.brunette by mistake.

Another day, another lesson learned.

Friends, don't attempt to highlight your hair at home. No matter how good the customer reviews are on the product, the outcome will NOT be good.

In an attempt to save money, I decided to research at-home highlighting kits. I figured I had watched my hair dresser do her thing enough, I could surely do it myself.

Sally's Beauty Supply has a highlighting kit called Blond Brilliance that has great customer reviews. I bought it based on the reviews and price. (It was just under $10.) I also bought a small package of foils and a comb with a skinny metal handle to use with the foils. Armed and ready, I was excited about the potential money we could save in the future by my doing my own hair.

The fun stopped there.

The kit came with a cap, which I decided to try first. I was doing it all by myself, so I thought the cap might be easier to master. Not so. I had a lot of trouble finding all the holes on the back of the cap, plus it hurt to pull my hair through. (Sensitive scalp, what can I say?) 

I then clipped up all my hair except for the very bottom. I opened my foils, folded one over the comb handle just like the professionals do, and couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get the hair to stay taught over the foil, then how to brush the bleach on my hair without being able to see the darn back of my head. (Having someone to help me would've been ideal. I, however, was too eager beaver to wait on help.)

That's when I got the brilliant idea to simply brush the bleach on my hair section by section. 

What do you know? It was a terrible idea.

As the bleach processed, my new butterscotch/carrot top look emerged. I stared at myself in the mirror for a good while, trying not to freak out.

Then I decided what I had done was an awful, awful thing.

I got in the shower to wash my hair and cried.

All I could see in the mirror was me as a freshman in college, yellow-orange hair from a box kit that had promised to turn my hair platinum blonde.

I threw on a baseball cap and drove to Wal-mart for brown hair dye.

I ended up buying this:

Like a desperado, I drove home to blow dry my butterscotch hair and apply the brown dye. I didn't leave it on my hair as long as the box said because I didn't want my hair to be super dark.

After rinsing and blow drying my hair, I noticed some splotchiness in the color. I still had dye leftover, so I tried to cover the blonde stripes up. Re-rinse, re-blow-dry. Notice more splotchiness. Repeat process about 3-4 times.

Hours later, I feel much better.

If anyone dares mentions the blonde patches that are still there, I'm gonna claim the ombre look. 

In a couple of weeks, I'll probably buy the same hair color again and give it another all-over treatment to help cover any remaining blonde.

So until further notice, I suppose I'm a brunette.