Before/ After/ After the After

I call this the, You don't know what you got 'til it's gone" hair color session:

This is my natural color. I took this picture because I wanted to go 1 or 2 shades lighter and I needed to be able to see what I was working with.

I bought the hair dye after an extended period of pondering in the isle reading boxes looking for just the right "cool" "ash" shade so that it wouldn't turn out brassy. But ultimately, I chickened out about doing it myself because I knew I may end up turning it red and this time I wanted light brown. While I actually have a pretty extensive knowledge base on the whole world of dyed hair, especially the red family (see Tracy circa 1990-2000) I know that the red shade in general, like natural red-heads, will do what it wants.

Anyway, I ended up going and getting it "professionally" done. Let me just say, had the hairdresser just been honest and said yes, it did turn out red and offered to help me fix it I would have been fine. But instead she lied and kept telling me I was wrong and that it was brown with "golden" highlights. Then blamed the lighting and finally said we all see color differently, implying that I was seeing color wrong. Apparently, she and the guy working next to her are the ONLY people who see color correctly because not one person who noticed my new hair told me it looked brown.
I should have gotten a shot in natural light for the full effect but you get the point.

So I did crazy planning for the fix, cutting at least half a dozen chunks of hair for strand tests - which I think I've done them as often as I've checked my gauge over the years - buying multiple shades and spending a lot of time playing mad-scientist with the Pyrex dishes. Ultimately, it was Nice N' Easy (the first brand I ever used, how sweet) that was my salvation.

In less than a week, with 3 boxes of hair dye un-returnable and 3 back at the store, and having spent far too much money at the hair-dresser to end up doing it myself, I present to you "back to my original (almost) hair color".


Sigh. These things happen, I suppose, but now all is well.