Okay, I have serious need of advice from you lovely haired people out there.
First, the backstory.
when i was 12, I dyed my hair burgundy for the first time. Beautiful, but well, I haven't seen this much of my natural color (5-6 inches of new growth)  since.  about  sometime around january 2006 I dyed my hair jet black (I was trying to look  "properly goth") I'd been keeping care of it and it was healthy and shiny, but... then in May I decided I wanted it purple.
Cue cosmetology student/best friend Stephanie, asking if she could do the coloring. Of course, this would involve bleaching out the black, but I trusted her. well, the first bleaching didn't take much color out at all. The second bleaching (on the same day) fried my hair and turned it a strange orange color, with dark brown, blonde and black streaks. Of course, at this point i figured out my poor hair was in no shape to dye that day. So i had to go to school for a week with freakish orange hair. :(!  well, i managed to get my purple anyway. I dyed it manic panic's purple color twice, about 2 months apart.

Now the purple has faded almost completely except for a few tinges in the dark brown left from bleaching my hair. has anyone else ever seen Manic Panic semipermanent color last almost a year?

Now, I come to my question. The orange has faded to the color in my avatar, but the damage is starting to show really clearly in the last 8 or so inches, and becoming more apparent weekly. My question is, how do I go about getting rid of the damaged areas, without taking off any more length than neccessary? I really don't want short hair again (a "stylist" once hacked it to chin length and it looked horrible!) but I also don't want to be one of those women with really long hair, that is in horrible condition. (Give us long-hairs a bad name, they do!)

Well, I don't want to bring you down,but if you can't bring yourself to cut off all the damage in one shot(Alot of people couldn't do that,including me)then take some of it off alittle at a time.  Damage doesn't get better,it gets worse unless you cut it off.  I know as well as alot of long hairs that it isn't easy to think about let alone do,but to have healthy hair; the damage has to go.  Reading about things to do and don't do here on the boards and also reading the"guide" here will help, if not ease any questions or panic,I hope. :)

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Posted by: Curlgirl64 Posted on: Yesterday at 5:09pm Damage doesn't get better,it gets worse unless you cut it off.  I know as well as alot of long hairs that it isn't easy to think about let alone do,but to have healthy hair; the damage has to go.

I have to agree with Curlgirl.  Despite what the marketing folks would have us believe (LIARS!! ..ahem), damaged hair cannot be repaired.  Find someone you trust with scissors, take a deep breath, and cut it off.  *hugs* :)

Poor Kiraela...I feel for you, hon. My hair was once ruined with "semipermanent" haircolour also.  :(  I had to cut my waist length locks to shoulder length just to eliminate most of what I was trying to get rid of. When my natural roots reached 6" in length, I simply cut off the rest of the dyed hair and started over. It was a traumatic experience, but these days, I look at it as more of a blessing in disguise. When I started all over again with virgin hair, I vowed to grow it back to waist length again...only this time, I'd take much better care of it.

And although I know that you probably don't want to hear it, I agree with the other ladies about cutting off as much damage as possible. And keep getting regular trims thereafter until all of the damage has been cut off and replaced with healthy hair.

Also...lol @ "properly goth." I wonder whoever put the idea into your head that black hair was a requirement for goths.  :-?  

Ditto...you'll have to cut it off to get back to having healthy hair.  Right now your decision is how much to cut off.  1/2 of the damage or (gulp) all of it at once and just start a new.
Its a tough decision most of us have faced at least once.

Its OK-being a longhair and belonging to LongLocks doesn't mean that we never cut or trim our hair.  Sometimes we just gotta do what we gotta do!

I agree also,  it is hard but in the long run it is best to remove all the damage.  I think the hardest decision will be to do it all at once or a little at a time.  

Debr

It wasn't the semi-permanent purple that damaged the hair... it was the bleaching to GET it to take purple that was the problem, :P.

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Also...lol @ "properly goth." I wonder whoever put the idea into your head that black hair was a requirement for goths.

It was, mainly the people I was associating with at the time, and well, I really just love long black hair. *shakes head* my natural color, now that I can finally see it again, is dark enough for me. the black really did look rather stark. gorgeous, but stark. I should have left it that way, rather than damage it so badly with bleach.  Lesson learned. NO MORE CHEMICAL DYES!!  I think I'm going to cut off quite a bit, not all at once though, simply because to get off all the dye damaged hair, I'd have to have a pixie cut. I looked Silly!!

Well, I"m taking the plunge today, in about half an hour, I'm getting about 2-3 inches trimmed... that's as much as my nerves can stand :-/ from here, I'm probably going to get 1/2 an inch taken off every 2 months. My hair seems to grow faster than average (7 inches of new growth in 8 months, with split ends, probably at least 8 inches) so it won't take too much length off.  
I managed to find someone I trust, due to the fact that she absolutely refuses to do "trendy" haircuts. Basically she only does trims for people in the neighborhood(everyone in this neighborhood, actually) and I've never seen bad work.

Not to mention, if she screws up, well... I know where she lives ;)

lol

Good luck, Kiraela!  :D

Hope it goes well for ya! :D