Hey gals,

I'd been considering bleaching the bangs of my very, very dark brown hair, a la Imelda May.

I've never bleached my own hair before, but paying salon prices for just my bangs seemed a tad ridiculous. So I bought a Clairol Born Blonde Maxi kit on a whim, because it claims to bleach even black hair to blonde in one go, and I saw it had good reviews at Ulta (http://www.ulta.com/ulta/browse/productDetail.jsp?productId=xlsImpp...). I gave it a try this morning, and even though I followed the directions and left the solution on for the maximum 90 minutes, I have this mottled mess that ranges from a light chestnut to a gross greyish dark brown that's almost as dark as my original color, but duller.

I did apply the solution to the root area about 20 minutes after I did everything else, like the instructions said, and that's where I have the most mottled, dark areas. I'm assuming next time I should just do everything all at once for better results.

The thing is, now I have to do something about these bangs - I look like a tiger, and not in the "animal prints are totally cool" kind of way. Once I bleached my bangs, I had been hoping to dye them yellow for a little extra pop, but now I just want them to be all one color.

Recommendations? I saved the leftover bleach solution (since I just did the bangs, there was lots). I left the cap off so it wouldn't explode, of course, but will it keep for the 24 hours I'm supposed to wait before trying to bleach again? Would you recommend re-bleaching at all, or is my hair going to be a gummy, broken mess if I try to lighten it more? Is there a better product for what I'm trying to do? Do I really need to suck it up and find a salon that can fix it?

Thanks for any advice you guys have!