Stay blonde or go brunette?

I've been blonde for a while now and I LOVE being a blonde, but lately I've just been so frustrated with my hair that I am considering going brunette.  Naturally I'm a dark ash blonde, and I've achieved my current color gradually through a series of heavy hiliting (at the salon).  Now I do my own roots and tone every 3-5 weeks (I also use purple shampoo weekly to maintain the tone) but I'm always feeling like my hair is either too brassy or too ashy.  Ideally I would like the color to be more of a pure platinum, but I don't think my hair will ever be blonde enough for me :).  I've made an appointment with my hairdresser on Saturday for heavy hilites, which I'm hoping will help to brighten things up, but now I'm considering possibly changing the appointment and having my hair darkened instead. 

Here is my hair now:



This is the color that's been tempting me to go darker (I just love the way her blue eyes pop!):


How do you think this color would look with my skintone and eye color? (I have the "Posh" bob which is much shorter in the back, if that helps you to visualize).  Do you think it would suit me better than the blonde?  Any other color ideas?  I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!!

Nikki


Edited by vixen12 - March 04 2008 at 10:09pm

I second that about Nikki Hilton. I mean, both her and Britney Spears (when they decided to go brunette), went straight to Brownsville, but carried on a little too far. A little bit lighter might have been perfect. Also, here's the tough thing, once your hair has been taken that light, it can rather difficult to get that rich, luxurious color of brown since you're putting it back in over bleached hair. Typically, since the hair has been damaged/bleached, the redeposited color kind of looks a little more dull and without the shine.  (I'm guessing your hair is bleached, please correct me if I'm wrong).

You know what might looks super cute on you though, is getting some lowlights strewn through your head. This tends to be so much easier to pull off successfully when going darker, because if your hair grabs the color kind of muddy or blotchy (as bleached hair occasionally does), it's hard to tell since the strand blends in with your other hairs. And if it fades, it doesn't end up looking so dingy as an allover color. Right now your hair looks like an ash blonde, so maybe some reddish brownish lowlights would be perfect to offset the coolness of the blonde.

Oh, and I'd recommend doing semi-permanent first, like a try before you buy. So if you don't like it, it can at least fade, or be a lot easier to get rid of, if you want to go back to being 'blonde blonde' like you are now.

The lowlights works too. I did that a while back and it looked HOT! I had about four different lowlight colors from carmaeal, darkblonde and almost a black... it looked good. Lowlights are a good option, but don't do them at home. I tried it and it didn't work at all... good luck

Here is what my hair looked like a few years back when I got the lowlights... see if you like it... it's half and half. ;)

Bambilee: I love your current hair AND the lowlights! Awesome.

vixen12 wrote: .....Fakeizme, I think you're right about blondes wanting to go dark until they do.  When I was younger, I thought it was a great idea to get a perm on my stick-straight hair and it FRIED it and looked God-awful!  I guess we can't ever learn to stick with what we know works :)  As far as clarifying treatments, I do use apple cider vinegar to rinse every month or so but I've never used an actual clarifying shampoo.  Do you have any suggestions? LESS THAN 24 HOURS till my appointment!  :)

I never actually kept the lowlights for a long period of time, sadly. I got rid of em' as soon as my roots were to noticable. The hairdressser had done it so that my roots wouldn't be so noticable after a while. She had told me to just come back and have them done, but I never did. I got a deal on it from some promotional thing and then I couldn't afford to go back.

Hi Vixen,

I like your hair the way it is now. However, if you want to "try" the lowlights without comitting to them, you could always use a semi-permanent color. It won't wash out on hair that has been lightened like yours but if you use a color remover like Color Oops or Color Fix your hair will look the same underneath taking you back to what you are at now. I went darker recently and it didn't take me long to want to go back to my original color. I'm glad I didn't use a permanent color as that would have lightened my hair considerably underneath, not to mention the extra unneeded damage. It's always good to have a back-up plan.

Well I got back from the salon, and unfortunately we didn't do a thing to my color. :( The appointment was originally for a cut and hilites, but my hairdresser didn't realize when I made the appointment just how light my hair has gotten, and she said that she was concerned about putting bleach on top of my already bleached hair. I asked about lowlights and she didn't think this was a good idea either - she said that my hair is so bleached/porous that the darker color would probably come out muddy and would likely fade very quickly.

I'm a bit disappointed because I was looking forward to leaving with some kind of change, but I guess I'd rather stick with what I've got than risk having the change turn out badly. She did make some suggestions about correcting my tone though - She said that I've got some toner build-up and that a bleach rinse (or whatever it's called - the bleach mixed with shampoo and left on for a short time) would help. She knows that I bleach my own roots and didn't want to charge me for something that she knew I could do myself, so I'll give this a try next weekend when I do my roots. I also think I'm going to check out some different toners because it seems like the White Lady leaves my hair too ashy.

Thanks for all your suggestions guys! If I keep on being bored with my blonde and decide that I REALLY want to try the low-lights, my hairdresser said that we could do a strand-test and try to find something that would work, but I'll wait until I'm 100% sure I want to go that route before we try that. For now it looks like I'm staying all-blonde. :)

Nikki

PerfectBrunette wrote: It sounds like your hairdresser is really looking out for you. You should be grateful to have someone who cares about you as a client rather than just pouring more bleach on your head.

Gosh I completely agree. Also about not charging you for what you can do yourself. It's really good to see.