Usual hair dye too dark....

[postitnot]

Hi all,
I've been using Preference shade 5.3 (Chestnut brown) for a while and have decided it's too dark/too red for me now. To be fair I left it on for 10mins longer this time, as last time the white didn't cover enough. So it might be better after a few washes.

Anyway, what with the amount of white/grey that's there, my natural colour is nothing like the dyed colour and I think it looks too harsh against my pasty skin. I think I'd like a dark blonde (with less red tones) but when I go to Boots all the colors look great on the box, but I don't trust them!

What brand/colour number is a true dark blonde? Can anybody recommend one?

Thanks in Advance!

You won't be able to lighten your hair using a box dye. It will dye virgin hair the colour on the box and the rest will stay dark. If you want to go lighter you would need to strip the old hair colour out first

As Pixie said. Remove the colour then put a lighter colour on.

Ok, I can strip the colour out,but which colour should I put back on?

Clairol nice and easy in shade 7 should do it.

I make my own 'hair tea' to dye my salt and pepper grey hair dark blonde. I brew up 6 camomile teabags, 2 redbush tea bags, half a teaspoon of coffee and a small pinch (less than quarter of a teaspoon) of turmeric up in a teapot and when cool enough pour it over clean dry hair. I leave it in and dry my hair. The tea stains my hair enough to turn it dark blonde giving a gold tone to the white hair. I use the tea each time I was my hair, although it doesn't fade completely after one wash.

Generally when making your own hair dye coffee and black tea give a brown tone, redbush tea a red tone and turmeric and camomile a golden tone. Go easy on the turmeric because people can use it to turn their hair bright yellow, it is a pretty powerful dye.