Color Question

So I do my own extensions, and last time I just put them in and dyed my
hair to match (it was a really dark brown so it wasn't that much work)

My next set of extensions I want to be red, but my natural hair color is a
med brown. I've dyed it red before, but I'm worried the extensions will be
a different shade and look bad and not blend.

So I need to do this before an important event, and don't want it to look
messed up. I don't know how to get it to match on my own. Should I dye
my hair the red first then try to match a color and hope it works? Or
should I buy the extension color that I want and take that into a salon
before I put them in and have it match that??

Any suggestions?

Great advice gsmilie. I also recommend you buying the color you want and taking it to the salon with you to get your hair dyed. You could also take the hair to Sally's and have them help you pick out a color if you want to color it yourself.

If your hair is brown and you want to go red, you may have to lift out the brown first before depositing the red.  (Color does not lift color)  That's a color correction job.

I really like my clients to have their hair color exactly the way they want it and then we order the extensions to match their hair.  I have done it the 'backwards' way, where they have extension hair and say, 'make my hair match that' , but I hate doing that because it can be hard to get an exact match sometimes.  I can usually get their hair close to the extension hair, but it's definitely not my preferred way of doing it.