Why you shouldn’t be box dying your hair right now (you have enough problems to deal with).
HEY POMMESHELLS! Now, more than ever, a lot of you are reaching out, asking if we can help recommend a box hair dye colour to get you through until your next appointment. We see the memes! Stop. Set down the box dye. And go home. We are not telling you to avoid box dye for selfish reasons, well maybe a little but only because we do not want the torture of multiple colour corrections, and let me tell you, its not as easy as it looks! I am going to breakdown WHY stylists across the globe are urging you to avoid the box dye and wait for your stylist.
Lets break it down:
When you come to the salon, we, as professionals have had years of training and we know the science and the breakdown of what is actually in a strand of hair (colour molecules, keratin etc). We take all that knowledge and determine your level (the colour you see) and then we determine the underlying pigment (the colour that lives INSIDE the hair) (or the lack of colour when we are talking greys) from there we decide:
- If you need a semi, demi or permanent colour;
- Do we need ammonia based, oil based, acid or alkaline colour;
- What level of developer do we need; 6, 9, 12, 15, 20, 30.
Is your brain starting to hurt yet?
After we determine all of that we have to decide, ok do we need a natural, are we covering greys, what reflect of pigment do we need to keep it looking natural, how do we avoid it from getting ‘hot roots’, brassy etc. and then we put our little science caps on and mix your formula! So although (your welcome) we make it look easy, it is not! It goes so much deeper than ‘brown’.
Beyond all of that, if by some granted wish of the hair genies you miraculously choose the correct box dye, there is no way of controlling the developer. Often when it says ‘semi’ it is still using a higher volume of oxidation than you need and the results will be very opaque with a lack of shine, dimension and moisture.
We are able to control all of this with our Professionnel Colour, not to mention the ingredients in PROFESSIONNEL hair colour are much higher grade and leave your hair in way better condition.
So say, you get lucky, you choose a box dye and it looks… (when I say lucky I mean… it’s pure guessing and luck!) when you do come back to the salon (don’t worry we never judge ever so please always BE HONEST) you have that old colour living in your hair, EVEN IF it says ‘semi’ permanent it still is clinging to the cuticle like we are clinging onto Lauren and Cameron’s relationship (love is blind if you know you know). As it grows down your hair, that is how you get that annoying banding, not to mention it is next to impossible to lift out of the hair, and if we do try and balayage or lighten the hair, (because it was not applied evenly almost impossible when doing it on yourself) you will get blotchy lifting, and extremely orange /red hair because we are now lifting through artificial colour, artificial pigment, and then all the natural pigment… It’s a lot of lifting which means sensitized and often orangery red hair! – this is all for brunettes.
I am not even going to dive into lighter tones I am just going to promise you if you try and ‘lighten’ your roots you will end up with flaming orange/ yellow and brassy hair so just really do not do it! DO NOT.
That is the quick and dirty of box dye, there are major risks so just throw your hair up in a top knot, and live with your regrowth! Check out our Root sprays to cover them up temporarily and head over to the QUARENQUEEN blog to learn how to use them!
WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER!
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