any hairdressers need advice dying hair from blonde to dark brown

[SolemnHour]

So i have never dyed my hair before its naturally a dark dirty blonde colour and im totally fed up with it i really fancy a change and love dark brown hair on other ladies so should i be able to achieve this easily with a box colour? im looking at clairol natural instincts as it says its non permenent but im not sure on what colour to go for is the colour on the box accurate? and will it work straight away with just one application its not going to go green or something is it? also if i hate it will it wash out as its only a semi permenent, the website says 28 washes but will it totally come out?

thank you

Pick a shade lighter than the one you want to get as box dyes always go darker than the shade samples they show you. If you don't want red tones, look for something more ashy to avoid the red. A light chocolate brown should be easy to achieve over your natural colour but please, please do a patch test first as they direct as you can have severe reactions to hair dye.

thanks how do i know whats got red tones? from a quick google this is the sort of colour im after
This

will defintely do the test i have generally sensitive skin

I used an "iced chocolate" brown" dye by L'Oreal and ended up with very marmalade coloured hair, too much red in it which I thought weird considering the name.
I would recommend Clairol Nice and Easy light ash brown to start, then medium ash brown if you want to go really dark.

thanks ygritte, oh no thats my worst fear ending up with orange hair or something, had a look at the clairol light ash brown today in superdrug it looks really light on the box so hopefully will go on darker, the medium brown looks better on the box but if it comes out even darker it may be too much, im really pale skinned so dont want to look goth.

Hello, I'm not hair dresser but I did work reception at a salon for 18 months and have seen my fair share of disasters!

While I understand that you want to avoid RED a warm shade is normally the most flattering and they tend to look the most shiny. So any of the colours that maybe have a G or an M after them (like 5G or something like that) will probably be good. I also agree with going maybe 1 shade lighter than you think - as it is easy to always go darker but nearly impossible to go lighter. Usually the higher the number the lighter the colour.

Although it says it washes out after 28 washes I would go in with the mindset that it is never going to go back to how it was before. I am doubtful that it would ever completely wash out - most likely it would just fade to a colour that you hate even more than your natural colour.

Good luck. I hope it turns out well.

I really like the L'Oreal Castings range. They have an iced mocha and iced truffle that I have used that have minimal red tones. However, as Yankee said you sometimes need a hint to make it more flattering. I decided these two were too flat iyswim and have gone with Chocolate instead. It does have a red hint but imo is more flatteirng.

I would say with all of these they do come out quite dark-probably like the ones in your link bt be prepared that you may think it's too dark at first! i did now I luffs it.

Finally if all goes wrong use colourB4, they are about £10 but they do work!