Colourful Hair Question

Sorry guys = I tried both the cheapo dye and special effects on my light brown hair (doing a strand test) and no difference. I've decided to bleach it to get the colour i'm looking for. Oh well, it was worth a go. I'll post photos of how it turned out when I bleach it.

Hair update:

I just bleached my hair (just a strand) vol 40 for 1 hour and it's turned out great! No where near platinum but i've got it to a medium to light blonde (and that's only because my application was patchy). I'm thinking if I leave it on 1 hour and 15 minutes it will be perfect.
And yes, I did say volume 40.

That is one thing I have discovered - my hair is indestructible. It still feels soft (not strawlike) even after the dreaded bleach abuse.

I'm being super careful though... I was a little scared looking at the bleach. The bottle said 'rose scented'..... Like I care whether it smells nice! I just want to know my hair isn't going to fall out!!!

I'm gonna bleach/dye it tomorrow so I'll let you all know how it turned out!

don't leave it on for over an hour, you could potentially go bald!

it's better to do multiple applications than a huge one at once!

I know, I'm being really careful. I'd rather have my medium brown hair than none!

I left it on for an hour on the strand test and it's turned out really well. I'm not aiming to leave it on any longer than I have to... I'm terrified already!

Thanks for the advice though, I won't leave in on more than an hour.

As it goes, I think I got the consistency wrong. I'll have to work on that. The colours I'm using are really dark anyway so it won't matter if I have yellow patches (hopefully). I don't mind if it turns green =]

@illegal, 1 hour is fine, ive left mine on for longer before! it made the colour richer. by the time it takes me to do the whole head, the first bits on have been on for a while. doing it in stages is tricky, if u follow the instructions ur supposed to use the hair dye in one go, if u did it in stages that would be a lot of dye, and possibly different colours/shades.
i dye my hair purple or blue or black. i go to a cheapo shop and by schwarzkopf for under £5. never seen anywhere to do bleach though.
to get my hair light once i used schwarzkopf blonde dye, titamium colour i think it was (whatever is the lightest)
i choose colour based on what i want it to look like, on the colour shading chart on the box i look at the darkest one.
the consistency/quantity of ingrediants is easy, its all there, u just mix, shake and apply.
ive never needed to bleach my hair for a vibrant colour, the only time i lightened it was to see what it would look like. i had about 2 inches of roots,which is about half a year of hair growth for me, with the faded dye, light/mousy brown roots and missing a couple of patches my hair looked like fire (awesome!)

to add, temp colours are completely different, usually more variety and more vibrance because they are temp. ive tried them, good for a special day,but i prefer permenant. for the same price u get a lot more
i went to camden and got some cheap dye in pots for £2 per pot, sooo much colour and shade choice. green barely showed, blue and red were good, red stayed ages (as red always does) green barely showed and a supposed white/bleach looked no different.
by the way, purple fades to redish, and blue goes kinda red too...