When you dye your hair at home, it's a totally different ball game to dropping into the salon for a bit of colour. On the plus side, DIY hair dye turns you into an expert on plastic gloves - but they also leave you wondering what on earth you'll do if a guest ever stays over (long story short: all your nice towels? Ruined).
"Allergy" and "skin test" aren't in your vocab when they really should be and you've spent hours examining your own inflamed scalp.
Here are five things of note that happen when you dye your own hair at home...
1. You don't know the meaning of the phrase "allergy test". Yes you know you really should test whether you're allergic to all the chemicals you're putting on your hair, but most of the time you take the risk - and you've got the red, flakey scalp to prove it. Grim.
2. You've been ginger, by accident. During the transition from blonde to brunette or vice versa you may have have made a pitstop in ginger town. Sometimes the unexpected colour proved a success and you sported your auburn tresses with pride. On other, less fun occasions, you were so fluorescent you needed sunnies on to look at your face in the mirror.
3. Dying your hair three times in one day is nothing out of the ordinary. The packet said, "mahogany brown" but the murky pond water colour currently residing on your barnet is NOTHING LIKE MAHOGANY GOD DAMNIT! Luckily you bought another kit in case of such a dyer (pun intended) emergency. Take two sees similar results so you shove that mop under a hat and whiz down to the chemist because third time's the charm.
4. You ruin all the guest towels. Once upon a time you were a real life Monica Geller with your fabulous array of guest and fancy guest towels, but as soon as that first sachet of powder met that gooey liquid every towel was called up for DIY dye duty. If a pal does stay over they'll be lumped with the moth-eaten Hippy Chick beach towel circa 2000.
5. There's a definitive ranking of plastic gloves. While what distinguishes a good glove from a crappy glove won't ever come up in a general knowledge quiz, it would certainly bode well as your chosen topic on Mastermind. The long and the short of it is, the ones which sit on your hands like corner shop carrier bags are the worst and the dentist-like ones are the best. What's more, you develop an attachment to them and stock pile so many in the bathroom cabinet there's no room for your toothbrush.
For tips on how to dye your hair at home make sure to watch the video below...