Permanent color too dark, fading

Two weeks ago I dyed my hair from natural strawberry blond to light neutral brown using Wella Colorcharm permanent haircolor with 20 volume developer and it turned out almost jet black. I know I should have strand tested but I guess I just figured "its a neutral color, what could go wrong." Why would this happen though, I've heard that porous hair can absorb too much color, but my hair was completely virgin before, and I take good care of it.

Basically the color has faded a bit each day since then, even though I use color protecting shampoo. Right now its about what I would consider light brown, and compared to the regrowth it is still a little darker but still not what I want, because there is too much red showing from my natural color. Based on this I think I would like the result better with a light ash brown, but just touching up the roots with that from now on, rather than risking more damage to the already dyed hair.  However, I'm concerned that with as much color as my hair absorbs that I will end up with green roots for a week or so until it fades.

Based on all this, does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do? Ideally I just want to end up with a color that: Isn't too dark, doesn't have any obvious red or orange tones, and remains consistant rather than starting to dark and then fading.

I'm sure it can do no harm   Some people naturally have very dry hair, or blow dry/straighten it to death, so yeah they must be able to use stuff like that.

Natural blonde is more porous than darker colours isn't it?  Maybe that's why it went so dark.  The same happened to me.  I have very light golden blonde hair naturally, and I first dyed it light brown, it went medium/dark cappuccino brown, but luckily I liked it a lot.

I read somewhere on here that ashy tones can counter orangey/reddy tones if that helps.  I think the light ash brown is a good idea, because your hair will probably fade some yet.  I'm going to do the same thing when I strip my hair, I'll be left with a rainbow of white/blonde/orange/light brassy brown from roots to tips, and then I'm going to use Nice N Easy Natural Light Ash Brown to go over.


Edited by aubergine

So sorry to hear about this disaster. From my experience, it seems "light neutral brown" (about a level 4) goes on ALOT darker than what the bottle says. I've even noticed that with dark blonde shades. Neutral shades are even darker than their descriptions (ex. "Light neutral brown" will be darker than regular "light brown").

Your situation is a tricky one. I'd probably go see a professional.

 

 

Usually darker hair dyes go on darker at first (especially the first week) and then fade rather quickly.

However, going to nearly black when the dye is supposed to be light brown sounds pretty extreme. I probably have a very similar natural color and when I dye my hair medium ash brown it might be starting to border on dark brown (when its first dyed) but no way would anyone call it black.