The salon is more likely to not screw it up. You can try it yourself, and if it doesn’t work out well have the salon fix it. I always recommend a semipermanent like Natural Instincts, if you buy something in the drug store. That way it washes out in 6–8 weeks, no grow out line at the top of your head. Know that colors usually come out darker than you expect them too, so buy a color a little lighter than you think you want. Get a neutral or cool brown if you want less red.

Red is a tricky color, it has its own life and does its own thing. It is actually difficult to get out in any other way than to allow it to do what it does and fade. Luckily red tones are the best and notorious for fast fades so that’s a good thing. All you really have to do is get something that is dark enough to saturate it once it fades out a bid and dulls down.

Watch the words that you see on the box. One good thing about using a brown tone over a red one is that is THE ONLY time that you can use an ash tone and not turn green because red cancells out the tendency in ash tones to turn normal hair greenish.

So you can pretty much use anything in the brown spectrum you like and it shouldn’t hurt as long as you stay away from anything that says “Golden” “Auburn” Copper, maroon, anything with the word “Nut” like chestnut or the like… These all have red tones to them so you want to stay away because it will adhere to the red already present and make it worse.

Go with deep, go with “dark,” go with “chocolate”, brown, I love chocolate tones… they are my favorite. Even if you have a little red left, your only other alternative is to use a product called “Red-Out” which is evasive and it strips the red out and leaves the shaft open and porus to suck up whatever else you put in, but again it is a STRIPPING agent. Anything that ever removes color with damage it automatically.

Good luck!

A beautiful color that I love is by John Frieda It is Dark Chocolate Brown # 4BG But that might be a bit too light for you and possibly even has too much red in the highlight component of the color

Go a but more matte, a bit darker than that by example and you’ll be fine. Remember too though, anything darker than dark brown, will look black, and anything black will be REALLY BLACK!

Id got with Ash Grey.

“How can I go from an auburn red color to a medium brown?”

If you were a deciduous tree, you could just wait for the chronological progression of Autumn to do it for you. ;-)

@Brian1946 “My hair is an auburn red, and I want to change it to a medium brown. What hair dye do I need to get? Or should I go get it done at hair salon? ”

I have naturally red (auburn) hair, and it is very difficult to dye. My hairdresser told me that naturally red hair is the hardest hair to dye, (and red hair dye is the hardest color to use, too). In fact, professionally done salon hair color would NOT stick in my hair at all. Gone in two days.

Now that I’m sporting so much grey hair, I color mine at home occasionally. Here’s the really bad news for you, though: I use a brown hair dye when I do it (Clarol’s Nice ‘n Easy), and it colors my hair… auburn.

My guess is that you’ll have to have your hair stripped of its natural color, then dyed the color you want. Good luck!

@augustlan Have you tried a higher grade non sulphate shampoo or product? Some of the higher grade colors like Goldman stay red pretty long. I was a red head for years and to off-set the tendency for it to fade I would also use a stain on top of the color (NOT at the same time though) and it lasted FOREVER. Manic Panic has some beautiful colors that are not just Electric pinks and purples, they have normal balancing stains too. *Stains are vegetable based semi perm dyes that just blast the folicle and stain like beets stain formica!

@GabrielsLamb I tried having my hair colored in a high quality salon twice with no luck and had just about given up on the whole idea when I figured I’d give it one more shot with something cheap and at home. It worked great and lasted a decent amount of time! Once I figured out that the cheap stuff worked for me (go figure, huh?), I never looked back. So I never even pursued any other ideas, and haven’t tried a stain or anything else. I’m very sporadic about coloring my hair anyway, so it’s no biggie for me. :)

You are right though, red has its own special thing going on but the sulphate shampoos are good for it too, not just anti fade. More than not, the color is just fine, it is the shampoo and city water with high metal content that actually strips it out, I think reds are more susceptible to the phosphates and sulphates? Wen shampoo is EXCELLENT for reds. I’m glad you found a great product. I love Red Heads! best women in the world as they say. I was red for a very long time.