Calling all hairstylists...

So, you know I'm broke when I resort to coloring my own hair....literally. I've only done that once, and it was a fiasco. Then again, I was doing it blonde. Having naturally brown hair and using blonde box dye is bound to equal a disaster. That is another story in and of itself. Anyways, I haven't had my hair cut and colored since the first of May. My hair needs a cut like no tomorrow, and a color is DEF out of the question. I have a dress deposit to pay for and a photographer to start paying on. So, what do I do? I go to my Twitter friends of course;)

I started asking via twitter about box dyes and such, and the lovely GRITS recommended going to Sally's to get hair color. She has gorgeous hair, and I figured going a shade or two darker is not going to hurt if I do it myself. Going lighter is a skill I leave up to the stylists themselves.

So, I go to Sally's, and the lady recommends Walla hair dye (permanent) in very dark brown. So, I dyed my hair last night. It's a shade or two darker than I'd like. It's probably a shade away from black...a little too dark even for my own taste. The sales associate told me yesterday the color will fade a tad anyways and to buy clarifying shampoo if it came out too dark. This would help it fade a little bit after a couple of washes as well. Is this true??

Also, I didn't get all of my hair evenly. I have long hair to almost the middle of my back and a little of the back didn't take as much. It doesn't look bad enough to run to my stylist, but can I fix this? How long do I need to wait before dyeing it again? Should I just let it be until I get a hair cut? Do I need to go back to a stylist to let them sort my color out? Did I completely just eff up? I just figured 5 bucks is a lot cheaper than 60 bucks.

It's been a long time since I've colored my hair, so I don't know much about this.