I have a little experience dyeing my hair, but now I've decided to take on the task of dyeing my husband's gray hair. There are some issues, and I'm really scared I'll screw it up. We can't afford to go to a salon either.

Here is the deal with his hair:

My husband has very long, curly and frizzy hair.

His natural shade, before going gray was a strawberry blonde with natural blonde highlights from the sun. Now his hair is coming in almost all gray with some brown mixed in and light blonde on the ends from where the sun lightened it before it turned gray.

He really likes that light blonde color, but I explained to him that we can't bleach the whole head blonde or he will look like Bret Michaels. I said we could color it a darker blonde and then add light blonde streaks and he doesn't want to do that for fear of looking like a girl. I understand that.

I originally thought that a medium blonde color would be the way to go. So I bought Clairol Gray Solution in Medium Golden Blonde. I did a strand test on a lock of dark brown/gray hair and it came out a medium mousy brown. I am afraid the whole head will come out like that, and that is definitely what we don't want. To go from blonde to brown will be too drastic of a change.

So I am thinking about trying a lighter blonde. Can you lighten dark gray hair? I still haven't had that question answered in all my searches. Will a regular dye kit lighten the brown? I think what we really want here is multidimensional color, several shades of blonde, but natural, not streaked. I don't know if I can get that with an at home color kit and I know that gray can be tricky.

Please help me before I do something very bad to his hair.

You can lighten dark gray hair. However, if it's gotten real dark, it will end up "brassy". Everyone wants what you're specifying: several shades of blonde, but natural. It's tough to achieve.

I think your original idea of coloring it a darker blonde (single-process haircoloring) and then adding very thin blonde streaks in it (with bleach) will be the best overall look. You don't want thick streaks, or it will look "like a girl". If you make them very think you'll get the look you're trying to achieve.

Here's a site that may help:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/503669/

Thanks for the advice. I think I'm going to use the medium golden blonde that I originally bought and then bleach in the thin streaks as you suggested. What product should I use to do the bleach?

Be careful of "golden" shades. They tend to turn quite yellow (too yellow). Ash shades can turn out to appear gray, but for people who lighten a lot, they need that extra violet to counteract the yellow.

As for the bleach, there are many. Clairol Born Blonde has a series of three: Ultra Blue, Maxi Blonde, and Original Formula. If his hair is quite light, the Ultra Blue will work. Otherwise, either of the other two. The Ultra Blue and Maxi Blonde formulas are blue bleaches. The other is a white bleach. They work the same, but sometimes the blue bleaches can mask the yellow while you're coloring. L'Oreal makes SuperBlonde. Clairol also makes 7th stage. This requires you to purchase developer and "activator packets" separately. You use one to three activator packets depending on how much "lift" you need. Use 20-volume developer (6% in Europe). Any of these will work. Bleaches aren't really all that different.

Do some strand tests. You don't need to clip the hair from the head to do these tests. In fact, I think it works out better if you don't.

Thanks for that. I didn't realize I could leave the hair on the head to do a strand test.

Put a piece of aluminum foil underneath it to separate it from the rest of the hair.

How should I do the streaks? With a cap & hook or a brush (that's scary) or the foil method that my hairdresser used on me?

Its your choice, but a cap often is the easiest on short hair.