So I got an over the counter coloring kit (L'Oreal) and colored my hair light brown (my natural is medium brown) with perm color.  It was nice for 3 days and then it faded, my old highlights started showing.  Last night I colored medium brown and it turned out almost black!  I ran back to the store and got a product "color oooops" or something similar, which removed the color.  I ended up with light red hair (ugly!), so I colored with light brown ......and ended up with dark brown! It looks horrible, I want light brown or dark blonde....how do I get it and when can I try again????

 

 

Typically when you are tinting back....from a lighter color to a darker color you should formulate one level lighter than what you want your final color to be. Let's say you want to be a level 6 and you currently are a level 8 you should probably try level 7 color with a pinch of lvl 6...but no more than 25% of your color formulation. Hope that helps ya out. You can only lighten previously colored hair by bleaching it. What about some highlights to lighten up your hair and add dimension? You could even toss a few lowlights in there too.

 

G'luck