Tatty, oh hair guru, can I ask some questions about glazes / glossing products?

[WheeshtWillYe]

Have just been reading some hair dying threads & have finally got it in to my thick skull that I should resist the temptation to pull the dye through to the ends each time.

How often should I pull it through though? My roots start to show after 3-4 weeks so I do need to deal with them frequently but I want to avoid colour build up. But my hair starts to look a bit dull after a few weeks & I was wondering how often I should refresh the colour by pulling it through to the ends.

What about glazes or whatever they're called? Is a glaze the same as a semi? I think you get clear ones don't you? Would they improve the shine & boost the colour or are they just a load of silicone that will eventually make my hair look crappier?

Do I really need to use shampoo for coloured hair or will any mild shampoo do?

Thanks so much Tatty! I hope Clariol are aware that hordes of mumsnetters are abandoning salon colours in favour of 117 under your tutelage . You should be getting free colour for life!

Haha!

I don't use any glazes or glosses, to be honest.

Last time I did my roots, I felt I wanted to top up the rest of my hair as I had been highlighted previously and had lost some colour in the porous previously bleached bits but I knew if I ran it through it would be "too much"

So 5 minutes before the end, I wet the ends of my hair and combed the dampness through with a tangle teezer. This cuts down the amount of colour the hair can absorb as long as its not left on a long time. Once wet I started combing from root to tip to move some of the root colour through in a sort of watered down way, then right at the last minute applied some hair dye to the top layers, combing through for barely a minute then I rinsed it off.

It topped up the colour beautifully, in a very subtle way, and added a flash of shine. I used their conditioner that comes in the box of dye, which is a surprisingly effective glossing treatment in its own right.

So its not that you can never run through - but if you are leaving it on 10 minutes etc that can be too long, you can get colour build up. You could try doing what I did though - literally a minute or so at the very end of the processing time.

The worst thing you can do is do your entire head every time. That's why I don't quite approve of the foams (having not used them, not really fair of me) because I just dont see how it would be that easy to do "just" your roots with them.

Fab - thank you! I'll try it.