Help/Suggestions Please!

I am a natural dark ash blonde w/ fine hair and I have been using L'Oreal Colour Expert for years to dye and highlight my hair in that same basic color range.  Recently I decided I wanted to go darker and give my hair a rest from bleach.  I started with a temporary med. ash brown which I really liked, so I decided to do the same color permenant with Natural Match.  It came out WAY too dark, but actually did not look too terrible (to me at least) and my hair felt and behaved healthy.  However, after about a month of listening to "family" complaint that my hair was too dark I decided to add some orange/copper highlights around my face to lighten the look, BUT they came out a sick looking yellow and splotchy!  So then I tried to color over the highlights with the brown, but it came out all splotchy too!  I called the hotline and they recommended I get the L'Oreal Preference in a warmer medium brown and recolor which I did about a week ago.  My problem is that now my hair is really too dark, it's dull when I don't extra condition, but it's flat when I do condition, and i'm already starting to see some of the highlights coming through as I wash! 

Rebwil wrote: First off Kudos to you for making that color expert work.  I think what you can do is to wait for those highlighted areas that you do not like to fade then rebleach them so they aren't so splotchy.  Sounds like what happened is when you applied the bleach, it wasn't done so evenly, or it's possible that the bleach dried in those spots but not in the others.  It would work to rebleach just those spots that are not light enough.  Careful not to over lap. Remember that everything fades, so often it's best to let that happen.  You can get colorfix and start all over, but I don't think that's necessary.  Remember too that hair color is just an illusion. Good luck and I hope this helps,   Rebekah