Lots of bad home dyeing, tricky colour: what to ask salon? [LONG]

[monkeybird]

Dear SalonGeeks,

Hopefully you are able to advise me and I know the advice would have been 'DON'T TRY TO DO IT YOURSELF! EVER!' sometime last year when I started on the disastrous road but if you can help me get back to where I want to be i'd be really greatful.

Natural colour is a neutral, dark brown. Not especially reddish but ANY lightening at home brings up the orangey-coppery undertones which I absolutely hate. Now, for years I have assumed red/orange/auburn is my best colour, but recently I had colour analysis done and found I was - despite my very dark natural hair - a 'summer'. I had been told I was a spring/autumn for years and couldn't quite work out why I looked awfully dead in auburn/red shades...

The colour analyst suggested I needed much cooler tones for my hair, like a light ash brown or mink tones. When she wrapped my hair in those colour scarves my face looked FABULOUS! Now, I've had real trouble conveying this to salons because they just NEVER believe me. They take one look at my very pale skin, green eyes, and the reddish undertones that have come out in my hair and tell me I need 'warming up'! I am obviously not very good at explaining myself clearly...

So. I resorted to a long campaign of - ahem - experimenting myself at home, which I swore I'd never do because I knew really it would go wrong... I'd had warm highlights at a VERY expensive salon last spring (before the colour analysis) and they made me look like a washed out carrot within a week... So foolishly I tried a dark ash brown permanent. BIG mistake (you'll all be laughing into your mixing pots now...) because of course I immediately looked like a black-haired witch. So I bought a colour stripper, removed it (back to ORAAAAAANGE), and took Scott Cornwell's advice and used a semi, in a LIGHT ash brown. Bingo: this looked nice, natural and the right tone for my skin. But just a bit boring. So EVEN more foolishly, instead of going back to the salon I just thought I could plough on. Should add that I am middle aged and should know better but as part of all of this I also want to go lighter [getting greyer, want to try lighter tones in my hair - but not ORANGE!]

So my next mistake was to buy one of those home highlighting products in the permanent shade of the light ash to use once the semi had faded. Did the permanent base: lovely... Then did the highlighting. Of course, it was a disaster: simply returned my hair to its (now streaky) orange hue. So now I have too much bleached stuff.

I added a range of semi light ash tints to cover it up but now there's been some growing out, I've just got horizontal stripes of bleach, overdyed dark lower sections, dull roots with the grey showing through.

I would still - eventually like to aim for something sophisticated, cool with lightened bits - perhaps some light ash brown with cool highlights so eventually I can blend in the grey and even - is this ever possible? - try out being a blonde (albeit a v dark blonde...)

But for now I'm thinking I should just go back to the salon and get something like a vegetable dye semi to cover it all and improve the condition? Let it grow out then go back to the salon to start again?

So is this right? And if I do say wait for a year or two (or less? could I just let the overdyed ends grow out?), is what I want to achieve actually possible? And how do I ask for it without being unclear about what I want? Or is this disaster fixable sooner rather than later.

Thanks - sorry this was so long and i'm sure you've seen it all before but I would really appreciate any help you can give me to save me getting old looking like a bag lady...

 

[persianista]

Can I give you some real good advice? Find pics of the colour you want, and go to the best salon you can afford, who have a reputation for colour. Then put yourself in their hands.
Please stop trying to figure out how to do your colour, or how to tell a pro how to do your colour. Your suggestions are wrong (vegetable colour to cover grey????)
Nobody online can give you advice about your hair as we cannot see it or feel it. Both of which are massively important in deciding a course of action with colour correction.
Good luck, and let us know how you get on xx

 

[monkeybird]

Thank you. I've never been brave enough to take a photo, and I suppose I've just been anxious about getting what I want (because I'm too nervous to be clear) I DID go to the best colour specialist salon I could afford and it still didn't get me what I wanted. Does a picture make a difference in a high end salon? There is already the getting over the fact that the slim funky 20 year olds think a fat old mum like me shouldn't be gracing their salon. Presenting them with a picture of someone utterly gorgeous just serves to invite a few more knocks at my self esteem while they politely tell me it can't be done!

It's quite hard for some of us to ask assertively for this reason. Sounds pathetic but I've never felt anything other than terrified at the hairdresssers.

 

[persianista]

I run a chain of colour specialist salons. Some of my staff are slim twentysomethings. I promise you, they don't think that over 30 people don't deserve good hair. They simply wouldn't think like that. To them, you are just another client.

3 of us in my salons are not skinny twenty somethings, we are fortysomethings, and know our subject inside out and backwards. It would be worth booking a few consultations in different salons until you find a hairdresser you can relax with.