Hair debacle

Oh my goodness.  I think I'm finally ready to talk about this.  It was pretty traumatic...and I actually cannot fully correct it until this Friday....BUT I'll tell you the story.

So last November I put up a post about how I started dying my hair out of a box and how it was going to save me SO much money over my life because I loved it (read about that here).  And I kept with it.  About every 6-8 weeks, I would go to the store and buy the same hair dye (Clairol Nice & Easy), I would dye my hair and 25 or so minutes later, wahla!!  Done. So simple and easy, right?

Well enter this year in November on Thanksgiving day, no less.  I had bought a box of hair dye at CVS earlier that week and went about it.  Twenty five minutes later, I was in for a quite a surprise.  When I took the towel off my head, my roots were literally bright red.  Like the color of Jimmy's hair when it was long.....

Um, major freak out.  Like, call my mom and tell her I cannot go to my cousin's house because my hair.  She pretty much said, suck it up and go.  "You don't understand mom!!!!!  AHH!!"  I knew what had happened right away.  I need the color with a "D" on the end, which means that it tones down red undertones in your hair.  I picked up the wrong one, so totally my fault.  Well, I knew it wouldn't be best (nor did I have time) to run out and buy a new box that was the correct kind, so I found a big headband, put it on my head and went to Thanksgiving.  Of course no one noticed anything - except when Jimmy kept bringing it up (AH - I was so mad at him).

The next day, I went out and bought new hair dye (the correct kind) but then decided I should bite the bullet and call the 1-800 hotline on the box...hoping that they were working the day after Thanksgiving.    Lucky for me, they were.  The lady I talked to was SOOOO nice.  She asked me lots of questions and she came to the conclusion I had in that I just needed to use the other color.  And then she gave me a new mix (a little diluted with shampoo) to try this time.  I thanked her very much and she said I could dye it again in 6 weeks.  I'm going with 4 because my hair is still gross and kind of red (her mix toned down the red, but I had to change my part and still hate it because it is not brown...just kind of red).  The worse is in pictures.

This was right after.  See the picture below....

See the red tone with the big headband?  I was NOT happy

Here is a close up that weekend - after the "fix".  Not that bad....but it's gotten worse!!

Moral of this story?  Make sure you pick up the RIGHT hair dye when you are doing the at home.  If you are already a brunette....the lady from Clairol said that most will always need the ash tone to not pull out the red.  LESSON LEARNED.  Who knew that having your hair not the way you like it could be so miserable??