What should I do?

I'm not really sure how light I'm aiming for, I haven't decided. I don't mind if it gets really light, but I have an idea if it's too dark, if that makes sense? I keep going back and forth between wanting to just have a vibrant colour, or wanting to go more pastel. Obviously if I want to go pastel, it will need to be very light. I realize that isn't very helpful to you, I was thinking just bleaching it to the full processing time, and then deciding from there whether I wanted to leave it or go lighter.

When you say it like that it's quite obvious, I don't know why I didn't think about it before. I guess I was expecting a bleach bath to be magic.

I am using a 20% developer. I didn't do a strand test because I had some free time yesterday to do my hair and I'm totally full of excuses, but I have a three year old and so free time is hard to come by. I don't really mind. I'm happy to walk around with a crazy hair colour until I can try again. I will be more careful next time and see if I can get a babysitter and have my husband help me, he is much better at being neat than I am.

Thanks so much for your help. I know I must be difficult. Now I'm off to slather my hair in coconut oil.

No worries, that is what the forum is for. What you are attempting is quite difficult though, so do ask as many questions as you need to. It will be quite time consuming and tricky, it is the type of job that makes hairdressers wish they had chosen a different career lol. Just take your time and you will get there though