At home professional hair color use...genius or foolish??

There are people in this world that may call me a cheap skate; I prefer to think of myself as frugal. This frugalness often leads me to think that I have a *brilliant* idea on how to save money! I cannot tell you the last time I paid for a haircut, or any kind of hair care service. My sisters in law are both cosmetologists and too pity on my hair a long time ago and started cutting and coloring it for me so I wouldn't do it myself. Unfortunately we now live 3 hours away from them so I’m back to at home hair care!

 You do not realize how awful box hair color is until you switch back to it from professional hair care products. I held off for a long time, but then the evil gray hairs started attacking my head and I gave in. I went to the store got a box of hair dye and….absolutely hated it. The color was nothing like I wanted or the box told me I would get. It left my hair dull and dry and I was over it the minute it was done. I left it alone because I wasn't going to risk further damaging my hair by dying it again so soon.

 Let’s fast forward about 6 weeks or so to yesterday. I noticed the evil gray hair monster was rearing its ugly head again and I made a mental note to get some hair dye next time I went to the store. Well, at about 2 in the morning I had an epiphany! I’ve watched my sister in laws dye my hair a million times, I could totally do this. So today, I made a trip to Sally’s and I was getting me some hair dye. Thankfully my sister in law had left a lot of the needed product at my house for future visits on her last visit, so I only had to pick out color. That is not nearly as easy as it sounds. The choices, oh man. Finally I decided on a brown color with a little bit of red, and some bleach. Oh yes, I was going to be real brave and put blond highlights in my hair too. 

 So I get home and I put the base color in. It was totally easy and gave me the confidence I needed for the next step….highlights! It turns out that this looks way easier to do than it actually is. I don’t know how I managed it, but my hair doesn’t look half bad to me. When I finished my husband didn't ask me what the heck I’d done to my hair, so it can’t be too bad right??

The picture on the left is before, and the picture on the right is after. How do you think I did? I couldn’t manipulate the foils very well and I think if I could find a different way or even get better at the foils I would have even better results. I apologize for the crappy photos, I'm slowly trying to improve my photography skills and I'm learning the importance of up close shots. Have you ever tried at home hair care with professional hair dye?? How did it turn out? Any tips or tricks you can share with me?