New to box dye, need tips please

[InTheCludgie]

Hi, having had my hair coloured for the past 20 years at the same hairdresser and never used a box dye I find im now getting desperate to have my colour done. My natural colour is light brown but with some grey in it and I've had a mid to dark brown colour done for about 15 years now.

I contacted the hairdresser to ask if they could provide me with details of the colour they put on my hair as my DSis uses a mobile hairdresser who offered to make up a pot of the colour for home use, but they refused, saying the info was stored at the salon.

Can anyone give advice on picking an appropriate type of box dye eg does ut need to be one for grey hair even though I'm not fully grey yet? Plus any tips on successfully using the dye would be great too, thanks!

What percentage grey do you have at present? It should say on the side of the box, or failing that on the manufacturers website, the degree to which the dye covers grey.

If your hair is coloured mid brown, that's probably about a level 6 in the l'oreal colour system. Light brown would be around a level 7 (hairdressers call this dark blond, but most people would recognise it as a light brown).

If you buy a 6.00 or a 7.00 in a l'oreal box dye you'll get a neutral result. The second and third numbers represent the tones (warm or cool) rather than the depth (darkness or lightness) of a colour. The second number is the primary tone, and the third number the secondary tone.

Neutral = 00
Warm tones = 3 (gold), 4 (copper), 6 (red)
Cool tones = 1 (blue), 2 (purple)

Cool tones will make the overall colour appear a little darker so take that into consideration when picking your level. Tbh, I'd avoid tones, especially reds, as they can be difficult to mask if it goes wrong.

You can buy salon colours (eg loreal inoa or diarichesse) plus the developer from online hairdressing retailers, but in my experience the box dyes are near enough the same in terms of quality.

You can buy plastic capes to shield your clothes or just cut up a bin bag. Add Olaplex or another bonding treatment if you're concerned about damage. You can buy sample packs of Olaplex or single measures from ebay. Olaplex number 1 goes in with the colour/developer and Olaplex number 2 is used as a conditioning mask following colour.

At home hair disasters usually occur due to bad bleaching jobs, not box dyes. Box dyes are really hard to mess up. You'll be fine, and save ££££.

Aaah I've had many a home-dye disaster so I'm here to warn you!

Usually my mistakes involved going too dark, which looks awful and weird. So take care with this, as how dark a colour looks can vary from the box and depends on your hair type etc. Go a bit lighter than you would think initially - you can always darken from there.

Box dyes come with instructions to do an allergy test which is a good idea, and that takes 48 hours so allow for that timing-wise.

Choose one that says it will cover greys - although it doesn't always work well. I only have greys around the temples and I found Garnier Nutrisse worked well for me.

(I say worked because I've now switched to using Lush Henna, but that's better if you want red tones. I still use a clairol root touch-up dye to zap the greys once in a while, and then use Lush Caca rouge or marron on top. This also works for me but it is reddish.)

Allow more time than you think because although a box dye says 10 or 20 minutes, there's a lot of faff preparing it, washing it, conditioning afterwards etc. Use a black towel around your shoulders and wear something you don't mind getting stained.

Rocaille maybe about 25% grey? But its kinda 'clumped' together worse in a couple of spots, such as an area at my left temple where it almost looks like a huge nearly white patch (although this is in a bottom layer of my hair, so not readily seen).

Garnier nutrisse is what I usually use. it always starts out darker but after a few washes its usually my desired colour. make sure you do the front really well, I use a 2x magnification mirror to make sure as nothing more annoying than finishing and realising you've missed half the greys!

I use clairol nice and easy light brown I've used it for years it comes out quite dark and my natural colour is mid brown. Very easy to use miss perfect 10 which only took 10 mins lol

My practical tips are:

• put on a thick moisturiser or barrier cream around the nape of your neck top of your ears and forehead before starting. Any bits of dye on your skin can then be wiped off easily at the end and won't stain.

• be very careful about combing through the dye, especially if you have long hair. It's great to make sure that the colour is evenly distributed but it's very easy for spots of dye to end up on other things in the room - walls, towels, clothes etc and you won't necessarily notice because the colour won't have developed at this point.

Box dye is very easy. I have always done it. And even if it is darker than you expect they soon fade with washing or sunshine. Don’t be afraid - once you do it you will wonder why you paid money at the salon.

Thanks everyone for the replies - I will head to the chemist on Sunday and have a look at the dyes.

I have same hair colour you do. Ive just used Clairol Baby blonde permanent colour as that's what my first ever salon highlights were 20yrs back. I rang my hairdresser & he said that's fine but don't do the ends to refresh like the box says if you're doing a root touch up. You damage them doing that every time. It's come out a gorgeous light blonde, v soft & the conditioner with it is a huge tube for future washes too ,you only need a little .