Everything You Need to Know About At-Home Hair Color

Tips and Hacks for at-home hair color

If you’ve never colored your hair at home before, it can seem tricky. Should you wash your hair before coloring? Not sure how to go about removing hair dye from skin? What’s the best shade for you? But the process can be surprisingly straightforward — and even easy — if you have the right advice and tips before you start. Whether you’re new to the at-home hair color or just want to brush up on your technique, these tips will help you get the hair color, gray coverage or highlights you want.

TIPS BEFORE YOU BEGIN:

1. Wear a button down or zip up, easy to take off. Or old robe. Wear the same shirt and towel every time you color
2. Damp paper towel near you, easy clean up if needed
3. Make sure you have a clear working space
4. Layout tools and be organized: Gloves, clips, combs
5. Use you After Color Conditioner in your kit as a skin barrier, easy to apply alone your hairline and ears.
6. Pre- open the after color conditioner. Sometimes it’s too tight and hard to do with wet hands
7. Take anything white /nice out of your color space.
8. Apply conditioner to mid-lengths to ends so you don't overlap your hair-color if you want to save highlights
9. Section in 4 neat sections. 2 ponytails in front and two ponytails in back for control, this helps so that you don’t have hair all over the place and miss a spot
10. Pull hair back loosely away from face with a plastic clip when you are finished with your application
11. Use a kitchen scale to weigh out your product. If you want to split the color for two uses.  Remember if you have thick or long hair, splitting the product will not give you enough for 2 applications. 
12. Comb your hair before applying your hair color
13. Start where you see the grays, if that is what bothers you the most.

How to Remove Hair Dye from Skin?

Got your hair color on your face or hands? It’s easy to remove it with a few simple tricks you can do at home — with supplies you may already have on hand. You may have to try it a few times to remove the stain entirely.

1. Dampen a cotton ball with a small amount of rubbing alcohol and dab it on your hairline or hands.
2. Try combining warm water with a few drops of dishwashing soap, then apply to the stain with a cotton ball. Rinse well.
3. Rub a rich body cream or ointment into stained hands, then wash well with soap and warm water.
4. Dab olive oil onto the hairline or hands (using a washrag or cotton ball) to lift stains, then rinse.
5. Dispense a small amount of micellar water, such as Garnier Skinactive Cleansing Micellar Water All-in-1, onto a cotton ball and rub the stain in circular motion. Repeat until the stain has disappeared — no need to rinse.

Tips for choosing the right hair-color online

It can be hard to imagine exactly what a shade of hair color on a device will look like once it’s actually on your hair. But you don’t have to leave your hair color to an educated guess and good luck. These tricks can help you narrow down the best choice for your desired hair color and needs.

1. Stay away from Ash tones if you a lot to most grey/white hair.
2. Red is not gold. Know the tones: 
• Natural allows some natural warmth to show in the result. 
• Warm or Gold adds gold tones to your results. 
• Auburn or Copper add red tones to your hair – don’t be surprised if you picked a red shade and that your result is red! 
• Cool or Ash tones help to reduce or tone down any brassy tones or natural warmth in the result.
3. If you’re re not sure what your natural color is, err on the lighter shade.
4. Check side panel. Can you find your natural color on the side panel? If yes, then you qualify for that particular hair color.  If you are naturally darker than what is on the side panel of the pack, then your result will be darker and warmer than what the bottom result clip shows.
5. You want to match your color treated hair. If your color treated hair is a medium brown aim for medium brown. And make sure your application to the roots only.  DO NOT take the product through your previously colored medium brown.  It will make the previously colored hair darker.  Pay attention to the timing.

Most common mistake consumers make while coloring their hair

It’s normal to make mistakes, even if you’re been coloring your hair at-home for years. Knowing what to expect — and what could trip you up — makes them easier to avoid.

1. Do not use entire bottle of color all over your head for entire processing time, If you are only trying to address your roots!
2. Leaving the color on too long, the longer you leave the hair color on your roots, the better gray coverage you will get.  BUT, if you put your color on all over and forget the time, your color result will most likely be darker and flatter/ashier than you expected.  Watch the clock! 
3. Or taking the color off too soon taking the color off too soon means that you may not reach the color target intended and that you might be brassier than you expected and not as light!
4. Making one bottle stretch for a lot of long curly thick hair. Don’t do it!You will have missed section and your result will not be what you expected.Just buy two boxes – better to have plenty of hair color mixture to completely saturate your hair to achieve the result you have in mind.
5. Shaking the bottle before you are ready to apply.  Once hair color and developer are mixed up in the bottle, the chemistry is working.  It will not give you enough time to process your hair.  Mix and use immediately!
6. Discard any unused hair color mixture. This means, DO NOT put it in the fridge, under your sink for next month.  If the color is mixed with the developer, it is activated and WILL NOT last until next month.  It will just make a mess.

How often should you shampoo color treated hair?

Shampoo doesn’t do any favors for color-treated hair, so it helps to be strategic with your washing.

1. After color application wait 24 hours before washing your hair.
2.  Try not to wash your hair every day. Every other day is better. The longer you can wait and use dry shampoo the better if you feel you have greasy roots.  If you have to wet your hair, then condition it on the days you do not wash your hair. 
3. Use our wide selection of whole blends shampoo and conditioner to nourish your hair. For volume, color, moisture, smoothing, they are all color friendly.

How often to color hair?

Sticking to a consistent hair color schedule can keep your hair healthy, which is why it’s important to know how often to color your hair.

• 4-6 weeks using regular hair color. We recommend this time frame to keep your hair color from changing too much from the first day you color it to the day before you are ready to color again.

What Color are best for blondes/brunettes?

The range of blondes and brunettes can vary according to the color range and formula, so choose your shade accordingly.

• There is a large variety of blondes in Nutrisse. Nutrisse is the largest selection of colors available at mass.
• Olia has its share of rich brunettes, and some intense red shades too.
• Nutrisse PL1 and PL2 are great to choose from if you are ready to go platinum!

How to maintain healthy colored hair?

It’s entirely possible to keep your hair healthy with regular coloring sessions. So long as you’re consistent and use the right products, you can find the right balance of strong strands and vibrant color. Here’s how to tweak your routine to keep your hair in good shape.

1. Getting on a regular cycle of shampoo/conditioner/treatments
2. Keeping up with trims
3. Not making radical changes with your hair-color. Small adjustments like changing from warm red to a cool red or natural black to a blue black.
4.  No overuse of hot tools.  Hot tools are exactly that – hot!  They can dry out your hair strands and make them look and feel unhealthy.
5. Staying on a consistent hair color application schedule.