I Dyed My Hair Purple But It Looks Red

Okay, mistakes happen.

You were trying to dye your hair a beautiful purple bit it turned red instead.

What happened?

Why exactly did your hair turn red instead of purple and how do you fix it?

Don’t worry, it’s totally fixable. I will also give you some pointers on what to do next time.

You can color-correct it at home or you can go to a salon – I’ll tell you all your options.

Just read on.

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Why did my hair turn red when I dyed it purple?

It’s very simple, but there are multiple scenarios, so I will go through all of them.

Your hair wasn’t light enough to become purple

If you had yellow tones in your hair – or if your hair was dark brown and you didn’t lighten it lighter than orange, your hair would still have red tones in it.

You need to go lighter than orange, to a more yellower shade at least.

You have to keep in mind that purple is a mix of red and blue so purple dye already has red tones in it.

This means when you dyed your brown hair purple, it would mix with the red-orangey tones and become red or burgundy instead because the blue tones in the purple dye are not strong enough to overcome or overpower the red-orange tones in your naturally brown hair.

So, your hair is now burgundy or red.

How do you fix hair that turned red when dying it purple?

1. Do not top it off with purple unless you want a very dark purple shade

If you color your now burgundy/red hair with purple dye, it’s going to become a very dark shade of purple – it will look almost violet.

You can watch this video here on how she colored her burgundy/red hair purple and you can see the end result – it’s quite dark.

If you want to achieve this shade of purple, then go ahead.

You can use these 2 shades of purple to get a dark violet hair color:

Arctic Fox Purple Rain
Arctic Fox Violet Dream

Please note that the resulting shade will be very dark purple and you’ll probably only be able to see it clearly in sunlight – it will be very, very dark.

2. Do a strand test and color it blue

Now since your hair is red, coloring it blue should balance out the reds and get you a more defined purple.

But I don’t recommend diving in immediately.

Instead, do a strand test first.

Start by gathering all of the materials you will need, including the blue hair dye, gloves, a bowl, a brush or comb, and a small section of hair.
Take a small section of hair from an inconspicuous area, such as the back of your head or underneath layers of hair. This section should be about the thickness of a pencil.
Use the brush or comb to apply the dye to the strand of hair, making sure to cover it completely.
Allow the dye to sit on the strand of hair for the amount of time indicated on the package instructions.
Rinse the strand of hair thoroughly with cool water until the water runs clear.
Dry the strand of hair and examine the color. If it is the shade of purple you want, then repeat the process for the rest of your hair.

3. Use more bleach and color it purple

If you’ve just used bleach, then please wait 1-2 days before you do this because this will severely damage your hair.

Waiting 2 days will give your hair enough time to repair itself or lower the cuticles so that it can go through another bleaching process again.

If your hair was brown, it means that the bleach didn’t have enough time to remove all the color and the underlying pig/red hue has just resurfaced – that’s all it is.

Just leave the bleach in for no more than 30 minutes before washing it out.

If your hair now looks yellow or orange or light ginger, you can now use a purple with more blue tones in it like Directions Plum – this will cancel out some of the red tones in your hair and get you a nice deep purple.

4. Keep the red or shift to pink instead

I want to cover all the choices you have since sometimes people decide to make the best use of their situation.

If you’re tired of experimenting with your hair and you genuinely like the red, you can keep the red hair color, or you can color your hair pink.

Read this post to learn how to dye red-dyed hair pink.

5. Find a color correction expert

If all these methods sound overwhelming, just go to a hair care salon that specializes in colored hair (make sure you read all the reviews on Google first) and book an appointment to see a color correction expert immediately.

They will color-correct your hair beautifully and you can rest easy knowing that you are in good hands.

It’s honestly the best solution because you want to minimize damage and get the purple shade you are looking for.

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