The last time I had my hair dyed to a golden brown with golden honey highlights was in January 2004 at a salon. I absolutely loved my highlights and wish to be able to keep it.

But because money is very tight with 4 children, a husband, bills and other expenses, I simply cannot afford to spend the money at a salon for retouches.

So, my daughter and I decided to color at home. We bought Loreal Couleur Experte 6.3 in hopes to achieve something similar to what I had in the past.

We followed to directions and applied the brown dye first. After rinsing and towel-drying, we added the highlights mixture strategically in places I wanted them with the "mascara-like wand" provided to us in the box. We used foil to help keep it separated. We left it in longer than the recommended 20 minutes in hopes that it would produce the blond highlights that I had before.

I noticed the brown dye didn't lighten up nearly at all to the color it said it would have on the box. Not only that, the highlights turned reddish brown. My daughter swears she came close to the roots as possible without touching the scalp. The results? We're back to square one. Before this attempt, the whole reason I wanted to recolor it was because my roots were showing and my brown color was fading. Now it looks the same only that the color is reddish/brown and darker. It's healthy looking but not the color we were trying to achieve.

I thought about picking out a much more lighter shade of brown and going for the blonder highlights. But how long must I wait. I don't want to ruin my texture. It is very soft and very healthy looking and feeling.

Please help! Any suggestions?


-Annie
"Life without music would be a mistake..."