To Color or Not to Color

Okay so I am all about the do-it-yourself, I’m usually the first one to say “ohhh you can do that yourself it’s easy you just...”, but when it comes to coloring your hair you might want to seek professional help. Recently my sister and I were shopping and she was picking up some hair color. I thought to myself well if she's doing it maybe I want to do it too. ABORT MISSION! I wish someone slapped my wrist and looked me in the eyes and said "NO KAYLA, JUST NO". I decided to take the gamble and attempt... (now this is where you'll get a glimpse of my arrogance) to color my hair *gulp* lighter. 

Yes ladies and gentleman I did, I purchased a dark golden blonde hair color and plastered it over my mousy brown locks. I have never used a permanent hair color before, and sadly it was not the last. When I removed the towel from my hair I burst into a fit of laughter, not like ha ha funny laughter, I mean like crazy lady on the street laughter. I couldn’t stop myself, I kept laughing and laughing; my hair was orange and when I came out to show my family they looked worried. My mom (god love her) kindly suggests going back into the shower and washing it out with some shampoo; thank you mother. It was a drastic transformation; after I blew it out it was still quite red, but no longer orange.

I chose the phone a friend option, I knew she just had similar experience, and would understand. Her advice: put an ash blonde on top of it and it should even me out. Phew! okay I took her advice stored it in my back pocket for later because I didn’t want to take any more chances. I'm usually quite fearless, but not with my hair. If you look at my grade nine year book, my hair is almost the exact same as it is now. I phoned another friend, the nice little lady who works at Shoppers Drug Mart. She answers the phone: “Shoppers cosmetics how may I help you” I don’t beat around the bush “I have a crisis” and persisted to explain what happened. Her advice matches up with my friends, so I head out to purchase yet another box of hair color: dark ash blonde this time please. 
Apparently everyone ALWAYS thinks that ash will make your hair red, well they couldn’t be more wrong. Ash actually has green in it says shoppers-drug-mart-angel-lady, and because it is opposite on the color wheel so it combats red. So if you are blessed or cursed with having red hues in your hair like me then ash hair color will help balance you out and prevent you from needing to join the circus. WHY WHY WHY couldn’t someone have told me this before? It should be on the box or something I mean like geez Louise. 
So after two at home boxes of hair color, I am slightly lighter and still slightly redder, and and no where near what I desired. I'm debating whether coloring my hair three times in one week will make my hair fall to the floor like an avalanche. So the lesson learned here ladies and gents is that if you are going lighter sometimes it’s better left to the professionals, and when faced with crisis just laugh it off; it’s not worth the stress. For every action there is an opposite reaction.

Crisis averted,
sp


Photo Cred: http://www.zimbio.com/Hair+Dying