Welcome to my long and confusing hair story.. imma skip to last year though; so for my birthday last year I got my hair done kinda like this but a little less yellow-y and a bit longer

So then after this my natural hair started to grow out creating a weird 3 color ombré so I tried to dye my hair as closely as I could to my natural color but the box was a lie and was WAY darker than the picture showed

Natural color :

Box dye :

So fast forward to now; my hair has grown out and now is a natural color to dark brown ombré thingy. And now to my advice :

Should I go darker, like a chocolate brown like Rowan Blanchard :

Or should I go lighter with a balayage :

And if you have any suggestions leave them in the comments and if you have any picture examples that would be greatly appreciated :)

Thank you for your time 💛💛