To home color, or not home color…

Let’s address this topic with as much decency as we can.  When you want to slightly experiment with your color or when you start showing an ever so slight amount of grey and want to camouflage it with a SEMI permanent color, I understand.  Note that the word “semi” is in caps.  This means the color is not permanent.  This means you are not altering your color drastically and it will eventually go back to your natural color.

Now let’s talk about big changes.  Changes you should not try at home.  I’m not talking about the teenager who wants to change their hair color because they can, they do, and they pull it off.  I’m talking about the average woman.  You know who you are.  As much as all the beauty magazines tell you that “anyone can do it” I like to think there is some skill involved in getting the right tone or shade as well as assessing the quality of the hair.  Stylists go to school for a reason and no, not everyone finds they’re excellent at it!  That’s why some people prefer to cut only, not color.  You know the lady you saw in the grocery store who’s hair looked like a zebra or a leopard, depending on where you looked?  That was most likely a home highlighting kit.  Not everyone can do it.  Remember the lady everyone said looked like she used shoe polish in her hair?  Home hair color, single process.  Which brings me to my next point…

Most people have no idea how damaging a box of hair color from the supermarket, drugstore or even health food store can be.  Yes, health food store.  Please do not think that a color is better because it’s sold at the health food store.  It just has different chemicals in it.  Most people who have come to me as a home color person are upset by how dry their hair is.  Can I tell you that you’re doing it to yourself?  Every time you apply that “formula” which has been formulated for the masses you are damaging your tresses.  Does the person with very little fine hair need the same thing as the person with thick, curly masses of hair?  Additionally if you just plop it on and rub it in every time you are further damaging and darkening your mid shaft and ends.  There’s a reason it says to apply at the root and pull through for the last 5 minutes.  If it’s your first application and your hair is already overly porous (as a LOT of grey can be) you may grab the color too dark.  This brings me to the next point…

Color can not be lightened with color.  When you buy the permanent medium cocoa brown and don’t realize that it’s been sitting on the shelf for months and due to either your hair type or the age of the product it grabs way too dark, you can not lighten it by putting another color over it.  Neither can I.  At this point you have to some how lighten it with bleach, via a foil or a malt wash.  Either way you’re creating a little more stress to the hair.  And don’t try the malt wash at home after googling it.  It gets messy and never gives even results.

All of which puts you in a stylists chair to fix it at a much higher fee than if you had just gone to the salon in the first place.  Come see me for color or highlights anytime.  It’ll probably cost less than half of what you would have paid for the box, your frustration, damage to your rug and curtains where the color spilled or splattered, and the fix I have to do combined.  I guarantee it 🙂