Help! My natural hair color is a med. Brunette w/ golden highlights in summer. I had a lot of extra highlights added last summer, but eventually felt washed out and decided to go darker since I get pretty pale in winter. I had a stylist dye my hair burgundy and she didn't fill it and used a semi-permanent. It washed out quickly and faded to what my husband called a Ronald McDonaldish red. I tried to get it back to how it looked right after the salon and I used a permanent color with a lot of violet. It actually looked better than the first time, but since has faded and I just want to go to a rich chocolate color and ease back to my natural color. I know I'll still have some red peeking through, but don't want it to turn green or black. My mom's dyed her hair a million times and always says it'll turn out darker than the box. I've also learned this the hard way. I think I would need a natural/neutral color because ash'll turn green tint and warm more orange, but not sure. Should I strip color w/ color oops and or fill first? Use semi or permanent color? My one year wedding anniversary is tomorrow and I really want to look pretty, especially since I cut my hair off a while ago because he likes short hair and it was healthy but not too much anymore :( Appreciate the feedback from experienced Cosmatologists, Thanks :)

You can strip your hair which uses chemicals. Then dye over it with the desired color. It will lesson the show through of the under color and help to ensure that the permanent color is closer to the desired shade. Then it will be best advised to do a deep conditioning. If you are doing this all yourself you can find all of these things at Sally beauty supply stores or walmart/ or like stores sell the striping kits as well as box dyes and you can use I hirer end hydrating conditioner (suave professionals humidant conditioner is quite good for a reasonable price) and leave it on your hair for about 15 minutes and do not wash it out completely. This will help protect your hair from further damage. Try to also stay away from blonde base or light Brown colors as the higher content developers they contain will only add more damage