Terra Incognita

As a kid, I had blonde hair.  As a matter of fact, it was naturally light blonde until I was in my mid-20s, when it started to turn a shade of muddy blonde.  I used to get highlights a couple of times a year, and loved the way my hair looked.  However, once I decided that I wanted my hair to be short, it seemed like kind of a waste.  A lot of the highlights would be chopped off the same day they were applied, and after about two more haircuts, they were just plain gone.

So for a while, I lived with my muddy blonde shade.  Then I started to get gray hairs.  Which would be fine, except that I'd only get a few, not enough to make my hair look gray.  So it all looked even sadder.

A couple of years ago, a stylist talked me into coloring my hair.  Since she had given me the most kick-ass haircut ever, I trusted her.  She got my hair to the loveliest light auburn shade, I LOVED it!  And it really didn't need to be redone that often, because the roots growing in were not really that different in color.  Sadly, after about a year and a half, that stylist "retired" after giving birth to her second kid.  I'd tried some of the other stylists at that salon, but was not really impressed.  Since then, I've gone from place to place, not really finding anyone who clicked.  The latest place I've gone is OK, but the colorist there insists that my hair should be light red, and though everyone tells me that they think it looks great (a co-worker even said to me, "So you decided to go back to your natural color" !!), it needs more constant maintenance and touching up.  What it boils down to is that I don't have enough gray hair still to just let it do its thing, and salon color is really expensive, and I'm trying to curtail my spending.

Which leads me to my current idea, which is that I should try to use one of the at-home color kits to do my own hair.  A lot of friends and family do it, and most of them have hair that looks just fine.  But what kind to use?  Are some brands better than others?  Can anyone truly do their own hair color with success?  I want to talk to some people before I just dive right in.  And in theory, I'd like to do it sooner rather than later, since I have a haircut appt coming up in a couple of weeks.

I do realize that all of this falls into the category of things that one of my sister calls White People's Problems.  However, since I will be looking at my hair every single day, I want to get it right - or at least as close to right as possible ...

I'll keep you posted.