My hair is dark brown so it takes a good bit of lightening for vibrant color. I go to a stylist who specializes in fantasy hair color and she is knowledgable about lightening it without damaging it. She’ll even tell you that she’ll get you as close to what you want as possible but she’s going to work with what your hair can do and she isn’t going to push it too far just to get the exact shade of color. From what I can tell with anything that’s not bleach will only lighten a little bit, which isn’t ideal for vibrant color but will soften the brown