So I dyed my hair

A few months ago I chopped off all my hair.  And like good ole Jenny fashion, I got the itch to dye it.  I dye it alot.  And I really like to dye it with the season.  I wasn't loving the natural light brown with blonde highlights that I got at my last hair appointment, so I wanted to go back dark.  But if I immediately jumped into darkest brown, I couldn't enjoy any red later.  So this was my only chance to go with a red. I chose to dye it myself because I'm a broke ass grad student with Feria's light auburn black.

I dyed my hair right before my trip to Alabama because it was needing it something fierce.  Like I had two inches growing out on those highlights and it just looked a hot mess.  Don't mind my greasy hair.  I mean, it does say "unwashed hair" in the instructions...

When I got to Alabama, I stayed at Bobby's place and I didn't bring any shampoo with me because I had shampoo at his place. Truth be told, I already had enough clothes, shoes, and scarves packed to have to worry about shampoo!  But the shampoo at his place wasn't color safe shampoo.  Does that really matter?  I'm thinking so. I think I've read something about sulfates before - i.e. I never liked my chemistry classes.  Because after another week of washing my hair with non-color safe shampoo, my towels were still looking like this:

Eeeek!  I hope that comes out... I would expect it after the first day, but after a week?  Yeah, I definitely got left out of the know-how in hair dye.  So after two weeks my hair still has a red tint to it, but definitely doesn't look like Feria's box.  Like at all.  And my highlights are for sure showing through.

I'm thinking I should dye it again.  But what do I know?

This picture was taken the day after I dyed it.  So much cuter, right?  Have you had any mishaps with dying your own hair?  Can you offer me any tips?