My natural hair colour is light brown and I had been colouring it at home, using L'Oreal Casting. I normally used either a mahogany or a chestnut colour which was quite a bit darker than my own colour. Anyway I had a bit of regrowth and decided that I would like to try something closer to my natural colour so I went to a salon and they suggested doing foil highlights slightly lighter than my natural colour (caramel was what she said) so that it would lighten the darker hair and be similar to my own colour.

 

What followed was disaster!  They put bleach on and the highlights have come out platinum. This looks really stripey against the coloured hair, and on my own hair it looks like grey streaks. Not exactly the effect I was after... Especially on the sides, when I tie my hair back it looks like I have grey temples.

 

I should have gone back to the salon but I had to travel far to get there and haven't been in that area since. Does anyone have any idea what I can try at home to soften it up a bit? I have heard stories about hair going green and orange and whatever so I don't want to put something on unless I am sure it's going to be ok. Would it be ok to put on something like a dark golden blonde or a light brown? Or if not would it be ok to put on a chestnut or mahogany again?

 

Thanks so much in advance! I didn't realise how bad it was until a family member saw me the other day and said, "What have you done to your hair? You look so OLD!" Ugh...