Beauty Sleuth #16: Untangling Hair Color
It was many years ago that I read in, I want to say Town and Country Magazine, that Evelyn Lauder dyed her own hair. Simply for the time savings. I thought to myself, “Sheesh, if she dyes her own hair, I should try it too!” After all, I used lemons to lighten my hair as a teen, steeped tea to darken it up again, and in college, copied my way-more-sophisticated roommate by using Jolen to bleach the hair on my head (it worked). But over time, I had become paralyzed by the marketing out there, and, honestly, the peer pressure of heading to a salon and letting a professional colorist do it. However, I agreed with “Evelyn” that it took too much time to go to the salon and have the whole shebang done. I remember I once wrote a whole marketing plan for a new financial product we were launching at Schwab during one dye job. So I decided to try it DIY once again. Since then, I have been brunette, blond, platinum blond, red, and even close to dark black! I’ve made mistakes and I’ve had success too. But most of all, I think I’ve saved a lot of precious time which cannot be recovered, let alone $$$, and I’m in control. So here dear friend, are my 2 cents when it comes to coloring your own hair.
1. Own It. Yes You CAN!
Hair coloring is lucrative for the artist. The whole industry is set up around making you think you cannot do this yourself. After all, it’s a $15 billion business in the U.S., with 85% of women dying their hair, on average, every eight weeks (Forbes). But YOU CAN DYE YOUR OWN HAIR and actually over 50% of women who dye their hair, do it themselves. Join the sisterhood! Yes, you can even highlight your hair and yes, I’ve tried the cap! (Most of you will know what that means!) It works!
2. What Are The Savings?
The average salon job lasts at least two hours and costs more than $80, sometimes as much as $350 to $400. The difference in price can come from many factors. Besides zip code, and stylist chosen, other elements, such as technique (balyage anyone?), hair length, texture, previous color treatment can all increase the price and length of your job. In contrast, a box of hair dye from the drugstore will set you back less than $10 and most take about 30 minutes to do their work, and then you have to wash it out, i.e. time in the shower too. Still, that’s significant savings on both the time and money front.
3. What If I Screw It Up?
Yeah, what if you do? It’s just hair. You can fix it. Trust me. I have screwed up…royally! For my daughter’s graduation from college last year, I wanted to go a bit darker in color. So ‘natch, I waited to just three days beforehand. I have a lot of red in my hair, of which I am currently not a fan, and thus chose a dark brown. Now, I had dyed my hair many times myself before this. But I wanted to go DARK. Let’s just say I got a teensy-weensy bit over-eager and the dye-job turned out BLACK! AAAAAHHHH. You can see it in the images below. After recovering from my heart attack, I called the 800 number on the box (#importantlearning: dye your hair on a weekday so you can get help from the manufacturer’s “oops” line during normal business hours). Using the hair color company’s reversing product (aka bleach), I was able to strip the too-dark color from my hair. At this point, my hair looked orange, and I was ever so happy to strut around the house giving others heart attacks. After all, it was graduation day minus 48 hours! After my giggles at my boyfriend’s expense, I applied the better color for me, a brown vs darkest brown, and, while I can’t claim #easybutton, my new color did turn out fabulously, if I do say so myself, without a hint of red.
4. But I Have A Special Color Mixed Up Just For Me
Wrong. Sounds good though. Truth is that its actually easy to match people’s hair color. You know how I know that? I sell extensions in my studio and I have never had a problem matching anyone’s hair color. Never. Texture? Now that’s a different story. But color? The industry has you “covered” with the standard 20 colors out there.
5. Is There A Middle Ground Between $5 and $500?
Good question. Have you heard of Madison Reed? This company is a “disruptor” in the hair dye industry and trying to fill that middle ground between drugstore color jobs and salon “events”. For triple the price of a box of dye from the drugstore, you can purchase Madison Reed’s product online. The company’s main claim is that their products are “free of ammonia, resorcinol, parabens, phthalates, gluten” etc etc. (There are others at the drugstore like this too, fyi, but they are not funded by the Venture Capital community.) You can also add in special shampoos and conditioners, as well as get on a subscription plan for replenishments every 8 weeks. As usual, I had to take one for our team, right sisters?, and recently used Madison Reed’s product to dye my hair. I had high hopes, but I have to say that I didn’t find the product any better than my drugstore go-tos. The experience was more fun, absolutely: the marketing is quirky and the website supports my “atta girl” pathos, but the shipping was no Amazon (#spoiled), and the color? Meh…too red for me. Choosing a color from their website seemed no improvement from choosing one off a box at Walgreens.
6. How Do I Do It And Can I Do My Brows Too?
There is a very simple best practice for dying your own hair….wait for it….: FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE BOX. It’s that easy. Most of these manufacturers have been around for a very long time and have honed their products down to a common denominator that can be followed easily…even by men for goodness sakes. There are also a zillion youtube videos on the same subject. And yes, you can use hair dye for your brows too. Just remember, in that arena, you have to have hair on the brow to actually color!
Bottom line: If you want to dye you own hair, give it a try! Nothing bad is going to happen, and you just might get a feeling of #wonderwoman that lasts for a while!
