Worrying about your hair colour may seem like a frivolous vanity during the coronavirus pandemic, but watching your roots grow back to their natural colour on Zoom and FaceTime probably isn’t helping your emotional stress load.
Unless your local salon offers colour-to-go kits (we’ll get to that later), your colourist is probably in complete opposition to you tampering with their hard work. Stylists are pleading with their clients on social media to step away from the boxed hair dye during self-isolation with hashtags like #showusyourroots and #waitforyourstylist.
“Fixing box colour can be super expensive, in some cases taking six months to a year for full correction,” said Meghan Baldwin-Vasquez, a balayage master specialist and colour correction expert at Karisma Salon in Smithtown, New York. While some “hairfluencers” have proclaimed wearing a hat is the only viable alternative, we thought we could offer up more practical solutions for a DIY dye job, if you insist on doing it yourself.
If you’re buying permanent dye, don’t keep it a secret from your stylist. Ask for advice.
“Don’t be afraid to ask your hairdresser for advice before buying,” said Nicole Giannini, master colourist and owner of Siren Beauty Space in the San Francisco Bay Area. “We are service professionals and making recommendations is part of our job. It will bring our clients back with more gratitude.”
Giannini and Baldwin-Vasquez both offer custom curbside at-home colour kits for their clients. Giannini calls her kit the Apocalypse Colour Kit and it includes the client’s custom colour, developer, hairline barrier, cleansing treatment, applicator, brushes and an application tutorial video.
If your colourist isn’t offering colour-to-go kits and you can’t be talked out of using a boxed dye, make sure you select your colour very carefully. Baldwin-Vasquez said that selecting the right shade is the hardest part of doing a boxed dye. “When choosing your colour, keep in mind shop brands are different than professional and usually run one to two shades darker than depicted on the box.”
Baldwin-Vasquez also advises against warm and golden tones for at-home root touch-ups in favour of colours that are neutral and ashy.
When you’re ready to dye, both colourists suggested only applying colour to your hairline and part to avoid more opportunity for disaster. Giannini also warned to not make the common mistake of rinsing the colour too soon. “Sometimes people panic when they see a funny coluor during oxidation and think, ‘Oh, shit! Something’s gone wrong! I have to get it off!’ but that funky colour is just normal oxidation. If you rinse too soon, the dye molecules won’t have had enough time to deposit.”
The good news, according to Giannini, is that unless you’re using bleach, you can’t “overcook it.” In fact, she recommended leaving the colour on up to 15 minutes longer than what the manufacturer’s directions say. Giannini also loves using Kevin Murphy Re.Store, a cleansing conditioning treatment, directly after rinsing to lock in colour and soften the hair. “It restores moisture and shine while prolonging colour results.”
Looking for something a bit more temporary?
If you’re not ready to commit to a permanent situation and you’re just looking to cover up small patches of grey for an upcoming Zoom happy hour, Baldwin-Vasquez suggested brunettes can use mascara to cover the roots. Pro tip: Giannini suggests using touch-up spray in the shower to avoid any potential messes.