How To Dye Your Hair At Home Guys

Sharon Dorram

Photograph: Alex Beauchesne

The right haircolor can transform your looks—enliven your skin tone, cover grays, add sparkle to your optics. But getting color at the salon tin can run upwards (in some places, way upwards) of $75. So, in the spirit of financial responsibility, we enlisted a world-form professional colorist to requite a step-by-pace tutorial on exactly how to colour your hair at home—for a lot less.

Happily, the technology has come up a long fashion in the 50-plus years since Clairol debuted its first do-it-yourself kit. "The dyes today are not but less damaging but more than translucent," says our professor, Sharon Dorram of Sharon Dorram Color at Sally Hershberger in New York City. "You no longer become dense, monotone shades." (We also noticed that the dyes smell far less acrid than they used to.) With Sharon at the blackboard—yes, that's her at left—we recruited three women to enroll in Dwelling Haircolor 101. She guided them through the entire process, from shade choice to final accident-out. If you're ready to dye at home, don't start before reading these five simple rules:

Be Bourgeois: Don't choose a color more than two to three shades lighter or darker than your natural color.
Enlist a Friend to Help: She can ensure that yous don't miss a spot on the back of your caput.
Use Natural Light: The forgiving dimmer switch in your bathroom won't do you any favors when yous're trying to judge the intensity of a new haircolor.
Always Condition: Most kits come with a tube of deep conditioner. Use it right after you lot rinse out the dye, so do a deep-conditioning handling at least once a week after that. It will help preserve color and polish.
Afterward Your Starting time Time, Dye Merely Your Roots: Your hair volition go breakable, and your colour patchy, if you recolor your whole head every six weeks. When your roots beginning to prove, apply dye only to the regrowth; comb it through the rest of your hair a few minutes before the processing time is upwardly.

Tools You Need Before Yous DyeEarlier you brainstorm any colour job, yous'll want to have on hand a few items that don't come in most haircolor boxes.

Hair dye tools Paintbrush: Unless your hair is quite short, it'southward easier to apply than a canteen. The ideal brush is ane and a half to two inches wide.

Basin: To mix upwardly the dye, and swirl the brush in.

Clips: To hold back the rest of your hair as you work the dye through each section.

Rattail comb: Employ the narrow pointed handle to divide hair into fifty-fifty sections, and the rummage to distribute the dye.

Two night towels: One to drape over your shoulders to protect your clothes; ane to clean up any drips.

An alcohol-based facial toner: It helps remove stains from skin—and floors and countertops.

Timer: To make sure you don't wind upwards with a color very different from what you expected.

Before You Start, Brand Sure to Practise a Strand ExaminationSometimes it's a bang-up idea to bound headlong into a new project—just a home haircoloring session is not one of those times.

Hair dye strand test Yous must ("must, must!" says Sharon) practise a strand test to (1) make sure you like the color and (2) determine how long you need to leave the dye on. Here'due south how: Dye a section of hair a quarter to a one-half inch wide about a quarter inch above your ear (and then yous can see the colour against your skin). Brand sure it's underneath the top layer of your hair. Wipe off the color with a wet cloth later half of the designated processing fourth dimension (i.e., 15 minutes if the box says 30). Blot dry, then check it against a white towel in natural light to go an authentic read of the shade. If yous're happy with information technology, that'south all the time you lot'll need. If information technology's non quite in that location notwithstanding, reapply dye for the remaining fourth dimension and cheque color over again before committing your whole head.

Next: Jason Backe, Clairol's colour director, shares what he knows well-nigh how to become salonlike results on your own

Follow these (general) rules. If your skin is...

Off-white
Avert

deep browns (and certainly black); pale skin is prone to ruddiness and nighttime hair volition create a bull's-eye effectually red areas.
Try a light auburn or rich beloved blonde. Don't beginning overhighlighting, though; hair that's too blonde will launder you out.

Medium/Olive
Avert reddish or copper hues, which can make your skin await sallow or orange.
Try a deep mahogany base that will warm upward your peel tone; protect the color with a UV-shielding styling production (like Kérastase Crème UV Défense Agile). Consider a few aureate highlights for extra brightness.

Dark
Avert going more than a couple of shades lighter than your natural color; the results could look brassy and make your skin tone seem flat.
Try weaving caramel or cinnamon highlights around your face and through the ends, where the sun would striking.

A Annotation on Grayness
White hair, as long as information technology's shiny, volition look stunning with any peel tone. Use a violet-tinged shampoo once a calendar week (try Pantene Argent Expressions), avoid styling products with alcohol (they can dull silver), and shine a silicone serum (like Paul Mitchell Smoothing Gloss Drops) over dry hair for actress sheen.

Jason Backe, Clairol'southward color managing director, shares what he knows about how to become salonlike results on your own.

In the Store:

1. Make up one's mind exactly what you want. To cover grayness, you need a permanent dye, similar Garnier Nutrisse Nourishing Color Treatment ($7.l). Fourth dimension to touch up your roots? We dearest Clairol Dainty 'n Easy Root Touch-Upwards ($7), a permanent dye that comes with a tiny application brush. For a slight shade alter, attempt a semipermanent dye, similar 50'Oréal ColorSpa Moisture Actif, $8, which slowly rinses out over about four weeks.
two. Choose your color. Go no more than two shades lighter or darker than your current colour. And utilize the chart on the back of the box to decide the shade you will get to from the color y'all have now.

1. Utilize semipermanent dye to damp hair but permanent dye to dry hair.
2. Polish Vaseline forth your hairline, on your ears, and on the dorsum of your neck to create a bulwark that will go along dye from staining your peel.
three. If you're going darker, start applying color on forepart sections (where it's ordinarily the lightest) first. If you're lightening up: Start in the dorsum.
4. Leave the dye on as long every bit the instructions bespeak—not a minute more.

Yes, it tin be done! Iii at-home makeovers you lot won't believe

Plus, ii new calm kits make the process even easier:

Clairol Perfect x ($14)

This permanent haircolor uses a new lightening organisation (role of the permanent coloring process) based on hydrogen peroxide and the amino acid glycine. Because it doesn't contain the ammonium hydroxide that's in most formulas, it smells a whole lot better and has a lower pH—which ways it'due south gentler on the hair, says independent corrective pharmacist Mort Westman. Best of all, the new technology allows this dye to get the job done in x minutes (compared with the usual 20 to 30).

Fekkai Salon Color ($30)

Nigh dwelling house kits come with an applicator tip that lets you lot squeeze the colour direct onto your hair; this can brand an even awarding tricky (and drippy). Fekkai's first-ever color kit comes with a bowl and brush just like the ones colorists use at his salons. The tools allow you to mix the color very thoroughly and work it through each strand—they also make it easy to utilize the production just for a root touch on-up. The new line'due south 20 shades, from pale blonde to soft blackness, were created based on input from summit Fekkai colorists.

From the Nov 2009 upshot of O, The Oprah Magazine