dyed my hair this morning, it's much much too dark. What, if anything can I do?

[ErnesttheBavarian]

It's supposed to be mid-brown, which looked on the box like my natural colour, didn't want a reedy tinge to it.

But it's come out so dark.

It looks almost black. Yikes, I feel embarrassed.

Can I do anything?

How do I choose a better colour next time?

I did it at home cos I really really hate going to the hairdressers. Worse than the dentist. I did actually walk in, smelt it, and ran out.

will stock up when I'm over. Any hope of looking human by friday? :(

Jerome Russel colour remover.

and dont use the foam unless you have areaction to the chemicals in other brands.

You'll probably find it fades fairly quickly initially - mine always settles after a couple of washes.

Then, as others have said, Head and Shoulders is meant to be good.

My hairdresser says washing up liquid is the way to go, again and again. I've heard of soap powder before now too. As soup dragon says though, it'll fade quite quickly on its own anyway :)

Thank you,to so many, who recommended B4 after yesterday's hair
colouring disaster. Now more strawberry blonde than goth as I was.
Thank you to all who posted remedies.

6N john Freida mousse is a perfect mid brown. Never ever go darker than a 5.

I did this recently and just dyed it a lighter colour and it came out fine.

My hair is not that different from the colour I dyed it, though, and I don't have grey hair so roots weren't an issue.

i got my hair dyed at the hairdressers and it came out darker than the colour i picked. that was about 5 weeks ago, so im going back next week - the colour hasn't faded much. are you saying that i can't just go in and tell her to put a lighter dye over the top? i have already damaged my hair too much (having gone from dark to platinum blonde and then back to dark!) so i really don't want to remove the colour or anything like that again. i don't want to wait until the colour fades either as it will go brassy due to the blonde underneath. if i do ask her to put a lighter brown dye on top what would happen.... if its done properly does it not mean that when the darker dye does fade it will just look a lighter brown rather than brassy, even if its still dark for awhile?
the other option is to just get highlights but i find them very hard to upkeep and don't want to start that again. any hairdressers about!

That nice and easy foam is awful stuff. I used it once and a few weeks later I went for a cut and hairdresser told me there was a whole patch of hair uncoloured at the back . So I crapped on dh for not telling me, his reply "oh, when did you dye your hair" facepalm.

and I cannot abide the smell of it

Not sure what you have at home to use OP, but I have a Paul Mitchell Tea Tree deep conditioner that I use for when I have eczema flare ups on my scalp. This stuff can strip your colour out one shot - as I found out to my dismay after one week of a new colour .

I had the same problem before, I now only use inoa. It's a hairdresser only product but you can get it from hairdresser websites. You need to get a 1 litre bottle of developer as well, but it works out a lot cheaper in the end.

My hair is medium brown and I only use dark blonde or sometimes very light brown. I've learned my lesson!
.

When I did this I washed my hair repeatedly (about 5 times each day for a couple of days) with Vosene. It took a good bit of the colour out and then it seemed to fade further over the next few weeks. I was to scared to try the colour strippers in case I ended up with straw for hair!

Vitamin C powder (Holland and Barrett sell it)
Mix a couple of heaped tablespoons in to a paste with a little conditioner and paste it all over your hair then wear a shower cap. Keep it on for a couple of hours then rinse it off and condition.
It will lighten your hair but you might need to do it a few times.