Hi. My hair is currently a medium natural brown with lighter golden highlights. I'd like to darken it a bit, but not too much, to a rich, chocolate brown (think Mary Louise Parker in Weeds maybe?). I'm not sure which brand or shade of color to use because i don't want it to turn red. ( the last time i used a golden brown it looked red -- why??) I will not go to a salon because only once in my life have i found a hairdresser who was a pro with color. Mostly they get it wrong, and not just a little wrong, but altogether wrong color, wrong. Any suggestions for doing it myself? I'd like to try a semi-permanent.... Thanks so much!!!:)

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Originally Posted by saintsvalentine

Hi. My hair is currently a medium natural brown with lighter golden highlights. I'd like to darken it a bit, but not too much, to a rich, chocolate brown (think Mary Louise Parker in Weeds maybe?). I'm not sure which brand or shade of color to use because i don't want it to turn red. ( the last time i used a golden brown it looked red -- why??) I will not go to a salon because only once in my life have i found a hairdresser who was a pro with color. Mostly they get it wrong, and not just a little wrong, but altogether wrong color, wrong. Any suggestions for doing it myself? I'd like to try a semi-permanent.... Thanks so much!!!:)

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I would use a glossy semi-permanent colour like loreal colour gloss crème in medium brown. The dark brown would come out almost black especially if you leave it on for longer than it says to. Deffinately use a semi because if you don't like it and you use a permanent colour you will not be able to get rid of it quickly and always go a shade lighter than you think because it is easy to go a little darker afterwards. If you want to get rid of your highlights you will have to put the colour on them first although I think if you put the colour on all over at the same time then you will end up with a chocolate brown with honey like highlights but they will be very subtle. Hope that's helped.

This is a question for the person who responded to you... do you not need to add a "filler" colour i.e. gold or red to add the colour back in that was lifted in the first place to achieve the brown?

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Originally Posted by s4llyc

I would use a glossy semi-permanent colour like loreal colour gloss creme in medium brown. the dark brown would come out almost black especially if you leave it on for longer than it says to. Deffinately use a semi because if you dont like it and you use a permanent colour you will not be able to get rid of it quickly and always go a shade lighter than you think because it is easy to go a little darker afterwards. if you want to get rid of your highlights you will have to put the colour on them first although i think if you put the colour on all over at the same time then you will end up with a chocolate brown with honey like highlights but they will be very subtle. hope thats helped.

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I don't think Loreal has a semi perm. Colour... aren't they all premanent?

U really bashh colorist huh? I'm sorry you've had a bad salon exprrience!that makes phenomenal colorist as myself look bad! So my first advice is to disregaurd the other answers you have gotten as they are inaccuratte! To do yourself you must determine your natural level!this can only be seen at your new growth! Your quote natural hair color does not mean the color on your ends!look at your scalp and your new hair! What color is it? What level is it? Find a hair swatch w natural levels to be a reference for you since your uneducated in this field and can't tell just by simply looking as us colorist can! The swatch should read something like 2n 3n 4n 5n etc! Match yourself up w that! Now your ready2pick your color! If you want it slightly darker chose a color a number level darker than what you determined your natural was! If your wanting rich brown your color must contian a bit of gold pigment! I only deal w salon quality products so cannot advise you on box color titles or number references as I feel all box color is damaging and cheap! However whatever you pick just remember only one shade darker than your natural and must contian a bit of gold! And you want deposit only color! Ur hair will not turn red! Do not worry about your existing highlights! It does not and will not make the color you put over it darker!as someone above suggested! And a filler is not needed! A filler is used on platinum hair when going darker to add pigment of gold and or copper back into the hair! This ensures the pigment holds on that extremely porous hair and distributes evenly! However that's not your case@all! And you mentioned your highlights were a bit golden anyhow so no worries! Just apply the color to your new growth first! This means the first inch or so of your hair starting from your scalp! After that apply to midshaft and ends! Wait 15 min or whatever that stupid box advises! The color will not get darker and darker as its on! That's a lye! It stops depositing overtime and only consist of so much pigment! So no worries! It won't go super dark if left on long! It won't turn red! And it will cover fine over your highlights! Do not apply to highlights first! That's stupid! It doesn't matter!

So if you have Platinum colored hair and the stylist did not use a filler would it not hold the color or turn gray and green? I am going back to the stylist today to fix my hair... I wanted to add some low lights to my platinum hair and it turned both gray and green near the ends and the stylist didn't even even the top foils on long enough to even process the low lights on top... which left it a weird yellow tint. He used a number 7 if that has anything to do with what you were referring to earlier... what can I tell him?

First of all, it sounds like stylist 101 was spending more time defending his/her profession than actually helping. I've had some difficulty with colorists not coming through with the color I'm looking for either. Probably because they are matching to my roots and not taking into account they will be dying over dye for the rest of my hair. This changes your results regardless of your natural color.

I typically go to Sally's and purchase my own dye and developer. Which, yes, you need a developer if you are actually intending to dye your hair. Using only the color will simply 'tone' it. I use a level 10 developer, which is the lowest available and least damaging. I agree with s4llyc on the medium brown selection. You can always go darker if it's not quite dark enough. I find even using a permanent color with such a low level developer, my color does still eventually fade after many washes. (Which is fine, it's less damaging.) Ion is a very low damage hair dye available at Sally's and is used in many salons.

For the blonde highlights, you can also purchase a protein filler at Sally's which will help the color 'stick' to the highlights so to speak. Hair dyed blonde typically does not hold color well and will turn funky colors if you don't use the filler.

Hope this helps!

Stylist101 knows what s/he's talking about. I would go with his/her suggestions if I were you. There are good colorists out there, and the key is to communicate to them what you want, and ask them to fix it if you don't like the end of result (or if you give it a week or 2 and still decide that you don't like it). The colorist should be willing to fix it for free to exactly the way you like it. They're the pro's, and know more about how to achieve a certain colour than us & our guess & tests. Do you want your hair to be a huge experiment? I tried to box-dye my hair from brown w/ blonde streaks to a dark brown. It faded out to have yellow/orange/green tints in it. Huge mistake. My colorist had to redo my whole head. I personally don't want my hair to be a huge experiment (anymore!), and would rather someone knowledgeable work on it for accurate results, and less damaged hair (as I do believe that salon hair dye, especially a good colorist's, is a lot less damaging than box-dyes.) So find a good hair colorist, and stick to them. The better you communicate to them, the better results you will get.

Stylist101 knows what s/he's talking about. I would go with his/her suggestions if I were you. There are good colorists out there, and the key is to communicate to them what you want, and ask them to fix it if you don't like the end of result (or if you give it a week or 2 and still decide that you don't like it). The colorist should be willing to fix it for free to exactly the way you like it. They're the pro's, and know more about how to achieve a certain colour than us & our guess & tests. Do you want your hair to be a huge experiment? I tried to box-dye my hair from brown w/ blonde streaks to a dark brown. It faded out to have yellow/orange/green tints in it. Huge mistake. My colorist had to redo my whole head. I personally don't want my hair to be a huge experiment (anymore!), and would rather someone knowledgeable work on it for accurate results, and less damaged hair (as I do believe that salon hair dye, especially a good colorist's, is a lot less damaging than box-dyes.) So find a good hair colorist, and stick to them. The better you communicate to them, the better results you will get.

I just colored my hair a level 5 chocolate brown, and even added an un-red additive packet, use 10 vol developer... hair is auburn red!! I don't get it. I started with light/medium brown :( and when I went to sally, I even got help, telling the girls "my hair always pulls red! im tired of the top of my head being red. show me what to buy so its choc brown and not red!" and now I'm red. Crap!

@joynichole, I own a salon and I consider myself good at color, and color correction, everyone tries to "box color" to save a buck, and that's understandable, BUT you really need to know how color works. The different levels, and base colors that make up a "color" such as chocolate brown or stoplight red etc. ALL colors have a base color, and in salon grade products its directly on the package what it is, 3N, 7G, 6RB, A, and so on each letter means something. (neutral, gold, red brown, ash) when you buy box color you have NO idea what the base color is, all your seeing Is the cool name they have given it such as hazelnut, or whatever lol to be a good colorist you have to know the color wheel like the back of your hand, when looking at the color wheel, the color directly across from what you curently have will correct it. SO if your looking at the wheel and you look at RED, across from that is green, which in the color world Is ASH. So you must add a little A, or ash to your red to neutralize it, and you will get the CHOCOLATE, your looking for. ALSO, when you color and your roots are a diff shade than the ends or mid shaft, (hot roots) that's because you didn't let it sit on your roots ONLY first (generally 15 min) your new growth does not take color the same as the ends that are more porus. So you can't expect to slap it all on and it do the perfect color job on its own. You end up spending twice as much on corrective color than just having it done professionally! FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS BOX COLOR!

Hi I learned so much from this post. Thanks, Sinful Hair!

Im glad I could help!

I have been going through the transition from hairdresser to doing it myself. My friend is an accomplished color and stylist and she recommended I buy a chocolate brown Level 6 with 10 developer. My hair had been color treated with highlights, and the first product I bought made my hair auburn with even lighter auburn at the roots where my gray is. That's when I spoke to my friend and tried what she suggested. The chocolates or rich medium browns level 6. Grab the roots better and now my hair is a rich brown. Hope that helps!