Hair Dying help + money saving?

dianadors

Hi Pattycake
You hit the nail on the head there. I worry that it wont look like me with lighter hair. I saw a girl in the supermarket this morning with about an inch of white roots, 4 inch of light brown hair, then about 4 inch of darker hair at the ends. Its not a good look, but a look you get when you diy. I thought it would have not looked as odd if she had highlights to the end of the hair that matched the 3 Inch of lighter hair - but her white roots were still a problem. I cannot believe that the likes of L'oreal cannot come up with a solution. There are a lot of us out there.

pattycake

Hi diana. You are so right. I think the Recital Preference I used last time was L'Oreal. It was a couple of pounds more expensive than my old faithful Nice'n'Easy so I thought this is going to be good. In fact the grey coverage was inferior to the cheaper product.

I could not bear to walk around with inches of visible grey root and darker ends. That looks just sad. I would rather be grey all over. As I said before my hair is much lighter now but I am not sure it suits me. I have some grey visible just behind my ears that was not covered successfully but there is no dye on the ends as I have had such a short crop.

My daughter whose taste I trust implicitly, says it looks good and very natural. I am reserving judgement for when the evil greys start coming up at the roots on the front.

Best wishes, Patricia

MartinaMoney

Can anyone help me. Summary - was made redundant - now enjoying life looking after family and less stress - now want to stay at home - downshift etc. but need to cut back. Firstly hairdresser - used to visit monthly at £50 a pop for grey hair coloured. Never used home dye kits but if I did could save more than £40 per month (HUGE) - has anyone any advice on this subject - is it a false economy .... any advice would be very much appreciated.

Justie

depends a bit on your hair colour but it's not always a disaster - been a few years since I've done mine though


biggest tip is to wear rubber gloves not the ones in the box and then wrap your head in cling film

and make sure you do your roots regularly - home dyed hair looks cheap if it's not done often enough... but then so does salon dyed too...

kickstart_3

I have always done my own hair, a lot of the kits out there are easy to use , the hardest part is choosing which colour!

MATH

Home hair dye kits are very sophisticated in their formulations now. I know a number of mobile hairdressers who use them instead of keep a hugh stock of professional mixtures. I worked as a colourist years ago and keep a number of friends in tippity top condition with chemist colours.

The trick to successful home coluring is to not stray more than 2/3 shades from your natural colour and to apply it as they do in the salon. If you shampoo the colour all over again and again you get a stripy look where the ends are too dark or light from being over processed, the mid lenghts area different shade again and then the re-growth. This is a dead givaway of a home jobbie.

Ideally get a friend to help you 'touch up the roots' with a tinting brush. Do this by creating virtical partings 1" apart in the hair and painting the tint onto to the regrowth and repeat with horizontal partings. Start where regrowth or grey is most noticable. Allow to develop and comb through to the ends for the last 5-10 mins of the developing time only to refresh the faded tint already there.

Always wear gloves and wipe away tint (especially dark coours) from the forehead and ears immediately. Barrier with vaseline if skin staining is a problem.

Re-colour every 4-6 weeks, it is much easier and looks better if you maintain your colour regularly.

Stick to the timings.

Nearly all home dye kits tell you the mixtures won't keep, but providing you don't mix them they will. So if you have very fine hair or are only part colouring you can mix enough in a small non metalic bowl and save the rest unmixed in their original bottles to use next time. Mrs MATH has very fine short hair which is re-touched regularly yet I only need to buy 2 or 3 colours a year to do this.

black-saturn

I've got hair all the way down my back and I've always home coloured it. My tips would be to use an old towel and reserve it for the times you do your hair. Put vaseline along your hairline or anywhere else you might get the dye and then if you get any on your skin it will wash off easier.

apples1

I used to pay £100 for a cut and design colour at a wonderful Organic heardressers. It was a fab treat and my hair always looked nice. Did that every 2 months for years when working full time (pre children).

Now do a home colour and just pay for a good salon cut. I have had more compliments on my hair since doing home colour. I use L'Oreal Couleur Experte which gives a base colour then highlights on top (which is what I had done in the salon). It helps if you can get someone to do the highlights bit for you. It often on offer in Boots and there are tons of colours to choose from. I've use four different colours (some of them quite a few times) and always been v happy with results. Just follow instructions to the letter & keep a baby wipe handy to wipe of any bits you get on your skin.

the_devil_made_me_do_it

Yup me too, I use home hair dye kits, but I generally plum for the semi-permanent, get less roots showing and it's less damaging to the hair. In fact I think you can acheive good, natural results with semi-permanents. Stick to colours closet to your own natural colour tho', this applies to both semi and permanent colours.

amyb_2

After a recommendation…

Was feeling a bit down so treated myself to a very very expensive cut and colour yesterday and need a bit of shampoo advice.

Have gone from being a very dark brown to a gorgeous light brown with three shades of dark blonde/gold highlights. Also gone from long and boring to funky layered on my shoulder. Anyways currently have shampoo for dark hair which obviously won’t be good and am wondering whether or not I’m best off getting a shampoo for generic coloured hair or one for the blondey bits??

After the £180 quid I spent having it done I couldn’t bring myself to buy the products the hairdresser recommended but now not sure what to go for. I wash my hair everyday and its quite dry so something moisturising would be good.

If I can get it from boots even better as I’ve got £50 worth of points saved up.

Ta,

Amy