A beautiful brunette with highlights

Gosh, it seems like every colorist these days has a story of a client who decided to save money by doing her hair at home--most often, unsuccessfully. I had such a client recently. She had literally been pouring boxed medium brown haircolor over her entire head. As you can imagine, her ends were quite dark, with the rest of the hair slightly lighter. She wanted highlights with minimal warmth. I was very honest with her and told her that I was not sure that would be attainable in this visit. I proceeded by applying her new formula at the root to match the midshaft 1oz 5nn color fusion and 1oz 5T/20 v, and then when I was done, I applied lightner in a discreet area in the back with 20v from roots to end. 35 minutes later, when her color was shampooed out, I looked at the strand. It actually decolorized fairly evenly from roots to end. I proceeded to dry this hair, and highlight it in my usual manner. Decolorized to orange/yellow, I shampooed and towel dried very well and then glazed with Shades EQ 07G =09N, for a full 15. The results were stunning. Normally I might highlight and apply a single at once, but because I didn't know how the hair would decolorize I broke it up into 2 steps. What if the hair had decolorized to maroon, as so often dark haircolor can??? What then??? Big mess. Sometimes, taking the longer route, saves you time in the long run.