The Struggle of Going Back to Dark Hair

DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional. I did not take any classes about hair. I am not knowledgable in  any field of hair. So, what I did for my hair may not work for you. I am simply going through the process I went through to go from red hair to dark hair. Also, please note that all hair types are different; what may not work for me may work for you, and what may work for me may not work for you. 
Also, I mean I really could have created a youtube video... which, I was originally going through. But, I was so frustrated with this hair process there were parts I completely skipped, and when it was time to edit the video clips I created... I realized I know nothing about editing and effects or sound effects... so, I just didn't bother. 

I think the most important thing you can do before doing anything to your hair is to do your research. Research all the questions you have AHEAD of time, and watch all the youtube videos you can with other's reviews. From there, you make the best decision (or guess!) of what you want to do next.
With all my research, I realized that red is extremely hard to remove. I never knew this, so I began to get worried and did more, and more researcher. Apparently red hair is so stubborn, you are practically stuck with it unless you cut it all off and start growing your hair all over again. Being that my entire head of hair was died red, I really did not want to cut it all off and be bald... having a round face and big head, I know that look won't look good for me. 
With my research, I read that it's best to remove the hair color first before just dying over the hair color. There were a lot of options to choose from: Color Oops, Ion Color Brilliance Color Corrector, and probably more depending on where you live in the world (i.e., ColourB4 Hair Colour Removal Removal in London!)

I chose to go with One 'N Only Colorfix that I bought from Sally's Beauty. From my research and youtube reviews, this product takes off permanent hair colour and brings ur hair back to your (almost) your natural hair colour (before dying your hair). NOTE: if you bleached your hair, then the the hair colour will be removed, just not the bleach. It will simply return your hair back to the bleach. 
I simply followed the instructions that were inside the box, mixing the 1st and 2nd bottles in equal amounts. Because I have REALLY long hair, I used the entire bottle. And, like what every review I read, it SMELLS. It really does smell -- like rotten eggs. So, I suggest you do not eat before using this product. I didn't eat and the smell just made me feel nauseous.. imagine if I ate beforehand... yuck

I ended up with this -- it did a REALLY good job on my ends. But, I think that is because my bottoms were bleached in order to get that ombre affect for the red. So, it did remove the red from there. But, as you can see from the top of my head, the red was there, still bright as ever.
I was beginning to get impatient, and I definitely did not want to walk around with red and blond hair.. just not the kind of look I like. So, I decided to dye my hair, like I said, I was really impatient and I just did not want to leave the house with my precious hair looking like a mess. 

So, I decided to just dye it brown. More specifically, I dyed my hair Dark Golden Brown from Ion Color Brilliance that I bought from Sally's Beauty. I followed the instructions provided inside the box, which is fairly similar to box dyes you would buy from stores. The only difference was that I bought developer to mix with the dye. In this particular case, I used volume 10 developer from Salon Care, also purchased from Sally's.
I applied the dye as instructed, waited the allowed time, and proceeded to rinse the dye out. I noticed that red was still bleeding from my hair (that stubborn red), and when I came out of the shower, my hair was noticeably different.
My hair looked pretty good afterwards! Although there was some red tint here and there, I really didn't mind. I mean, it was a better improvement from the red and blond hair I had. Also, my ends were MUCH darker than the top of my hair -- almost black. So, what I did, I just snipped 3 inches off from the bottom. And, now, my hair is back to dark! 

I won't lie, as much as trying to remove the red was a difficult process, I think if I was more patient and had time to do another 2 or 3 rounds of Color Fix, I probably could have gone a lighter shade of brown.  But, it does to be a different shade of brown depending on the light. So, you can really call it anything from black to dark brown.
But, looking in the mirror, I feel like I look different. I'm not used to seeing myself with dark hair. Personally, I really miss the red hair on me, I think it suited me really well. But, after all my research of how hard red is to remove, I don't really know if I would want to go back to red, and then go through the struggle of removing the red later on if I wanted a different colour. 
Who knows.. We'll see how things go!  Follow