am I ever glad this worked out!

Hi all. I have been lurking on these boards for a while, and decided today to register. For several years now I have been having my hair highlighted with caramel-blonde highlights. My natural color is very dark brown. Over Time most of my hair became blonde, and I started hating it. The upkeep was awful, I only had a couple weeks without horrible roots. I have always liked my brunette hair, and started really wanting it back. I decided to do it in steps.  I first used a golden brown wash-out color, which turned it reddish (ugly color) but evened it all out. After a day or 2, I dyed it med. brown with Nutrisse. That washed out very very quickly, and I was getting reddish-brassy hair and that was within the first 10 days or so. I decided that permanent was a mistake, as the nutrisse probably lightened my hair alot and it didn't hold the color at all. I took the advice of someone and bought 2 boxes of Natural instincts color. The first box was a warm (Reddish) brown,a nd the 2nd was dark brown. I applied the reddish color without developer to act as a filler After about 20 minutes, I applied the dark brown, with the developer. Well, the results had me in tears for days!  I had black hair! Really ugly, inky, flat, wig-like black. I used dish soap, hot oil, you name it but didn't see any significant fading.
Now exactly a week later, the color is PERFECT!  Nice dark brown with no hint of brassiness!  I dyed it darker than I wanted assuming that when it did fade, it would be the right color, but that was just traumatic. I'm so happy it worked out, but I will never color my hair myself ever again. I'm going to go ahead and grow out my natural color now. It will be nice to do it without obvious roots. My hair is holding this color really well. ONe smart thing I did was get a good haircut during all this coloring. I took my shoulder-length hair up to a layered bob (my favorite way to wear it).  I almost color-fixed my hair but I'm so glad I waited it out. I went from crying over this to being absolutely thrilled with the color. I'm going to stick with my natural color for a while, until I go significantly grey. And  then I doubt I will use all-over color. My mom got highlights with hre grey, and it blended beautifully. I narrowly avoided a disaster here, and got many good ideas from posts on here. Thanks so much guys!  I'm such a hair freak, I cannot live without my hair looking beautiful, and without the research I did, I would probably have a trainwreck on my hands. I'm so happy I did this! Even if I did cry for 3 days straight over the initial result.