Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

All boxed color comes with 20 volume developer (i.e., peroxide). The amount of peroxide in it will continue to lighten your hair each time you color, but you won't see the bleached-orange-brassy color your hair has turned until the colored dye wears off (usually 2 months after you use a boxed dye kit). I have medium ash brown hair, naturally, but every ash brown boxed dye kit I try would make my hair RED (and make me terribly mad). Ask anyone who is trying to achieve an ASH color...they DO NOT want to end up with RED hair!!! Yet, that's what many women get, time after time with boxed color kits. After a lot of Googling over the past few days I found out that the strong developer that comes in boxed kits is to blame (not the color itself). So, I ordered two boxes of the 5AB (a=ash, b=blonde?) ash mocha brown from Amazon--I have a lot of hair (past my shoulders). Then I went to Sally's and bought a bottle of 10 volume developer and threw away the boxed kit's 20 volume developer! That's right ladies...throw that crap away. Using a lower volume of peroxide (i.e. 10, or even 5) *should* stop your hair from continuing to get bleached (and turn orange underneath the fresh color you're just putting on). The 10 volume developer will open up the hair cuticle just enough to let the color in (and keep it in for a few months) without continuing to lighten/bleach your new growth or your already-bleached orange/brassy old-growth hair. Combining the color dye with a 10 volume developer is being called demi-permanent these days, and it is supposed to be a deposit-only coloring option (as opposed to stronger developers which simultaneously bleach/lighten your hair AND deposit color). I used half of my 6 oz concoction (3 ozs color cream and 3 ozs 10 volume developer) for my roots (let sit for 20 mins), then used the rest for my ends and combed it through (let sit for additional 10 mins). The color is WONDERFUL (no red cast!! finally!!!), my hair feels far less damaged than the last time I colored with boxed kit developers, and it's much shiner to boot. It may be one shade darker than the box, but that's to be expected. It will lighten up to that exact color over the next 2 shampoos. I'll never use anything more than a 10 developer ever again. If you're going to buy your own developer from Sally's you *could* also buy the l'oreal excellence cream color, too, and avoid the boxed kit altogether. BUT, I can't find 5AB mocha ash brown, though I do see a 5.1 ash brown. I just don't know if it's similar enough to the 5AB mocha ash brown boxed color. Maybe I'll try it down the road. For now, though, I'm buying several more boxes of this color.