It’s ok. We’ve all been there. Chances are, you’ve tried to color your hair at home before. I know your hairdresser has told you a million times before not to do it, but do you really understand why you shouldn’t? Or are you convinced that it’s a collective scam that the cosmetology industry is in on to make you spend more money at the salon?

Well, honey, the truth is that the more money you save dying your hair at home, the more you ultimately spend trying to fix it. So, let’s talk about why it’s so bad.

Your experience at J. Bauman Salon in Orlando is entirely tailored to you and your needs. When it comes to hair color formulations, we customize what goes on your hair based on underlying pigment, texture, level, density, health, and porosity. But box dye has to be a one size fits all solution to color, so there is no real thought put into your formula aside from the marketing on the packaging. To do this, most box dye includes the highest developer volume possible. Which you really don’t need. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve picked up the 40 volume in my 6-year career. Because they do this, you’re putting the most ammonia possible on your hair, ripping open the cuticle, and slamming pigments as deep as possible into the hair shaft. I repeat you don’t need this. It’s potentially damaging and makes it difficult to take out the pigment in the long run.

I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is no, it doesn’t just wash out either. When you use this permanent color, you are permanently altering the chemistry of your hair. The pigment might fade out slowly over time, but it can’t just wash out with hot water and Dawn dish soap. Even if it’s invisible to the eye, if we were to do a test strand with bleach, chances are that we’ll see a darker band where the old color was applied, and the virgin hair at the root will lift nice and light without much of a problem.

And no offense to you and yours, but your hairdresser can always mix more color at the salon for proper saturation. If you’re at home with only 1 ounce of color to cover your whole head, you might not be spreading it evenly, resulting in uneven coverage, aka patchy color that would also lift patchy.

My final qualm on the topic is as simple as this. Neither of us knows the ingredients or their quality in those products. As a hairdresser, I know the color line that I use. I know it’s reliable, good quality, hypoallergenic, and there won’t be any mysterious chemical reactions. However, if your color has metallic salts or henna, you’re putting yourself at risk of receiving an unpleasant surprise at any future attempts to change your hair. The worst-case scenario is that the hair color won’t move in the slightest, or your hair could start smoking and melt off! I don’t know about you, but those are some pretty big risks for a cheap color.

Listen, there are solutions available to fix things like this. Book a free consultation with us to discuss your options regarding a color correction. We can always do test strands to see what’s going on in there. We hope you learned something today and decided to think twice before clicking “add to cart”.