I'm bored with my current hair color.
I've been dying my hair since I was 17 because...well, because I could. It's been a whole spectrum of colors except blond, though at one point the light brown I once had came very close. I usually prefer the darker colors such as brown, burgundy and black. My current shade is a brown-black that came out more black than brown. I lived with it for a few months but lately I'm finding that as I gain my winter pallor, the tone more harsh than appealing. I've decided that today I'm changing it to a lighter dark brown to get it closer to my natural color, which based on my roots I suspect is a medium to dark brown. I've never really let myself let it grow uncolored long enough to be able to know for certain.
From experience, I know enough about hair dye to know that using dark brown over brown-black will have three outcomes: what little roots I have will take the color; the healthy dyed hair will lighten only a little; any areas of damage will become even darker. Ask me how I know.
So I have color remover in my hair as I type, which will (hopefully) remove all the dark tones in the next 30-40 minutes. I just checked and it seems to be working. Then I have to wash and dry it...and the instructions warn me that my hair will be a red/orange color. Then I can immediately recolor it to the dark chocolate brown that I purchased. I'm not expecting perfect color, but having a de-blacked base to work with will help considerably.
They did have a color remover that just removes the color and restores your hair to its natural (or thereabouts because hair color does make some irreversible changes) color, but I opted against it. It smells like sulphur and requires you to wash and rinse your hair repeatedly over 30 minutes. The product I'm using is more of a bleach, I suspect. I checked a section and it's working--at the least, the hair is looking lighter. Unevenly lighter, but I do have 15 minutes to go.
Hopefully this will work out well and I won't have a hair disaster, but if I do...well, it grows out, and I've lived with some really bad hair disasters before. The most memorable one is when I used a semi-permanent dye to give my hair an auburn hue. The hue was orange and persisted for years until it grew out, even peeking out in various degrees through other dye jobs. And if it's really bad, there's a professional salon around the corner who can make it look good while it grows out.
