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Rant & Rave: Hair Dye

Share: Tell us what you love and hate about Hair Dye!

my answer: I haven’t dyed my hair in six or seven years now, I think… but it’s been awhile for sure, so I don’t have much to say on this matter.

29 Comments

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Brittany Avatar

My hair is extremely short (1/8″ on the sides and the back, maybe ~2″ hair on top), but I still dye it black and have done so on and off for the past 10 years. I love keeping my hair black because it always just feels more “me”, which I’d say is a good rave about hair dye. It can really change the way I feel about my overall image.

Rant would be just how tedious it is to do myself, which I do to save money because I hate overspending at a salon, especially with such short hair. Also, since it’s short, any mistakes I make are visible, like getting black dye on my ears or hairline.

Kate Avatar

I’m a longtime dye-hard and I’m surprised that I even have hair or a scalp anymore. I’ve tried going to salons to have my colour done, but unless it’s something complicated with highlights and low-lights, I honestly don’t think it’s worth it. One of the smartest things I’ve done in recent years is get myself a basin and brush so that I can apply directly to new growth without damaging and drying the parts that have already been dyed. I find this technique allows the dye to hold better as well. It also avoids the “splatter” effect, since it’s much more precise.

I would love to see more options to do multi-tone dye jobs at home without having to buy multiple kits, especially for dark colours. I also wish that we could get the Revlon hair dye here in Canada, since I hear it’s great quality for a pharmacy product.

Sierra Avatar

LOVE IT. I’ve dyed my own hair since I was 13, and I’ve had pretty much every color of the rainbow, haha. Red, green, blue, blonde, black, red, orange, pink, purple, brown…It’s dark brown and fuchsia at the moment.

Lily Avatar

I dye my own hair and keep it pretty close to my natural hair color. I just try to hide those grays! When I was younger I did play a bit changing looks.

Vanessa Avatar

I actually just dyed my hair yesterday! I have always loved dyeing my hair because it can make such a huge difference in your look and I really love changing things up once in a while. It can be a bit of a mess, but I do think that having to do a bit of cleaning after is alright because the end result can be so great.

Veronica Avatar

I only recently started dying my hair after about eight years of leaving it alone…I love that it gives you the freedom to change your look. I don’t love how expensive it is to maintain, especially if you go lighter than your natural color – not to mention all the product you have to use to keep it hydrated and healthy when you dye regularly! I’m wavering between whether I want to stay dark or go platinum blonde this summer, and the big thing keeping me from going from the latter is the thought of the maintenance costs. o_o

Generally, if I’m doing a shade close to my natural one, I’ll use store dye, but if I have go significantly deeper or lighter than my natural shade, I prefer professional because it lasts longer and is kinder to my curly/wavy hair.

Denise Avatar

If I don’t want to look hag-ridden (and I don’t!) then theres no option but to dye my hair. Fortunately my hairdresser only uses organic products and is very reasonable and my hair is in good condition (as good as curly hair can look in damp/humid conditions without it morphing into a dandelion head!) so I don’t really have any rants, just raves.

Sylirael Avatar

Rave: I had fun with getting my hair dyed dark red/auburn in high school, and people really liked it on me, but I haven’t bothered in a long time. Now I have way to much hair to either afford it at the salon or be bothered to do it at home! 😀

Rant: That my hair doesn’t really go blonde if I bleach it, but more of an odd strawberry blonde looking colour. I’m not particularly fussed about being blonde, but the one time I tried it I was like ‘…oh’ 😛

Wednesday Avatar

Love hair dye, but I have it professional coloured since I do not like to deal with the mess and I find DS dyes quite drying. I switch up my hair colour between deep red, and almost black. I stick close to my own natural hair level so I can use gentle non-ammonia formulas. Yes..would be quite shocked at this point to see the grey, but I re-sched every 5 weeks so I only see a hint of it before it gets covered..phew 😉

Heather Avatar

I bleach my hair. I used to do it myself but ended up frying it and had to get it all cut off. Now I get it done by a professional. I think I look better with blonde hair than brown so I continue to do it but it’s so expensive and keeping up with it is a pain.

Malia Avatar

I used to dye my hair a lot, not just natural shades… In the past few years I’d have roots done to cover greys. I’m a natural blonde but predisposed to greys hereditarily, but I stopped dyeing altogether about eight months ago and I’m fine with it- my hair has grown a lot and is much softer. My roots are almost white and I’m only 32, but I am absolutely fine with it, and even I’m surprised by that.

Li Wen Avatar

I’ve dyed my hair for about 7-8 years now, usually just a shade or two lighter and/or warmer than my natural black-brown colour, and the occasional flirtation with red or burgundy. Currently, it’s a cool dark brown base (L’Oreal 5 with 6% peroxide) with subtle highlights (Schwarzkopf 5.57 with 6% peroxide).

Because I have my hair cut very short, I find that the highlights are necessary to break up the bulk of my hair, so it’s not just a uniform black. Also, I have naturally very thick and coarse hair, with a little bit of frizz – not exactly the idealised straight Asian hair. Colouring my hair changes the texture of my hair, making it softer and easier to manage, so I think it’s worth the cost of maintenance even though my hair dyed is only slightly different to my natural colour

Mietta Avatar

The only thing I’ve done to my hair for over 10 years is the yearly half-head of highlights. I’m not confident enough to experiment with dyeing my hair myself so I go to a hairdresser (who is brilliant!). Last year I took the plunge and went from a dark blonde to a golden-red. I just loved how different I looked. After being a true ginger for about 10 months, I went a chocolate and haven’t looked back from being a dark brown! I went even darker the other day, against my NW10-15 skin it looks black but almost a dark auburn in the sun. My hairdresser warned me before going dark that it would be very hard to go lighter again but I have no intention of ever being lighter than this in the future! <3

tzwiggy Avatar

I used to love it when I was younger. It was strangely relaxing but exciting at the same time, especially when I tried new shades.

These days it’s nothing but a hassle, something that has to be done to cover up early (WAY TOO EARLY) greys. I prefer to have it done professionally, just because I hate the mess and the salon dye is less harsh and drying.

Hannah Avatar

I love that you can change your colour and stuff but most of the time I want to keep the depth and tone of my hair and just give a shimmer of another colour. Can’t get that permanent or semi-permanent, at home or in a salon. Sometimes I’ll have my hair dyed within my hair’s colour range and yet whilst the colour itself is lovely it’s just not natural looking, even with multi-tonal low-lights. Can never seem to achieve the multi-tonal dimension that natural hair has through dying it.

Danielle Avatar

I have been dying my hair for about 13 or 14 years and it is definitely addicting, but I also love the end result. Whenever I get bored with my look, I change up my hair color a bit.

Lotus Avatar

I used to do this professionally & was able to do anything without harming hair on myself. I kept it extremely long and dark with glossy reds shining out and I loved the contrast with my pale skin, but as getting older and pains set in, the work became too difficult. I stripped it back to natural for YEARS and just back in January finally treated myself to a brightening AT A SALON. It totally helped me, how I look, how I felt, and I’m going back in June for a touch up and trim to keep going what looks so natural on me and really helps me feel better when I look in the mirror. It’s cut shorter, easier to manage, so I give color a RAVE. Fact: Women experiencing changes will first alter their hair in done way as a therapeutic kind of thing, and especially in winter as a pick me up! Whatever you do, research, keep hair healthy, and just be true to you. 😀

Meghan Avatar

I haven’t dyed my own hair since about 2007! So my colour is completely natural now. I’ve been thinking about a balayage/ highlights for summer though, I think they can be subtle & nice. And although I’m only 27 I’ve definitely started going grey! 😀 can’t say I’ll dye over it though 🙂

Alexis Avatar

My main RAVE about hair dye it that it covers my grey! I’m only 28 but I’ve been coloring to cover grey for 3 years because both of my parent’s premature grey gene definitely got passed down to me!
Second RAVE is the drugstore dye that I currently use (Feria R57) and LOVE! I have long thick almost-black hair and it miraculously covers all of it and the color is fantastic! I even love the color that it fades to. If I hide my roots I can wait 8 weeks before coloring.

My RANT is my experience with salon dye jobs for my red. My $9 drugstore red is FAAAR superior than any $75+ (plus $30+ for blow dry) salon red. I’ve gone to everyone from professionals who instruct at color institutes, to beginners and the tone is always too warm (and yes I bring pictures of what I want), it always fades right away, and even after being persuaded to strip my hair it still doesn’t come out RED.

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