Unred–Part II of my hair saga

I don’t know if anyone really cares about this stuff—I guess it’s more for me to put what I have learned. My genetic predisposition to have my hair age and gray in my 20’s is at the root of all this. I swear, if I didn’t have the hair of a 50 year old woman, I wouldn’t even touch it.

First, I thought I tried to go blonde. I’m too scared to buy actual bleach and processor and try it on my own. I tried these, John Freida Go Blonder:

 

Didn’t see much results from the Shampoo or Conditioner, but the spray is sort of like glorified sun-in. The directions say for light brown or lighter hair only. I am still in denial that I am not blonde. I used to be:

 

For a very long time I was a dark blonde/light brown. After my last pregnancy, my hair turn darker so my natural hair color is a medium dirty dish water brown.

The Go Blonder made my hair look like this:

Not bleached enough to get past the orange stage. The orange was very unflattering for my skin. So I finally have to accept the sad truth that I am not a blonde.

So tonight, I went back darker, with a plan to confront the red that my hair just LOVES to hold on to. I used these:

 

I really like John Freida’s color line—they are very generous with their dye so I’m not scraping the bottle to get the last bit of color out to cover all my thick/long hair. This is Light Ash Brown (Tip: get a shade lighter than you want because dyes usually come off darker, or be ready to process for less time) I also used a little packet of color corrector that some how magically cancels out red tones. I’ve used this brands red/gold corrector before. This one I didn’t like as much because it was thick/glopy and turned the dye a very scary black—that’s what it does, but it doesn’t change the color black. It worked though.

This was the end product—it definitely cut out the red tones. I’m one happy woman tonight to think I have figured out how to get my hair a flattering natural looking color.

 

Here’s a before, if you don’t remember what I was coming from:

Aaaaaah! RED!!!