Okay, I'm needing either some consolation or some hard truth here. I finally got up the courage to dye my hair burgundy, and not only bought the proper herbs, but used them.

And I don't think I really thought through what to expect. There's a girl in my church with purplish hair and it's lovely - she looks young and healthy in it (of course, she IS young and healthy - that probably helps). Anyway, I think I thought I'd look like her. I didn't consider that my little sister used to dye her hair about this color, and looked like death warmed over (she has sallow skin, is overweight and wears lots of black eye make-up).

Now, my husband likes the color - which makes me think that perhaps my shock is just shock (and maybe some baggage), and that it's not really that bad.

But it looks clownish and un-natural to me, and I'm tempted to scrub my head with dish soap to make it fade as quickly as possible (it's a permanent dye - henna, but there's some ways to fade it).

So tell me, do I mitigate the color as much as possible, dye it a bit darker (henna only goes darker, not lighter - so I could go dark brown), or live with it as is?

Pictures are in natural indirect light with no make up,so probably as close to "real" color as possible, I think. I also washed and air-dried my hair, so this is about the texture it would have most of the time too.

What's your take on it?

(p.s. these specs are chipped, so my next "style" project, after figuring out what to do with my hair, is to replace them. So it's okay to discount that the specs and hair are different shades of "burgundy")