Why NOT to Color Your Hair at Home

Everyone loves a change once in a while whether big or small. Pampering yourself is an important thing to do but with work, family and social life, keeping up your appearance can become hard.

That is why when you’re strolling through the supermarket and you see an aisle full of boxed hair dye, you might think that it’s a good idea to grab one and cover those pesky little grey hairs you have been eyeing for the last couple of weeks.

Or maybe you are even ready for a color change. You have been meaning to go a little lighter or darker after all. I mean, why not, right? It’s fast, it’s cheap and it’s right there. It sure sounds like a sweet deal, but, It. Is. Not.

Not only do those boxed hair dyes get everywhere, ruining your towels, bathmats, tiles, and sink, they also become really hard to remove from your skin if you don’t act supernaturally fast. But using boxed hair dyes, knowing it is bad for your bathroom is nowhere near as bad as using boxed hair dyes, knowing it is awful for your hair.

There are many reasons not to dye your hair at home instead of going to a licensed hair professional. Let’s look at some of these reasons so you can see for yourself why hair professionals have been speaking up against at home hair dyes:

No Hair Color Customization

The boxed stuff is so much stronger than anything your hair stylist will put on your hair. We know stronger sounds like a good thing. But remember, hair dyeing can be very damaging if not done right.

Anything too strong for your hair will burn it to pieces, which we are hoping is not your goal.

It doesn’t matter if your hair texture is thin or thick, light or dark, coarse, bleached or permed, the box uses a strong, cookie cutter formula to be able to work on every type of hair even if it is a little bit. So, if you have 100% virgin hair, the box will treat it the same way it will treat hair that’s been dyed, permed or bleached multiple times.

Celebrities Doesn’t Actually Use Boxed Hair Color

Don’t be surprised if you were expecting to see celebrity signature honey blonde but instead ended up with green or orange hair. Editorial hair stylists color and style celebrity hair and then they go off to shoot for the commercials.

Same for the models on the boxes. The color on the box is almost never what you end up with because of the history of your hair treatments, how much damage your hair has, how light or dark it is and how thick or thin your hair is all play a role in what the color will look like in the end.

The Laws of Color

Professional hair colorists know something the non-professionals don’t. The Laws of Color! Can you imagine passing licensing exams that have below 20% passing rates and becoming a professional only to hear anyone with a box of dye can do your job?

Many clients are shy about the idea of a new stylist cutting their hair but have no problem chemically altering their hair with no training what-so-ever. There is no way a pre-packaged formula can figure out what the specific needs of your hair are and often times you will end up with flat, blotchy hair.

There are multiple ways to apply hair color but, in your bathroom, leaning over your sink or tub is definitely not one. There are specific angles the dye has to be applied and you cannot see that from the mirror, let alone being able to apply it with a bottle or brush in your hand. That is just calling for a bathroom disaster.

It is Only Cheap to Buy, Not to Fix

Dyeing your hair doesn’t wipe the plate clean and give you a fresh start. Would you paint white nail polish over your chipped red nail polish? No, you acetone the life out of those bad boys first and then apply the white polish on a clean slate. Just like that, the bad dye job needs to be removed in order to be corrected.

Hair color penetrates deep into your hair cuticles and creates a build up by adding more color molecules onto the hair causing over pigmentation. So, those unwanted pigments need to be removed safely before adding the correct colors in.

Your stylist will need to be very careful and experienced in order to keep your hair from burning or getting further damaged. You can understand why color correction costs more than hair dyeing at hair salons. It is because it is a pain in the tush for both you and the hair stylist.

So, in conclusion, the idea of an easy, 10-minute hair color is great and maybe in the future, they will improve them and the war between the professionals and hair dye companies will end. But there seems to be a long time until then.

For now, dyeing your hair at home almost always ends up with running to a stylist for an expensive miracle or having to get an unwanted haircut. It is not uncommon for hair professionals to hear “I don’t know what happened. It’s the same box I always use.” One mistake might be a mistake you cannot afford to fix, especially if you have somewhere important to be in a short amount of time.

So next time you feel like grabbing a box of dye, ask yourself if it is worth the risk and flee from that aisle.