i will always recommend that you get your hair colored professionally in a salon by a licensed cosmetologist and in a perfect world, you’d all take my advice! haha but i understand money is tight at times and you’ve got to do it yourself. i want to educate you guys on how to correctly pick out hair color and volume of developer to achieve the look you desire! most stylists wouldn’t post something like this, because they’d want you to come to them in the salon so they could get the money. but i’d rather you all stop messing up your own hair (because we all know if you’re a box dye girl, you’re probably always gonna be a box dye girl). i get sooo many girls in my chair - weekly - with f-ed up hair, literally falling out sometimes because they used some horrible box dye that wasn’t good for their hair type.

first off, there is no such thing as a universal hair product or chemical product that works the same on every head of hair. you’ve got to know what’s out there and what will work on your hair type and please most importantly what you’re working with ladies. don’t put something on your head when you don’t even know what’s in it and/or if you can’t even pronounce the damn words. you guys really need to stop performing chemical services on your hair that an unlicensed unprofessional girl showed you how to do in a youtube tutorial. just because something worked on their hair is no guarantee that it will work the same on yours. because believe me, you will be sadly disappointed and upset with yourself if it doesn’t turn out right. more so if you make yourself bald.

so you’ve got to know the way permanent hair color works. permanent doesn’t mean it’s not going to wash out, and that it’s going to magically make your roots grow out that same unnatural color for the rest of forever. it also doesn’t mean that if you’re using it to cover up gray, that your hair is going to, by some miracle,  stop it’s aging process and vuala no more gray. - that may sound stupid to some of you, but you’d be amazed with some of the questions i get in my salon chair. -

when you are permanently coloring your hair, you need to make sure you are following certain steps for your specific hair type to achieve your desired look. you first need to make sure you determine your natural hair level.

as you box dye addicts may have noticed, not all box dye’s have a number displayed in front of the color name. tisk tisk, THAT IS SUPER IMPORTANT. you need the number to know what level you are dying you hair. knowing your natural hair level will let you know how light or dark you can go. drugstore box dyes usually come with only a 20v developer which will only lift you two shades lighter. 10v will usually only deposit color or give one level of lift. so if you’re a natural level 1 - which above is black - 10v will only take you to a level 2 - very dark brown or just keep you at black. 30v will offer you three levels of lift and 40v four levels of lift. so if you’re a natural level 1 and want to be a level 5 - light brown, what developer would you use to achieve that color? 40v, that’s right!

let’s say you’re a natural level 5 and want to be a level 10 blonde. the only way to achieve that color would be with a high-lift color and 40 vol, or bleach. now when i say natural level i mean the color at your roots (after you haven’t colored it in a while) or undyed virgin hair, not “i dyed my hair black six months ago so it’s washed out and now my hair is all natural.” … LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, once you’ve dyed your hair, that color is in your hair until the day you cut that last bit of once dyed hair off. it never “washes out” completely and just because you haven’t dyed your hair in six months doesn’t mean it all miraculously grew out (unless you got a drastic pixie cut in the last six months). with that being said, hair color cannot lift hair color. i repeat: HAIR COLOR CANNOT LIFT HAIR COLOR. if you have dyed your hair darker than you wish your next hair color to be, i’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you must bleach out the color or wait for that darker color to grow completely out. and if you love long locks, you’re going to be waiting a while. or go lighter in steps with highlights or panels. these cases are considered corrective hair color. if this is what you desire. i strongly recommend for you to go to a professional hair salon for your color.

if you’re brave, you can apply bleach at home, again using bleach with the correct volume developer (see above). but please know that you cannot lift natural levels of hair more than 7 levels without compromising the hairs integrity. and do not bleach more than once in one day without hair conditioning treatments in-between.

how to avoid hot roots:

hot roots happen when the right developers aren’t used on the scalp/natural hair vs. the ends/colored hair. when going lighter always apply the hair color from line of demarcation (where the roots end and colored hair starts) through the ends, then apply to the roots for the last twenty minutes of processing time. in this girls case, she probably used the same color formula from roots to ends and same processing time from roots to ends.

understanding color mixing:

each color brand has it’s own mixing ratios which you can usually find on the bottom of the box or inside the box. drugstore box dyes already come with everything measured out, you just pour and apply. but if you go with a better brand of color you will usually see, “1:2,” “2:1,” or “1:1.”

1:2 means one part color to two parts developer.

2:1 means two parts color to one part developer.

1:1 means equal parts of color and developer.

meaning, if the tube of color is 2oz. 1:1 mixing ratio would call for the whole tube of color with two ounces of the right level developer.

i still completely recommend that you go to a professional to get your hair color and haircuts done, but if you’re committed to doing your own i hope this has helped you understand the way hair color and developers work a little more.

message me if you have any questions; xoxox.