Looking Expensive: Hair color...

As I had said in a post a week or so ago, I picked up the book How to Look Expensive: A Beauty Editor's Secrets to Getting Gorgeous by Andrea Pomerantz Lustig. She starts off the book dealing with hair: our hair as a "wearable status symbol" and how to get expensive looking color without paying the expensive price tag.  This was relevant to me: I'm looking for a good hair color.


I'm a brunette. Naturally just a medium brown that I've always considered boring.  I've always thought every color other than mine was much prettier.  But don't we all do that? The grass is always greener....I've gone darker and lighter and redder and I'm finally settling on the fact that maybe nature (God?) knew best and medium brown is a good color for me.  But that's not to say that it couldn't use a little help being the best brown it can be for me.

So I've been on the look out for the right look for me, not just for my skin tone, but for my life situation too.  I've started getting gray hairs (eek!). It drives me crazy. I feel like when ever one of my brown hairs falls out, it grows back grey.  People told me law school would turn me grey and I thought they were kidding.  Unfortunately for me, they weren't.  Blonde's definitely have it easier in this transition: white hairs are virtually invisible on blonde locks.  Not so much on a darker head.  Plus, my husband and I are interested in trying to start a family in not so distant future, and you're not supposed to get your hair colored while pregnant, so I'm trying to find a process right now that will camouflage my greys for long periods of time, and is easy to maintain.
In her book, Andrea named the 7 Qualities of Expensive-Looking hair color:

1. It looks natural.
2. It is multidimensional (no "shoe polish" color)
3. It is a mixture of highlights and lowlights.
4. It has strategically placed brighter strands around the face and is darker in back
5. It doesn't veer to far away from a woman's virgin hair color
6. It has healthy shine
7. It doesn't look too perfect.  

Basically this all boils down to spending money making your hair looks as natural as possible in the most ideally perfect way.  1, 2, 3 and 4 above are why you need to find a good colorist.  I'm working on 6 every day.
As far as color goes, I'm on the hunt for the right images to take to my colorist and see what she can do.  Its always best to take images with you of what you want so you and your colorist (or stylist - good for cuts too) are on the same page. I actually save images on my iPad and take that with me now, so my colorist can see the exact same images I'm looking at, and not risk a printout not matching the coloring I liked.