The "my hair is definitely a medium shade of brown" thread

[Tangles]

This is the thread for those of you whose hair is nowhere near blonde, red, or black... in other words, those whose hair falls somewhere in the "medium brown" spectrum. Let's come together and share our frustrations as well as our pride!

You can share information like:
-the exact natural shade of your hair
-whether you are happy with your natural color
-whether you've ever hennaed and if you liked the results
-whether you have experimented with natural ways of altering your hair color (ie honey, tea rinses)
-what you think the pros/cons of this color range are

This should be interesting as I believe there are a lot of us

[Tangles]

Oh, I'll start.

-My hair is on the dark end of medium brown, with natural copper highlights and a few blonde highlights
-I'm currently tired of the red tones and want to neutralize them/darken my hair slightly
-I tried henndigo (LUSH, Rainbow) and got very short lived results and it dried my hair out
-I haven't gotten darkening from red raspberry leaf and sage tea rinses but they do make my hair shinier.

-Pros of this color: you have richness and depth but also natural highlights and warmth
-Cons of this color: ends can look very dry and brassy

[AmyJorgensen]

I think I qualify. I always call my hair indecisive. It is mostly medium brown but it has a lot of red and blond too. I have never messed with the color (other than one time a 5 shampoos rinse out) because I don't want to keep coloring it....now, if I could genetically change it to just grow red, I'd do it.

[Tangles]

Well, your hair is a lot lighter than mine but if the siggy pic (not the avatar) is an indicator then I would put it at the light end of medium brown, perhaps.

Mine is strange in that it sometimes looks very dark but it's not dark enough to be in the brownish-black range, mostly because of the many natural highlights I have.

Have you tried henna? In my experience it's so easy to gain red tones with henna glosses and such, yet so much harder to darken. So you're lucky in that sense.

[enfys]

-the exact natural shade of your hair
I call it "Labrador Brown" since it is the exact same shade as my MIL's dog. I was stroking her and my ponytail slipped onto her coat and blended right in. Good job I'm a dog lover!

-whether you are happy with your natural color
Yeah, it's easy to blend in with the crowd if I'm legging it from a Terminator.

-whether you've ever hennaed and if you liked the results
Nope, too permanent, too scared.

-whether you have experimented with natural ways of altering your hair color (ie honey, tea rinses)
Nope, the smell of honey makes me queasy and I'm too British to waste tea!

-what you think the pros/cons of this color range are
Pros:
I've never clashed with anything ever
It's not attention seeking
I don't worry about chlorine giving me green hair
It has lots of natural highlights

Cons:
It's not attention seeking
Everyone has my colour hair (but they dye over it, so I suppose they don't)
I can't dye it fun wash out colours because it's too dark to show

[Longlocks3]

My hair is on the darker end of brown but not anywhere near black.

I've never used any dyes, or anything to change the coloring, 100% natural.

I love the warmth of brown hair.
I hate that the ends of my hair look reddish in the sun.

[Pixna]

-the exact natural shade of your hair:
I call it caramel brown. Right now, though, it is streaked with silvers (au naturel), which I never thought looked that good in brown hair, but I'm kinda happy with them, to my surprise.

-whether you are happy with your natural color
Well, I've always wanted to be a redhead. Ah well. I guess I've thought of my brown hair as kind of mousy or boring -- just too common. I'd love to wave a magic wand and change the color (either all silver or pure red), but I don't want to use any products to do so.

-whether you've ever hennaed and if you liked the results
I hennaed my hair eons ago (and I do mean eons -- over 30 years ago). At the time, I liked it a lot, but it was incredibly messy and quite a pain. So many more products have come out since then. Back in the day, there weren't a lot of shade options. I just used the herb.

-whether you have experimented with natural ways of altering your hair color (ie honey, tea rinses)
Other than my henna experiment back in my youth (oh, and that ridiculous, one-time peroxide experiment in college), nope.

-what you think the pros/cons of this color range are
The pros are that brown has a huge range of variations, so it can be very light to very dark and rich looking. Lots of hair toys look good in brown hair. The cons are that we are so common. I feel like I blend into the background a lot because of that. I guess I just don't feel that brown hair is very exciting (at least not on me) -- kind of blah. On the other hand, if someone doesn't want to be the center of attention, brown hair is the way to go!

[jera]

My hair is chestnut brown and I love the color. It shines like a prism in the sunlight casting tones of oranges, ambers, and even purples. As a kid, I always envied and wanted to be a blonde. It took awhile for me to mature into liking my natural color, but I'm so glad I do.

[ClareDee]

Go Medium Brown! I fit in here too... I'd describe mine as mid-brown with red and light coppery hints. Sometimes I think it looks almost chestnut.

I'm quite happy with it, although I wasn't always.
Years ago I dyed it dark-red, and dark brown (chemical dyes). Somehow neither worked. The red didn't look natural on me (and it personally annoyed me to have hair and eyebrows different colours), and the dark brown covered all natural highlights and made my colour look very flat.

I haven't tried henna. I don't think the colour would look good on me, and I no longer want to commit to any permanent all-over dyes. The only thing I'd consider is a few subtle blonde highlights to give my natural colour a lift.

A Pro, for me, is that my eyes are also mid-brown and almost the same colour as my hair. That's not much of a pro, I know, but I at least feel like I have a theme going


A slight Con is that I find it hard to get a dramatic colour contrast in terms of hairtoys... Of course plenty of colours go fine with my hair, but I envy the more 'definite' hair colours because they seem to contrast so well with certain colours. Red hair looks really good with green; blonde hair looks perfect with blue; dark brown and black looks great with bright reds, turquoise, colours that 'pop'.
What does mid-brown look great with? I don't find it easy to think up the perfect colours for my hair, especially since it sometimes looks ashy or coppery, depending on the light.

[GeoJ]

-the exact natural shade of your hair
Currently my natural shade is medium brown with a slight cool tone and blondish highlights with two white hairs. In some lighting my hair looks dark brown.

-whether you are happy with your natural color
Well, it used to be a little warmer with copper and reddish highlights. I miss that, but I have realized that it has been slowly changing over the years, and thus have come to accept it.

-whether you've ever hennaed and if you liked the results
I did henna twice last year. I liked the red tones, but I don't like keeping up with touching up new growth to match (so I no longer use henna).

-whether you have experimented with natural ways of altering your hair color (ie honey, tea rinses)
No. I am trying cassia now for shine, and catnip tea for split ends, but nothing deliberately for color.

-what you think the pros/cons of this color range are
For me a pro is that it doesn't clash with any colors I like to wear and it suits my skintone. I can't think of any cons. Overall I am happy with my haircolor (note that as a teenager I wanted it different, either blond or red).