Going from reddish blonde to ashy brown

I've been dying my hair for about two years now. At first, I was more conservative, because I didn't want to go too far from my natural shade. However, I've always had my hair dyed at salons, and this time I want to do it myself.

My natural hair color like I said is a reddish blonde. It's definetly more blonde than red, and it's not really "strawberry" or anything, more of just a plain gold color. It's probably considered either a medium or dark blonde (so maybe an 8 or so on the 1-11 color scale).

I've found that my hair looks great right after dying it medium ash brown. They have been able to neutralize the gold/red/auburn tones, but it tends to fade very fast, ultimately leaving my hair more of an auburn color. I've tried using toning shampoos, and they do help but don't stop the process completely. I once tried dark ash brown to try to avoid the fading, but it turned out too dark - almost black, which was too much for my skin tone.

Rather than just neutralizing the red tones, I'd like to actually make my hair a medium ash brown (my understanding is that "ash" is kind of greenish color) color (instead of just medium brown). If I can't achieve this, I would settle for just neutralizing the red though.

So anyways, I'd like to know some advice for what I can get at a drugstore or beauty supply to accomplish dying my own hair.

In particular:

I'd love to try a very short lasting semi-permanent for the first run, just so I don't have to live with it too long in case I really mess things up. Can anyone reccomend a brand/shade for this?

If not a short lasting semi-permanent, I'd like to go with a longer lasting semi-permanent without ammonia, and I'll do a strand test. Can anyone reccomend a brand/shade for this?

Any other advice for home hair dying would be appreciated, other than messages of telling me to keep either my golden or auburn hair, because that's what you'd like on yourself =P


Edited by Roxay