hair dye and bleach question
I need advice on how to fix and even out my hair color at home for now. I am very aware that it won’t be fully perfect, but anything that can possibly help is alright for me.
My hair is naturally 4B to 4C (mostly 4C). Before bleaching it I had used L’Oréal box dye on my hair specifically Black Cherry and Midnight Violet. I first used box dye around September or October and then again around November. A few months ago (3 months) maybe a bit more my hair was bleached and colored by my friend. After that I had my hair in box braids for about 2 months and I just recently took them out.
After bleaching we used Strawberry Leopard Blue
for the “ghost” roots and Strawberry Leopard purple for the rest of my hair. The application ended up being pretty patchy all around since it was not professionally done but I did not really mind it at the time. When it was bleached only the front sections and parts of the back lifted to a yellow tone. And the blue most showed up in the front. A lot of the rest turned more of an auburn light brown color but there were also darker patches throughout so it was not evenly lifted.
After bleaching my curl pattern became a tiny bit more 4B in some areas but overall not a huge change. When I originally used the L’Oréal box dye I also noticed my hair became easier to detangle compared to before.
Now the color has faded unevenly and I still have leftover blue purple and some green tones in different sections.
My curl pattern loosened a little overall from all the coloring but not by a huge amount and I have had minimal shedding even after using box dye. Right now I have natural root growth plus all the leftover patchy color.
Also the photos I have were taken right after taking out my box braids and doing a quick wash before my full routine so my hair was not stretched or in its fully defined curly state yet and you can still see some braid pattern in it.
My goal is to make my hair color look more even and ideally get it lighter too. As of right now I cannot go to a stylist but I definitely will in the near future. I know this probably was not the smartest decision and I got a little too color happy 😭 but I just need advice on what I can realistically do now without making it worse. Would you use a color remover first would you do a bleach bath or full bleach or another dye over it? Should I focus on evening it out first and worry about going lighter later?
Any advice on the safest way to even this out, do a specific color that works best, or how to possibly lighten it would really help.