This is my first post, hello! (and its gunna be a long one)
I dyed my hair with semi-permanent Punky Color.
It looked really nice at first but now the roots have washed out and I don't feel like re-dying it. My natural color (2 years ago :P ) was dark blond, and then I bleached it. My roots grew in and I put the red over everything! Then I tried to get my regular blond color back but I picked the wrong shade of blond and got ash blond, which was way too gray. So in a fit of panic I got out trusty neon red again. But now, 2 months later my roots have washed out to my natural blond color, and the red remains at the ends of my hair. The bottle the red came in said it would wash out in 5-45 washes, I think its been around 30ish maybe, and still no real fading in site. I was wondering if any of you have heard of L'oreal Color Fix? It's supposed to take out the pigment of your hair so you can re-color it. Do you know of any other processes to speed up getting the rest of the red out? Wash my hair 20 more times a day?! Or must I make a trip to a professional to remove it.. I just don't feel like doing the pro thing yet cause it says its supposed to wash out.. Eek.

Welcome to the forums
The L'Oreal stuff you mentioned is mainly for use with permanent colours so it's probably going to be less effective on a direct semi-permanent. You could give it a try.

Have you seen this article? http://haircrazy.info/miscellaneousarticles/fading-your-colour/
I also find bath salts are good at fading colour.

You might have to bleach the red out and then dye the hair back to your natural colour. It's going to be difficult though. The red will probably go pinkish if you bleach which may be difficult to cover with dark blond. Lots of strand tests will be required.

Hm, thanks for the suggestions, and the link to that article. I'll be trying some things out!

AAAAAAAHHH!!!
So I went to the salon because you said i'd have to bleach it most likely, and I didn't want to mess up bleaching by myself.

WELL the salon BUTCHERED my hair.
They couldn't get out the red, their remover or whatever they used, turned it a dark purple, and thats as far as it went. They "bleached" it 3 times and nothing else happened, so they had to put brown over it since there was no way they could put blond over it. Except, my roots (which were blond) went a light brown, and the previously red part (which turned the dark purple) combined into a muddy purpley brown. It's hideous!

And here is the icing on the cake, when I asked if they could make my roots the same color as the majority of my hair, they said i'd have to pay another coloring fee! Oh my god I wanna shave my head.

heres the damage>

On the upside, it's likely the plum colour you have there will fade with time as the remaining red gradually washes out. You'll be able to tone it to a more desirable colour if that happens.
It's a shame the roots don't match the rest of it but at least they're a nice colour and with a few highlights could be blended in with your natural colour as it grows in.

I'm sorry that you had a nasty experience with hairdressers - and spent £££'s and just wound up with damage. I had a similar problem about a year ago. I'm still wary of them as about three months ago a (different) hairdresser assumed when I said I wanted bits at the front cut to shoulder level she layered it instead.

I initially went because I was nervous about dying my hair myself. The first time they died it it went the red I was after. The next time it went a very dodgy fluorescent orange and red mix.

I went back to ask for it to be darkened. I expected them to put a dark red on but instead they put on a brown and it went a horrible purple. After washing it over and over with Vosene, I gave up and bleached it myself. From there I dyed it black as every other dye I tried turned out patchy.

Recently, I got fed up of black hair and decided to rebleach my hair. It took a few attempts to get rid of the black but SFX Blue Velvet covered it evenly even though it bleached patchily.

I hope you manage to get it how you want it.

wow that 's crazy they messed up your hair with the purpley-brown mix as well! I am going to get my hair bleached some time next week I think, I was giving my hair a 3-4 week "healing time".. who knows how much it actually healed but oh well lol.

I've almost had the same experience, except the strand tests were inconclusive and she bleached my whole head 3 times. My hair almost fell out. She was going to dye brown over the patchy, orangey blonde but I left the salon and haven't been to one since.
What I find helps is to find things that gently fade color, before turning to bleach to fix the problem - mixing baking soda and water and giving your hair a rinse does wonders if you do it every few days. Generic shampoos, which contain sulfates, do a fair job of stripping color too. There are a few gentle L'Oreal color strippers that don't contain ammonia or bleach that do a considerable amount of lifting to darker colors.