Home hair dye - roots getting lighter rest darker?

[pinktortoise]

I used to go to the hairdresser to get my very dark brown hair coloured but as it is pretty grey at roots needs doing every 5 weeks. Also hairdresser used to do permanent on roots and semi on rest and ended up with banding from roots. Anyway upshot was I found that the results I had at home with Clairol nice and easy number 79 ( semi) expertly applied by DH were much better and a lot cheaper than hairdresser. So all good...however the last couple of times I have used it have noticed abit more root glow showing and the ends are getting to be too near black for my liking.
Anyone have similar issues?
Was thinking maybe I should try a shade lighter in the semi? or could try the root touch up stuff instead and just do roots, but risk the banding? Or am I completely off track?! Need the expert home colourers of MN!
Just want natural looking hair with no grey....seems impossible!

I have similar hair colouring to yours and use nice and easy or garnier permanent dye. (Though I thought nice and easy was also permanent, not semi, however I'm in NZ and we might get different products here.)

Continually applying a permanent dye to the ends of your hair can darken them, as you are re-dying the same hair over and over, and the ends are often drier and more porous.

You can use the nice and easy to just do a root touch up. Buy a hairdressing mixing bowl and tint brush. Mix equal amounts of the two dye solutions in a bowl and use a brush to apply to roots only. Leave for about 30 minutes and rinse. You can save the rest of the (unmixed) solutions for the next time. I get two root applications out of one box, and then do a full head on every third application.

This happened me - I then went back to the hairdressers and had to have the dark colour stripped out chemically, as there were parts which were nearly black. I ended up just going back to the hairdressers as she doesn't charge to colour the parting, so it made sense for me. The colour can build up from home colouring quite significantly so it might be worth getting it stripped out just the once and then continuing to colour at home?

Thank you. Think the ends are colour build up but as it is a semi should wash out gradually. Maybe a semi isn't strong enough for my roots though and that is why they have reddish glow?

that's it pink, the roots unfortunately need the permanent colour to cover the grey, or so my hairdresser told me. That "halo" is not flattering!
What I couldn't achieve was the correct colour at home, I only coloured the roots but as it was permanent it grew down, hence the dark bits that had to be stripped out. If yours is semi it should wash out, if not you will know as it won't wash away.
I made an executive decision that I was bloody well worth a hairdressers visit (although as she does the parting colouring for free between full colours it was an easy decision for me) and have been happy with it ever since.

If my hairdresser did roots for free then I'd go there too!