hair colour - going from dark to light(er)

[dwpanxt]

I love my dark glossy hair but feel that really I should think about lightening up colour-wise now I'm older . But how ?

My natural colour is dark brown .I have very fair (celtic) skin and blue eyes .
I have played around with going for the next shade up but hated the result -mainly since I dont know what Im doing.I always seem to end up with a horrible yellowish colour which just looks nasty.

I have a good amount of grey which should take a lighter colour but if its too light the result is horrible. So I go back to dark brown yet again

Im loathe to put myself in the hands of a hairdresser as, not only would the expense be prohibitive , I would hate the experience and therefore the outcome.

Is it ever possible to go lighter using home dyes?

Hi there, dwpanxt.
I have recently been through this process, from very dark brown to blonde/grey. Do you dye your hair dark at the moment?
I have always found that the mid or light brown hair dyes tend to look washed out and orangey quite quickly. They don't seem to have the same sort of sticking power as the darker dyes.
I have recently gone from very dark brown to blonde/white but it took rather a lot of professional help and several months!
You could a) start putting a lighter brown shade over your existing darker brown which would dye your greys brown and as your hair becomes greyer, it will become a lighter brown if you see what I mean.
b) use an over-the-counter bleach to strip the colour from your hair (WARNING: this makes it bright orange!) and then re-dying it a darker shade.