Hi again Andy --- I wasn`t clear enough on my last post .... what I meant was, take a sample of your own hair for colour-matching purposes, do a template and order your custom....meanwhile, do as I suggested above...... if you think the stock colour may not exactly match your hair [ and it may well be a bit off--is hard to see a colour properly until it`s actually in front of you on the table !] you can temporarily darken/deepen your own with far less hassle than `going at` your system...as I said, even if you`re wary of colouring your own, just pop in to a stylist and they`ll do it for you --no fuss. You shouldn`t have colouring as an on-going issue once your custom/s arrive, as it/they should be accurately-matched from the sample you sent in. It will/would be far more straightforward to simply darken your own hair rather than `messing`with a new stock .... you might get an exact match with your stock, but it can be hard to judge a colour precisely from a picture...seeing it in reality in good natural light is best...the pics of the stocks are as good as you`ll get --just saying that you have to allow for variances and if it were me considering one like you are, I`d get my stock to the nearest colour as I could , but erring on the SLIGHTLY darker shade....then just darken my own down to match if it needs it. You`d be surprised at how quickly colour can lighten-up after a few washes and sun-exposure etc....so even with the stock, you may not need to re-colour your hair to match... a bit of oxidation may very well result in a `softening`of any colour-difference after a while...... obviously you take your hair sample NOW to go with your custom order..... then, go for a stock as I suggested... it`ll be far less hassle to add a bit of colour to your own hair rather than going at a system as a total newbie. Hope that helps.