Do it yourself hair color
Ooh la la salon-Martin Rodriguez
Do It Yourself Hair color?
Oprah’s magazine did a feature in the November 2009 issue about saving money on your hair by coloring at home. These days we all appreciate a good tip on saving money. However, as a professional hairstylist and master colorist, I must address the many problematic outcomes that are possible when people attempt to get salon quality results at home. Now I am not saying that it is not possible to get decent color results by doing it yourself. But the article in “The Oprah Magazine” is extremely misleading and could encourage an overly ambitious mindset that could cost you more money in the end. There are just some things that should be done by a professional, if you want professional results.
First and foremost is the choice and blending of colors. The main reason that the women in the article have such impressive results is that the magazine’s “hair professor,” Sharon Dorram, is instructing the women on color choice and mixing. In my thirty years of experience doing hair I am often asked for the formula I use when doing someone’s color. Why? Because I have been trained and experienced in selecting the right color combinations to compliment skin, eyes, personalities, lifestyles and budgets. It is not as easy as holding the picture on the box up to your face. The magazine article admits that, “finding a gorgeous…red in a box can be a challenge,” while encouraging women to combine shades for best results. However, it skips the part that explains exactly how you are supposed to choose these colors yourself. After all, the guinea pigs in the article have a professional to choose for them. At home, reds can be too orange, to pink, too violet, too dark, too light and just plain lifeless. If you do not understand the underlying color pigments in your own hair as well as the pigments used in the product, then you may be in for a big surprise when you color at home. And this goes for blondes and brunettes as well.
The second major problem with this “DIY” advice is the instructions for using lighter colors on the ends to prevent them from turning dark. The problem is deciding how much lighter to go and how much of the ends need the lighter color. The answer to both of those questions will vary considerably, depending on the condition, texture and color of the hair. Plus, everyone’s chemistry is different, which affects the color process and formulas. It doesn’t take too much imagination to picture the bad possibilities of choosing and processing a different color on the top of your hair than the ends. We can all picture that going very badly.
Lastly, I want to address the idea of bleaching or highlighting at home. As you can see by the color wheel below, there are various colors that make up one hair color. For instance, a brown can be made up of blue with orange, yellow with violet, or even green with red. We all have a unique combination of colors that make up our main shade. When you begin to lighten the hair with bleach you are stripping colors away, which takes the hair through numerous colors before getting to the desired shade. The main problem here is timing and watching. It takes a lot of practice to see whether or not a piece of hair has reached the desired color, especially when it is still saturated with bleach. A few minutes can make a disastrous difference. Rinse out too soon and you may have to reapply the bleach, too late and you could fry the hair, or end up with the wrong result.
For the most part, unless you are extremely pressed for money, I would not suggest coloring your hair at home. Sure, you can get by with a box color, which will be better than walking around with bad roots. But there really is no substitution for a professional. After all, you wouldn’t have your attorney cater a wedding or have your plumber fix your car. Correcting mistakes is almost always way more expensive than preventing them in the first place, especially when it comes to hair color. I’m sure Oprah and her magazine staff doesn’t color their own hair and you shouldn’t either.
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