I was born with almost white blonde hair. As I got older, my hair got darker and finally got to a medium-dark brown. After years of highlighting my hair a golden brown, I decided to go natural. I used a semi-permanent (not demi) to blend the highlights with the roots and that worked great. After about a year or two, I started to get bored of my now-mousy brown hair. I decided to do a red (cool burgundy wine type color to match my cool skin tone) semi-permanent. I mistakenly used a demi-permanent the first time (not realizing there was a difference) but I was very happy with the color. It did, however, make my hair a lot darker than it had been. When it began to fade and leave me with blotchy color, I did another red in the same shade, but used a semi-permanent. As time passed and the color began to fade, especially around my hair line, I decided I was done with the red. Simply wanting my natural hair color back, and knowing that I could not lighten my hair with anything semi-permanent, I decided to try Color Oops after reading several reviews. The box said it would work with semi permanent, but it did a terrible job. I left the bottom half of my hair the color I wanted it and the top half was an awful clown orange. At this point I had no choice but to use another semi permanent, this time choosing medium brown. At least two-three months have passed since I did this and my hair, while pretty and even in color, is very dark and I have been wanting to lighten it up just a bit for spring. I figured that the semi permanent had to have washed out by now, especially after using Prell to wash it out for the past couple of weeks. I used Garnier Ultra Color in Cool Brown (B1) to try to lighten it a bit. The box and reviews I read warned that it would not work on hair which had been "dyed" darker, but I assumed the semi-permanent had mostly washed out by now and was not really "dye" to begin with. It seems like the semi-permanent has NOT left my hair, as the dye really only took effect on my new "virgin" hair at the roots (luckily I didn't go a drastic color lighter, so I think I can live with it for now, but the roots are slightly lighter than the rest of the hair except the ends). From reading up on things, I have a feeling the semi-permanent "stuck" to my hair more than usual because I used it after the Color Oops so it was porous. I would love to have a professional get me back to my slightly lighter color, but money is a big issue for me right now so that is not possible. Any suggestions? I definitely don't want to damage my hair any further if that's at all possible. I don't want to drastically lighten my hair, just a little bit.

I would recommend you go to a beauty school. It will be cheaper than a full service salon and they will have skilled instructors there who can direct how your hair is managed.

I think you need to stop messing with it yourself. You have used so many different products, you could burn your hair and break it and still not get the results you want.

If you only want it slightly lighter, I think you should leave it alone. It will fade on it's own and be slightly lighter. Use temporary color until all the old hair grows out and you can cut the old multi-processed hair off. Then have a professional color it how you wan

Thanks for your reply but with the exception of the most recent color, none of the coloring I have done damages your hair. It's actually very healthy and shiny right now. I only want to get rid of this semi permanent color that seems to not want to go away!