Changing My Hair Color - PASS or FAIL?

Well, Makeup Maniacs, I recently decided to change my hair from Medium Golden Brown to a Light Golden Brown.  The reason for the change is due to having lots of gray hair.  I say if I'd let my hair grow naturally, my hair would be about 40% gray.  Yup!  GRAY.  Lol!

A lot of the gray is at the temples, but I guess that is typical.  I figure, the lighter my hair color, the better the gray will blend as the new growth emerges - especially at the temples.

I had used the Clairol Expert Collection Age Defy hair dye before, but this time I was going a shade (or maybe 2 shades) lighter.  So, I wasn't sure how this would turn out.   Because my hair is thick and medium length, I needed 2 boxes of the Light Golden Brown shade (6G).  The total time you are supposed to leave this on your head is 25 minutes, but my gray hairs are very stubborn, so I left the solution on my hair for a total of 35 minutes.

This product comes with a pre-application gel which I had to put all over my hair.  Then, I mixed both bottles of color.

Instead of starting on the roots, I used the first bottle for all hair below the roots.  This is because the hair at the roots tend to pick up hair color faster due to that new growth or "virgin" hair.  I left the product on for 20 minutes.   Then after 20 minutes, I put the second bottle all over the the roots and worked the color into the rest of the hair as well.  This time I left it in for 15 minutes.

The moment of truth...

I washed this stuff out my hair until the water ran clear.  My felt a little hard and dry as I ran my hands through it.  I then used the conditioner that the dye comes with and let that sit in my hair for 5 minutes before washing it out.  That conditioner worked well to soften and tame the dryness.

The end result was strange.  Initially, my hair looked darker than it did before I dyed it. Then I realized that it must look that way because it was wet and well-conditioned.

Later, it still looked dark!  This was such a fail!  My hair seemed to end up the same as it was when it was Medium Golden Brown!  Ugh!  Does anyone know why this did not go well, LOL!  Thank goodness my hair doesn't look like an absolute hot mess, but the result is definitely NOT what I was looking for.  Oh, well.

Hair color BEFORE

Do you dye your hair?  What brand do you use?  Or do you go to a salon and have it professionally done? Let me know in the comments section and don't forget to visit Mel's Makeup Mayhem! my YouTube channel.  Thanks!

Hair Color AFTER :-/

I know it's hard to see a difference in these pictures, but there really wasn't much of a difference, LOL!