Red to blond =orange. Questions about toner.

Hi, I am new here and stumbled upon it after googling for more info about blue toners. I read a lot of posts but am still very confused because of all the different developer numbers and stuff, I'm unfamiliar with.

My hair history is that it is naturally dark ash blond. I had it highlighted and lowlighted with bright blond and dark brown. Then a couple months later I decided to go strawberry blond (bad idea). The hair stylist put filler on all over to even out the bright blond highlights, and applied a dye in a shade of "irish red" and it turned my hair orange. She then did a dark ash brown glaze over it turning it auburn. It looked good, for like a week. Then it faded out and I was tired of it and didn't want to go back to her since she is a professional so she really should have not turned my hair orange.

I used Color Oops twice, and this is the shade my hair currently is.

Ideally I would like to get to an ash blond, medium to light. Something similar to this, maybe possibly a bit more blond:

So I'm going to Sally's tomorrow, and from what I've learned I need a blue toner to get rid of the orange. What I'm unclear about is, will that turn my hair a light ash brown? I'd like to avoid bleaching if possible.
Also, would it be better to bleach/lighten with a blue developer and then tone..? I am basically confused about all this developer and lightening stuff. I almost always trust my hair to professionals.

So basically what would take my hair to NOT orange, and possibly a step or two more towards blond without completly frying it? I did a deep conditioning after the color oops and I'm pretty confident I'm still in agood shape. Any answers would be greatly appreciated! Sorry so long I just tried to include all the details I could think of that would effect how my hair would come out.

Edited by AllieK - November 09 2008 at 12:09am