Clairol Perfect 10 hair colour in lightest cool brown

I recently changed my twitter pic to a photo of me that I took in our basement flat, with the lack of natural light my dark blonde hair looked much darker than it is in real life.  When I got a fair few compliments on my new 'darker' colour I decided that maybe I would try a darker shade for real next time I coloured my hair.  Nothing dramatic, just a shade darker than my usual dark blonde.  I have used the Perfect 10 range of hair colours exclusively for the last couple of years and have been really pleased with them.  I have used 3 or 4 of the blonde shades and each has been true to the colour shown on the pack, let my hair's own tones and highlights show through and been good enough that even my hairdresser expressed surprised that it was a home colour out of a box.

So it was with no fear or trepidation at all that at 5.25am yesterday morning I applied a good wallop of Shade 6.5A described as  "Lightest cool brown". 

I now have black hair.  Not lightest cool brown but darkest dark black. FFS.  To be fair it seems to be worst in the mid length sections of my hair where presumably there was already quite a build up of colour - the blonde shades I used never really grew out and left a root issue, they just seemed to fade away all over, just with more greys in the root line.  I can only think that the frequently coloured mid-sections are more porous than the virgin hair at the root line, here the colour is passable but still much much darker than I would have expected from the description on the box. Its also done that horrible thing where it has swamped the mid sections with colour so there are no natural tones or highlights just one colour, clearly out of a box, nasty cheap looking hair. Sob.

What is it with hair dyes that makes them do that? The blonde ones have always been fine, my hair has been left glossy and shiny with believable classy looking colour.  I now look like one of those women who seriously thinks that dyeing her hair 4 shades darker than it was even in the bounty of her youth will somehow imbue her with the glossy good looks of a woman 10 years her junior.  Instead it makes her look like a witch.  I look like I take dressing up for Halloween far too seriously.

You are itching to see photos aren't you?  I can sense your thinking 'yea whatever, enough with the waffle bring on the shameful photos'.

So here it is, when bad hair colour happens to tragically optimistic fools in the early hours of the morning:

To be honest it probably doesn't look as bad as you had been expecting but given that it used to look like this:

I realise its also  horribly patchy - rectified that last night with Em's help!

It feels a hell of a lot darker to me.  I have washed it a couple of times to try and tone it down and whilst I can live with it for now I am not sure what to do next.  I think I might just have to revert to using the dark blonde I was using before and hope that this fades like the blondes used to.  I think we both know that isn't going to happen.  More than anything I am hacked off that I am now likely to have to pay a hairdresser to fix a problem I created by using a £7 poxy hair dye, bloody stuff.

Couple more pics, decided to take advantage of having the camera out to show you a couple of Benefit newbies that I am loving at the moment.  First up Velvet eyeshadow in Gimme some plum, described as an iced plum - which sounds horribly frosty, its not.  I had set out to buy Where there's smoke described as smoky pewter but it was more dirty brown than taupe, which is what I was after.  Having decided I wasn't going home without a Benefit eyeshadow I am really glad I got this one, I have been wearing it all over my lid with a bit of black powder or liner on the lash line to give my eyes some definition.

Its my perfect colour for a pulled together look without being overly made up.

My other recent purchase is the lipstick, Benefit full-finish in Do Tell, a warm pink, with no hint of brown which works as a nude but pink mlbb colour.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can tone down my hair please share - I have tried washing with Head and Shoulders but am loathe to use ColourB4 as its already dry and I don't want it a shit colour and frizzy as hell too!