Same Color

For the past few years I have been coloring my own hair. I do it for convenience. I do not want to sit in the beauty parlor any longer than it takes to cut my hair. No matter what brand or color I choose, it always comes out the same. Some brands have number color coding. I have used numbers 8, 8N, 9, 9N and this time I used 9 1/4N. It looks the same. I have used blond, light ash blond, light natural blond, light golden blond and just plain old light blond. It looks the same. I am not sure if this happens with the other color shades like brown or red. The companies should just limit to three choices. Vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.