I have been coloring my hair on and off since I was 18 years old. I didn't do it to cover the gray, I did it because sometimes I thought my hair looked drab and I wanted to lighten. Then there were the times I decided I wanted just a touch darker and ended up with almost dark walnut color. The first time I went with a slight reddish tint, I ended up with that carrot red hair that is bordering on orange in the sunlight. Then a hair dresser who knows we have Irish ancestors and a propensity for auburn to show up in our genes, recommended I only used shades that had the words Ash in the color title. It would avoid the red and she was right. So when I want to go lighter, I use light ash blonde. Which is what I did this past summer and it is wearing off. This was in June or July. It's gotten even more gray starting to show through.
I was going to do the light ash blonde again to color it and lighten it up at the same time. Then my daughter suggested maybe I should go darker for fall and winter, but I said I would think about it. Just a few hours later, a friend of mine posted this picture of me when I was 17. Oh my, I love the color of my hair in this picture for fall/winter. In high school, I considered it just drab brown but now I like think I like it like that. However, the one time I tried to die it back to the original color like this was when I ended up looking like a ripened walnut. So I don't want it to go THAT dark again.
Knowing about the ash factor and knowing that when I use any shade of medium brown it always ends up darker than what I like and I look washed out. So I compromised from the lighter hair I like and the darker hair in this photo and decided to go with Light Ash Brown. If it goes lighter, oh well and if it gets to dark, oh well. It's not permanent. And I'll just live with it. But what the use of being an old lady if you can't walk on the wild side sometimes.
I'm going to do it this weekend while the grandgirls are over for the weekend. That way they can take a picture for me to share with you. Wish me luck.
