After a few washes, and with the normal oxidation, the colour will lighten-up. In the meantime, a tip I heard from a person who did it, was to shampoo the hair with ``Head and Shoulders`` anti-dandruff shampoo and leave it on / in for 15 -20 minutes...this will lift the colour, but be ` warned` ---- I haven`t ever done this with any system and that shampoo could be [ relatively] harsh on system -hair. so proceed with caution ..... maybe try it for 10 minutes first, rinse it out and dry the hair..see how it looks--if it`s still too dark, do a further , short application etc. I think once the hair hair been cut/styled, it will look less obvious than it does now ...at the moment, due to the volume of the new hair, it looks that bit more stark. Naturally , as a new wearer,you`ll be ultra-sensitive to every little detail and one of the most obvious differences for all topper-wearers when they take delivery of any new system, is the colour / shine compared to their growing hair ...the factories use silicones to give the shiny look before shipping it to you..once the system is shampooed evenn once or twice, it will loose a certain amount of ` excess` colour immediately, and also the silicone/s ---- if after the cut-in, it still looks a bit ` off`, just use some styling -product such as Brylcreem [mainly] on your growing hair and that will make it look darker...hope that helps. Get the one with selenium sulfide in it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_%26_Shoulders Just note that some of those ingredients are not system-friendly, so just be aware of that and just be very careful not to over-do things, if you decide to give this a go.