Practical Tips for how to Save Money and Color your Own Hair at Home Safely

One of the top beauty advice questions that I get asked is about dyeing one’s own hair at home. The main reason for this is that women want to save on the ongoing salon costs and the tips required for getting their hair done professionally at the salon. Year after year, they watch the stylist color their hair and eventually they start thinking to themselves, why can’t I just do this hair dye myself? Some women can’t afford to shell out the money and are looking for less expensive do it yourself alternatives.

Well if you are going to dye your hair at home, let me forewarn you to exercise extreme caution and always try several test streaks before you take a plunge to permanent. Also, try non permanent color to test out different looks before you commit to permanent. Dyeing your hair at home is high risk, yet if you figure out what works for you the savings in terms of beauty dollars are tremendous, not to mention that if you are a busy woman it can be a relief to extricate from long waits and salon appointments that are cutting into your free time. Some women drive a long way to get their hair done and are relieved when they don’t have to drive, wait and pay money anymore. If you love your hair stylist hair beyond measure, then your salon expense is worth it and you can try to save on other beauty spending. However, if you can learn to live without the expensive color job or weave, your piggy bank will love you for it.

Remember to always try non permanent hair dyes and test streaks of permanent dyes before committing to any permanent color changes. This is especially true if you are thinking about going darker ala Megan Fox with a darker chestnut brown, dark auburn, or dark black hair color. Permanent dark color is very hard to lift out of hair, so don’t go really dark unless you are sure it is going to look pretty. Dark hair looks really good with blue eyes. Also be careful going from one shade of blonde to another. Changing between blonde shades has high risk of green hair results – so test streak first before going from one shade of blonde to another. Shades like champagne blond, ash blonde, natural blonde, etc should be tested on your hair first. Finally, if you are trying to take dark hair to light, this is a must test change. Sometimes the drugstore hair colors can’t lift the color enough so you end up in the orange zone. To avoid orange hair disasters, test streak when trying to go from dark to significantly lighter as well.

Every brand of hair color is vastly different. Don’t assume that an auburn in L’Oreal is going to look the same as a red in Garnier Nutrise. It won’t. Some brands run really shiny bright colors while others are muted. A color in two different brands that look almost identical on the box is not going to look almost identical on your hair! Never do permanent dye at home without doing test streaks. Have fun trying home hair color but don’t get over zealous because you don’t want to wreck your hair and have to pay to fix it as that would totally defeat the purpose.

The biggest mistake women make in dyeing their hair themselves is that they get a huge spurt of motivation and then do something too risky and regret the result. Always proceed with caution and slowly test your plan with test streak experiments before committing your whole head of hair to a change. Don’t suddenly decide to change your color and dump dye on it without testing it first as you may regret it later. The hair dye box color before and after pictures never show what the color will be like over gray hair or white hair and depending on the brand it can come out really really bright and loud looking on gray hair – another reason to test before taking the color plunge.

Home hair dye’s in most all the brands such as Revlon, Loreal, Garner, ColorSpa, Herbal Essence, cost only between 5-10 dollars so doing some test streaks is low cost and just involves a bit of your time. When you have a free afternoon run a few experiments on your hair by coloring only a few strands that are hidden. Try a few colors and wait a few days before making a decision to go for it. For example, you could pick three similar colors in different popular brands to try. After looking at the test streaks for a few days, choose the one that you think looks most dazzling on you. You can also do tests with how long you leave it on your hair – varying the time suggested application time by 5 minutes or so can change the result too. Testing before coloring your entire hair will also be able to ensure that the hair dye is not going to irritate your scalp or cause any serious damage to your hair. Some hair color brands stick and stain more than others. Be sure to have some old towels around and clean up after wards to avoid ruining paint or flooring in your bathroom. Don’t rush and Good Luck with your home hair color!