My Dark Hair Problem

Hello all,

I'm looking for some detailed information, hoping someone won't mind taking the time to educate me a little bit!  

My basic situation:

I have naturally curly, dryish hair that is (at root growth) majority grey

I started coloring my hair with temporary hair dye (grocery store bought, washes out in X number of shampoos, etc.) to cover my initial strands of grey in my late 20's.

Eventually in my mid-30's, I started using *permanent* hair coloring (Loreal) on resistant grey and, over time, wound up with a much darker color than my natural color when I was younger.  I'm now 37.

Even I recognize that my current color (very dark brown, nearly black) is way too dark for my complexion (fair and pink with blue-grey eyes) and I'm looking odd.  My original color was a medium / to the lighter end of the dark brown spectrum with natural red and small amount of blonde highlights visible when hit by the sun.

I would very much like to be near to my original color with a lighter brown and highlights (maybe something like a caramel color?) and lowlights, or maybe even a little lighter than that to accommodate my age in getting older, but am running into the difficulties of trying to accomplish this at home.  Fortunately I've done test strips on the lightening products (40 vol developer with dry lifting powder) I've bought from Sally's, so no horriffic situations have occurred (but the test strips all turned orange, nothing like what I want).

I will go to a professional hair colorist for this problem, but what kind of education do I need in conversing with that person so *they* don't cause me to walk out of the salon with a horror story?  I know bad things aren't unknown to happen even when one visits a person who is a purported "professional".  I live in a relatively small city and don't have a huge selection of stylists to chose from, nor anyone to recommend a good one to me, so I think being armed with the proper knowledge before I meet with one is probably my best bet in not becoming another hair-coloring casualty at a pro salon.  I could do that to myself without spending so much money!

BTW, lately my hair feels somewhat coarse and is a bit frizzy, so I've been doing some deep conditioning treatments at home to get ready for my visit.

Thanks in advance for any expertise offered!

Jo

Hi Dyedchickie :-)

I hadn't received any replies to my problem (thanks for writing), so I was a little worried when I went in about my hair, but everything worked out fairly well.  My coloring turned out fantastic; it was a great job.  The haircut I wound up with was not so great, but that's another story.

Interestingly, I got everything done at a beauty college (1st time I'd ever been).  It was a decent experience and I only paid a fraction of what it would have cost at a pro salon.  I think what helped was that I went in with a photo of the realistic coloring I wanted from a book I found (I wasn't aiming to go from black to blonde, just from black to brown) and the student who did my hair consulted with one of the teachers in my presence about how to best handle it before she started applying anything.

She wound up using the 40 vol developer much like I had tried at home, only she applied heat and then used the toner.  The method (which came out very natural looking, btw) was to foil it all in individual sections, but alternate regular sections with comb-weaved sections.  When the toner was rinsed out, the top of the hair near my scalp was a lot lighter in places than the ends were (for other previous reasons that had nothing to do with her work), so she solved that by using another toner in a shade darker, squirting that in where it was needed and letting it sit in while she combed and cut my hair.  The coloring just worked out really great and in only one visit.

I do already use Paul Mitchell (I really like the detangler which is good for my curly hair) among other products, but I've also been using protein pack treatments from Sally's too, and they seem to help.

Thanks for your opinions and have a great weekend! :-)