Can YOU tell the posh £400 salon dye from the £1 Poundland box job?
When it comes to dyeing your hair you get what your pay for, right? But as Holly Willoughby, Cheryl and Alexa Chung reveal they use a bargain at-home kit, we wanted to see if box dyes can rival salon results
SWITCHING up your hair colour is as easy as changing your knickers thanks to the new generation of celebrity-approved dyes flooding the beauty counters.
Holly Willoughby has famously shunned the salon and gets her locks baby blonde by using Garnier Nutrisse Creme.
But do at-home products offer the same results as those in a posh salon? We tasked twins Maisie and Mollie Warne, 18, from Bromley, Kent, with finding out.
Sales of box hair tints have almost doubled in the past few years – with more than eight million women now colouring their ‘dos at home.
predicts the global hair colour market will reach £20 billion by 2019, a growth of nine per cent.
Celebrities have helped drive the at-home trend. Holly, Fearne Cotton and Davina McCall all use Garnier kits to tend to their glossy locks, while Cheryl and Alexa Chung favour L’Oreal.
With the average kits costing around £5 compared to a minimum spend of £50 in a salon, dyeing it yourself is an attractive option.
Maisie used Poundland’s Pro-Colour Plus dye in 10.1 Extra Light Natural Blonde. It’s the cheapest on the high-street at just a quid.
It claims to be a “long-lasting colour” that “leaves hair with a healthy shine and feeling silky soft”. It is not recommended for use on brunettes.
Maisie said: “Applying it wasn’t hard at all. The packet contains gloves, a tube of peroxide and a colour cream. You have to put the cream in the peroxide, shake it and apply.
“I did a patch test 48 hours before. It took about 10 minutes to apply then I had to wait 30 minutes for it take to my hair.”
While at-home dyes are loved for their quick, cheap results, they can end in disaster.
Everyone knows a friend who has been tempted by a box of ‘Ice Blonde’ only to be left looking like Ronald McDonald.
Maisie said: “I thought my hair was going to go bright orange. I was so scared! But it really wasn’t that bad for £1. It covered my roots and blended them into my hair.
TOP AT-HOME TINT TIPS
- Always read the packet instructions, all the way through - twice
- Always do a strand test on a small section of your hair. Behind your ear or at the nape of your neck is ideal
- Wash your hair the day before you colour it with a mild baby shampoo
- Don't wash your hair on the day you plan to dye it. Natural oils on the scalp will make you less sensitive to the chemicals in the tint
- Avoid staining on your skin by applying a thin layer of Vaseline around your hairline and ears
- Keep the dye away from surfaces and your towels - it will stain
- If in doubt, call the manufacturer's free help lines before you start
“It all, pretty much, went one colour. It did go a bit patchy underneath but nothing too noticeable. I like my hair to go a bit blonder so I need to go to a salon for that.”
Mollie had her hair dyed at the swanky Neville Hair & Beauty, whose customers include Kelly Brook, Cressida Bonas, Montana Brown and supermodel Erin O’Connor.
Senior colourist Kelly May used a variety of techniques, from tints to balayage, to transform her locks. The colour, plus conditioning treatments and a blow dry totalled £400.
Kelly said: “My honest personal and professional opinion is don’t ever box dye your hair. People get excited; they put it on their roots and all the way through.
"A box dye is different to a salon dye. It builds up and up, and it creates a barrier on the hair. I’ve lost count of the box dyes I’ve had to fix in my career.
“Everything in a salon is bespoke to the client. On Mollie’s hair I did highlights, balayage (painting on the dye in such a way as to create a graduated, natural-looking effect), shadowing (working in darker, natural-looking hues)… it wasn’t just one thing sitting on her hair. It’s the service that you pay for. You get to relax for a couple of hours and you get expert advice and care.”
Kelly assessed Maisie’s hair after she used the Poundland dye. She said: “It wasn’t awful. I had visions of her coming in with luminous orange roots.
"There are patches in the back, there’s not even coverage, some bits have grabbed more than others – that’s a professional eye seeing it but it wasn’t awful. It was definitely better than I thought it would be.
“Because Maisie’s hair is already naturally light, she had that advantage. If her hair was darker it would be illuminous orange.
"The reality of going dark to blonde doesn’t just happen in one sitting. It takes Kim Kardashian 13 hours to get her hair bleached blonde. The reality is you can’t do it at home with a box dye.”
Maisie said: “I probably wouldn’t use the Poundland dye again, but if I was on a budget I might. I’d consider trying other box dyes.
COLOUR BY NUMBERS
44 per cent: The percentage of women would give up wine for a year in exchange for beautiful hair colour every day for a year, according to research from L’Oréal Paris
35: The average age at which women go grey, according to Schwarzkopf
48 hours: How long you should wait between shampooing your hair and applying at-home hair colour
Two: The number of at-home shades you should buy for a single-colour process at homes
75 per cent: How many women first coloured their at-home instead of at a salon
Five minutes: The amount of time a DIY hair gloss needs to sit on hair
MOST READ IN FABULOUS
"My mum’s friend is a hairdresser and she usually does my hair for £55 so I think I’ll stick with her!”
Meanwhile, there’s a genius makeover app that lets you try out a new hair colour before you dye it.
It’s not only the hair on your head you can play around with in AR – we reveal the app that lets you trial different EYEBROW looks before you wax.
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