Lockdown can make us do crazy things, especially when it comes to our hair!
At Eden Hair Energy, we get it, it can be super confronting seeing your regrowth or greys coming through on those daily Teams or Zoom meetings. This paired with the ultimate boredom and cabin fever can often lead to ‘new hair new me’ syndrome.
But colouring or cutting your own hair at home is rarely a good idea for a bunch of reasons. In this article, we discuss 3 reasons why we don’t recommend colouring your own hair during lockdown.
1. Permanent damage to your hair
First of all, we strongly advise against the use of any colours where you have to mix two things together at home. If you need to mix two things together, this means the colour is ‘activated’ – usually with peroxide or a peroxide substitute. It doesn’t matter if the box says it is ‘semi-permanent’ or a 6 wash colour – it will make some kind of permanent change to your hair (and usually deliver a warmer tone than what you might like to see).
We know what you’re thinking – “but don’t you mix colours in the salon to use on hair?”. Yes, we do. However, the key difference with colours that we mix in the salon for your hair is that we take a few very important factors into consideration. We assess your current hair colour and condition as well as the desired outcome when formulating a colour and take special care, only using colour as strong as necessary. Usually, we mix a minimum of 3 colours together for any one client and may mix two different formulas – one for the roots and one for the ends.
2. Results not as expected
A major reason why we don’t recommend colouring your own hair during lockdown is that, typically, colours off the shelf (at a supermarket or chemist) are ‘one size fits all’. And that’s not a good thing. It doesn’t really mean it’s made for ‘any hair’, what it means is that it’s made strong enough that it will generally be effective on even the darkest, greyest or strongest hair.
Most people don’t have the strongest, greyest or darkest hair which results in a colour result that is different to the one indicated on the box. More often than not it will be darker or more ‘orang-y’ or ‘reddish’ or if going darker from a lighter shade, a lovely shade of what we like to call “Oscar the Grouch” khaki.
3. Costly cover ups
At home colours can be a slippery slope, especially when there aren’t any hairdressers open to assist if it doesn’t go to plan. So, your next thought may be to cover it up, which can often result in an even bigger uh-oh and something which can take even longer to fix!
Colour correction can be a very costly process, usually starting at $300 per session. In addition, the condition of your hair is most likely compromised from home colouring. This means it may not be as simple as going back to your pre-home-job-colour and will usually take 2-5 sessions to get your hair back to normal over a couple of months.
What we DO recommend
The very best thing you can do for your hair during lockdown is sit tight. All that lovely regrowth will make for an amazing transformation when you do get it done. And, really, everyone is kind of in the same boat at the moment until salons are allowed to reopen, so don’t worry about your regrowth or greys coming through – you’re not alone!
We don’t think we need to go into why cutting your own bangs can be bad news, but just in case anyone out there needs to read this today – iso bangs are a bad idea.
After some helpful tips for things you can do to your hair during lockdown that don’t include DIY cutting or colouring? Check out this blog post for a little bit of hair fun to get you through!
