If you were in your mid 30s and had never dyed your hair before...

[taybert]

....what would you have done?

My hair used to be dark blonde with naturally lighter blonde bits that looked highlighted. Now it’s all a flatter dark blonde/light brown, still looks nice in certain lights and goes a bit lighter in the summer but overall is quite boring. It’s also getting grey bits. I’ve booked for a colour but don’t really have any idea what I want. My hairdresser (knowing my apprehension) has suggested just starting with a semi permanent all over colour which will wash out over a few weeks. That seemed a reasonable suggestion since I’m so cautious about it but now I’m thinking it seems a bit pointless and boring.

So- what I don’t want is stripy and/or brassy highlights OR a more expensive, difficult to maintain, worse version of my own hair.

So- where to start?!

I'm a natural red head and never dyed my hair as it was the one bit of me that I actually quite liked. Then I got older and my colour faded and I started getting the odd grey hair. I got my hair dyed for the very first time this year at the grand old age of 40. I was terrified. I started off with blonde highlights to hide my greys but keep my natural colour but they were too blonde so next time I went for a full head colour. I've not looked back. I genuinely love my new hair and have had so many compliments. I'm in every 6-8 weeks and it's a learning curve for me and my hairdresser, working out what suits and what works with my hair. Six months on and I'm booked in this weekend for red full head with purple tints (not sure the exact terminology lol as it's all still new to me). At the end of the day, if I don't like it I can get it dyed back.

No colour suggestions sorry but definitely get a semi-permanent rather than a permanent colour. That way if you don't like it it will fade and be easy to cover up with s different one. A permanent will be there until it grows out and often leaves an obvious line where there's new growth.

I like the way semis blend into your own colour as they fade too. They're less flat than a permanent and have less risk of over saturation and build up. That's me talking about brown shades though. Lighter ones might be different.

^you can always change to a permanent colour (better at covering greys) when you find one you really love.

Pinterest is great for getting ideas on lovely hair colours.

Thanks. I’ve looked on Pinterest but the problem is that I don’t know how the colours have been achieved and if they’re possible on me or if they’d suit me if you see what I mean? Presumably if I have highlights the I’m going lighter and that involves bleach so that would be permanent. So I’m wondering if I should get a semi permanent colour all over or do I just get some fine, natural looking highlights to add a bit of interest and “blend in” the grey a bit? Or would that not work?