain. It lifted years of permanent dark brown dye at least 1.5-2 shades. I’m so shocked! You don’t have to bleach your hair to lighten it! Also, my hair feels better than it has in many years. I was so worried about this damaging my hair, but intstead it lifted all the color and crud that’s been accumulating for years. My hair feels like it did when I was a child! I want to add before and after pics, but I can’t see a way how to 😊

Update: I just lowered from 5 to 4 lippies. Here’s why. I was so pleased with the first treatment and how great my hair felt that I did another to try and remove any remaining/ residual color. This time I left it in for close to 90 minutes and while my hair color is fantastic (I was planning to recolor, but I love how it looks), my ends are noticeably fried. Oil treatments and deep conditioning have done nothing, so I’m going in to get them trimmed off. It’s not really a big deal to me, but I don’t think I will ever do 2 treatments again. The fact that this method can lift so much color should probably have been an indication that it had the potential to be harsh. I don’t regret it because I love the color and I get my chin length hair trimmed once a month anyway. I have fine hair, so maybe that had something to do with it.

This has always worked for me. Most notably the time a "friend" pushed me to let him dye my blonde hair red, of course I really hated it and it didn't look right on me. Then I read about this online. I always use suave clarifying shampoo and leave it on for an hour. It's never failed me. With the red, it took me back to a golden warm blonde. I also once made my hair too ashy gray green and this technique took all that ickiness away easy peasy. I've suggested this multiple times to other people and it's always worked for them too.

This method isn't going to be quite as effective as bleaching your hair, but it does work and it's a heck of a lot better for you. I used this method when a demi-permanent hair color turned out a lot darker than I expected, and four months later it still hadn't faded. Tired of how severe it looked, I decided to give this technique a go.
Using a rolling pin, I crushed about fifty vitamin c pills in a plastic baggie and then mixed it with however many globs of cheap shampoo would satisfactorily cover my hair. I left it in my hair for about an hour and then washed it out. Previously, my hair was a very dark red-brown, bur it lightened to a medium auburn color, which was much more flattering on me. My hair was also in excellent condition, no dryness or brittleness. I'll definitely use this method again.

MY HAIR: My natural color is dark ash brown but for the last 2 years I was dying them black(what was I thinking?) .I desperately needed a change so I bleached some highlights which ended up dark orange and then I dyed my whole hair dark red. I repeated this color for a couple of months.

THE PROCESS: I read about the vitamin c as a color remover online so I decided to try it.I crashed 30 pills of 1500mg and mixed it with a cheap shampoo.Remember to wet your hair before you apply it!I left the mixture on my head for two hours and then rinsed very well(5 min rinsing also an important step!)with warm water. My hair was one shade lighter and the red had faded alway almost completely!I repeated the process the next day and my hair is now 2 shades lighter, I got rid of the biggest amount of the red and now I can apply normal light ash brown dye.

CONCLUSION: -It doesn’t work as a bleaching product but as a color remover.This means it won’t work on natural color hair and it won’t light the dyed hair more than 1-2 shades per application.
-It works even if you the last time you dyed your hair was 2 months ago, but the more recent the dye, the better it will strip the color in one application.
-You can repeat this process as many times as you like but give your hair a break in between.
-It doesn’t dry the hair like a bleaching product but you definitely will need a good conditioner after.
-Remember to rinse very well(5 min at least)with warm water.
-You will probably need to re-dye your hair after this process if you want a rich high end color, because this gives a more orangish result.