I'm having a slight crisis!

I went through the same thing before I dyed my hair from bright purple to dark brown. I thought I would regret it straight away but I still wanted to do it soo bad! I'm glad I did it now, it was really nice to have a break from having to bleach and re-dye every 6-8 weeks.

I agree, its a lot of work to keep up with the bleaching process, its nice to take a little break and try experimenting with other things, for me because of work circumstances I have to have natural colored hair so instead I play with make-up and get my colorfulness out that way. I think having the black color with a pop of color or even going to your natural will open up new doors to trying maybe a funkier hairstyle or like I said before trying a new make up look. Plus I think you can have a lot of fun with hair accessories to add some individuality to your hair, even if its not a crazy color.

Thanks for the suggestions 🙂

I couldn't do my natural to be honest, it's very dark brown but is made up of almost all yellow so it takes on a sickly green hue in day light! I've only known a couple of people who have ever said they have the same thing, which was a relief to me, I honestly thought I was imaging it! So, when I say natural, I don't think I mean that at all.

I'm 43 now and just don't like the look of bright make up on me now, so I'm not sure about that. I might experiment though.

I make and sell glittery and wacky hair accessories, so I'm already set on that score! My hair is also huge and curly (much bigger than in my profile pick, it was shorter and less frizzy that day!), so I'm not sure it can get much more funky 😉

I wear bright clothes too, so I'm not lacking any colour. There's just something in me wanting something different right now and for a couple of months. There's also a part of me that doesn't want normal as it's somehow feels like I'm towing the line with my age!

I'm sure you get this all the time, but there is no way you look 43! As for the make-up I wouldn't suggest bright colors as sometimes they can look clown like if not done properly. I should have explained my make-up comment a little more. I meant more like different styles of make-up. I am an amateur make-up artist in my spare time and I've worked on a lot of different face-shapes, skin tones and different degrees of skin aging. Just in the last wedding I had a flower girl who got her make-up done (she was 5) just a little blush and lip gloss all the way to the mother of the bride who was 68, granted she needed a little more than blush and lip gloss but they all looked lovely! I mostly experiment with different neutrals (with the occasional color) and playing up different features. Maybe a bold plum lipstick if your going for black hair will really make your eyes pop and just a little mascara. Or if you want to play up your eyes, there are cool tricks to try new eye liners or colored mascara, I love dark blue mascara, gives a little something extra. There are so many things to experiment with make-up with out doing bright colors and still look edgy but very put together at the same time. Makeup is also great cause if you don't like it just wipe it off and try something else, there isn't as big of a commitment like with hair.

Black can look pretty harsh on lots of people but especially on someone older (not that I'm saying you're old - I'm 44) Theirs a chick about 50 years old who works at my local supermarket with black hair and I think it's horrible.  But it's Your hair. I don't wear heavy make-up anymore and my piercing is a small stud instead of a hoop now.  But I don't think theirs anything wrong with bright hair. Maybe if you do it black you can have a chunk of colour or highlights?.  Something to break it up - but I'm not sure what colour,  I think you look good with green.

Why go for black when there's ombre, bayalage, reverse bayalage, so many choices now if you want something with less upkeep 🙂

Emmer1321, I guess I'm just not really *that* into make up 🙂 I can't be bothered spending that much time to look "natural" or neutral, personally, I don't care what other people do. Also, most of it feels icky, to me, anyway.

I know what you're saying about black, blu-one, I don't think I'm at that stage yet 🙂 I've had black several times before and loved it... only its normally done in reaction to some abuse in the street 🙁

kababra, yeah... they look great on other people, just not really my taste. Unless they're done with really bright or pastel colours 😉

I'm beyond help I think lol

I think we have all felt the same way! I'm sure you will find something, it just might take a few days to figure out. I had a similar situation about a year ago, I had no idea what to do with my hair, so I made a salon appt thinking they would have an idea to try on my hair, it was down to my rear end and heavy. So I sat down at the chair and the lady went through the normal questions and asked what I wanted and blah blah blah, and I said I don't know and then asked her what would you do, of course this shocked her and she stumbled all over her words and went to her manager for advice. She finally came back with a hair dressing magazine and said flip through the pages and stop randomly on a page and that will be your haircut, so I did and that's how I ended up going from hair down to my rear to cutting off 26 inches off and getting a pixie cut! I was in shock for the first few hours but I love it now. Oh the things we do for hair!

I say go for it on the proviso you are happy to cut off all the hair that is bleached now when you are sick of black. So that either means committing to black for long enough to grow out a decent length or having really short hair.
I love brights with black, I had many combinations myself before my hair got so grey. (My natural colour was also dark brown) It would be major upkeep to be dark now, but I still get the odd craving.

I'm really feeling 'natural' just lately, of course for me natural meant going 2 shades darker than my own colour and a heck of a lot warmer so my roots are still a bit of a pain! My natural colour has that green tone in daylight, I call my natural colour khaki, it's sort of manilla envelope brown that's why I really don't like it! (Must be a case of having mostly yellow in your hair as when I bleach there is no red stage but lots of yellow!)
I'm currently mahogany brown with a big fat chunk of Alpine Green and Violet over a dark base at one side and I really love it, I feel kind of grown up and classy! I sort of feel guilty sometimes that I'm not representing for the bright hair crew but I don't miss it!
The only thing with going darker is that I absolutely have to pencil in my eyebrows and wear mascara, so that's something to consider if you're not much of a make up fan.
I think you'd look cool with black hair but would defo say keep some bright bits in it to play with!

I think we have all felt the same way!

Oh definitely! I certainly don't feel unique in this situation. I just don't often have it myself lol

I say go for it on the proviso you are happy to cut off all the hair that is bleached now when you are sick of black.

That's definitely the tough part. Am I ready for that?

My natural colour has that green tone in daylight, I call my natural colour khaki, it's sort of manilla envelope brown that's why I really don't like it!

I thought there was someone here that said the same recently! Mines definitely a dark khaki (for any american's reading, khaki in the is the greeny brown part of camouflage rather than the beige part!) and so it just looks like something is really wrong. Ah well. Black doesn't grow out too badly on me, so I'm not too worried about that part thankfully.

I think I might have come up with a plan... maybe. I've been struggling over two ideas. One is, as I said before, just leaving a chunk of colour out. Something about that just isn't appealing, though I have no idea why. The other was doing black roots and bright ends and let it grow out that way. I struggle with this though because of how short the back is, it means all the bottom bit at the back would be black and then colour above and then black at the roots. There's two reasons I don't like this. One, because I just think it looks a bit weird! Two, because I'd end up with a really harsh line because it'd be difficult to do the back on my own.

So, what I think I'm going to do is combine them. Have all over black, but with coloured tips around the front. Hopefully this will work it out.

Now, I just have to decide if it's what I really want to live with for a couple of years!

I keep forgetting to add one of the main reasons I want to do black (or at least very dark, a deep, deep teal is appealing as well). When my hair is naturally curly, I get a lot of frizz, it's just the way my hair is. I don't mind it generally as it gives more volume and I do actually quite like it big! But this frizz looks so much worse in blonde. SO much worse.

I think black or very dark teal with bright tips at the front sounds lovely! I defo could see the thing about frizz looking worse lighter, my hair looks fluffier when it's lighter, I'm loving the illusion of shine the dark dyes give me!

And yep, I'm the other khaki haired person on here haha!

I think I'm going to do it today. I'm still not sure if I'm going to go black or deep teal. Might start with the deep teal for now. Not sure. I'm definitely doing one or the other though. It's going to take a bit of getting used to after being mostly pale colours for the last year or so...

Oh,and I forgot to say before, lauralei, the funny thing is about my eyebrows. I have to pencil them in everyday anyway. As I get older the outer edge gets thinner and thinner to the point it's already almost not there, yet the inner parts stay thick and lustrous. My mum has the same thing. It's not over plucking. I didn't even start plucking until my late twenties and never took them really thin, and I hardly ever pluck at all now as there's hardly anything left to pluck! If I leave them I'm starting to look like Spock! Not the worst thing in the world, but I have enough problem with resting bitch face without adding super angry looking eyebrows lol so yeah, it's the one thing, along with mascara that I do pretty much every day. If I wanna be a bit more fancy I add eyeliner. If my face is looking blotchy, I have mild allergies to some of the hair products I use once in a while (olaplex seems to be one!), I'll use a foundation, but use as little as I can get away with.

Edited to add, I did it! http://www.hairdyeforum.com/index.php?topic=16612.msg174227#msg174227

Woo to doing it!!! It really does look ace!

That's weird with your eyebrows, and I love the idea of it making your resting bitch face worse, I've noticed as I age the corners of my lips are turning down and what in my twenties was a sultry, sulky pout now makes me look like a right miserable cow! My eyebrows are the one feature of mine I truly like, they're a good shape but a rubbish colour so I pencil them every day, plus mascara and a bit of eyeliner but I very rarely do foundation, I've just never mastered the art of it!

I keep giggling at the thought of your angry Spock brows!