Buyer Beware! Home Hair Color

At least once a day I will encounter a client who has put a box of store bought hair color on her hair. This may work once, maybe twice but ultimately the color will go to black or even an odd orange or even a green shade.

Finally, they make a salon appointment to get it fixed. The hardest thing for a colorist to do is remove those cheap box dyes from a client’s hair.

Professional colorists are allowed to use chemicals that the general public can not buy or use by law. That’s why you are carded when you try to enter a professional beauty supply store.

Very large corporations market these store box colors with big name Hollywood celebrities. They use terms like, ‘For reds like these’, ‘For color like this’, or even the greatest disaster, ‘Streaking parties, for home highlights’.

Let’s break it down…

Because these corporations can not sell professional dyes and developers to the general public they mix 20 volume hydrogen peroxide and ammonia. This is a lethal combination for hair. It will dry the hair out to feel like straw. All the while depositing dyes derived from coal tar by products.

Now comes big advertising companies who market these products by using Sarah Jessica Parker, Blake Lively, Andie MacDowell, even Tina Fey. They never claim to use these products. The wording is tricky. ‘For color like this…’.’For shine like this’, ‘For color this vibrant’ and so on and so on. Can you imagine Blake Lively in her bathroom applying her own hair color? Now why would a celebrity who makes millions on their films be doing her own hair color. The answer is this – they don’t. They are paid handsomely for their endorsements. These women have the world’s top hair colorists travel with them and even write their names into their contracts when engaging in a movie contract.

Did you know that even the term ( Shampoo, Rinse, Repeat ) was written by an advertising firm to sell twice as much shampoo?

So with that said we go to the salon service, Corrective Color.

Corrective color can be extremely pricey, take hours and even several appointments to try to pull out these pigments and replace them with the clients desired color. Sometimes, it can’t even be done due to the damage that these box colors have done. You will usually have to sign a release form exonerating the stylist from any breakage or chemical damage. The dryness of the hair can never be restored. That’s like turning straw back into the grass it was derived from. It simply can’t happen.

A salon color consultation is always free. Be honest with your colorist and tell them your budget and see what they can do for you before that impulse buy at your local drug store.