How To Dye Top Half Of Your Hair

How to Dye Your Hair at Home

Sharon Dorram

Photo: Alex Beauchesne

The correct haircolor can transform your looks—enliven your skin tone, cover grays, add sparkle to your eyes. But getting color at the salon can run up (in some places, way upward) of $75. So, in the spirit of fiscal responsibility, we enlisted a world-class professional person colorist to give a footstep-by-stride tutorial on exactly how to color your hair at home—for a lot less.

Happily, the technology has come up a long way in the 50-plus years since Clairol debuted its first do-it-yourself kit. "The dyes today are not only less damaging but more translucent," says our professor, Sharon Dorram of Sharon Dorram Color at Sally Hershberger in New York City. "Yous no longer become dense, monotone shades." (We besides noticed that the dyes smell far less acrid than they used to.) With Sharon at the blackboard—yep, that's her at left—we recruited three women to enroll in Home Haircolor 101. She guided them through the entire process, from shade choice to final blow-out. If you're set to dye at habitation, don't start before reading these 5 uncomplicated 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 tin ensure that y'all don't miss a spot on the back of your head.
Apply Natural Low-cal: The forgiving dimmer switch in your bathroom won't do yous whatsoever favors when you're trying to gauge the intensity of a new haircolor.
E'er Condition: Most kits come with a tube of deep conditioner. Use information technology right after you rinse out the dye, then do a deep-workout handling at least once a week after that. It will assistance preserve color and shine.
After Your First Time, Dye Just Your Roots: Your hair will get brittle, and your color patchy, if y'all recolor your whole head every vi weeks. When your roots start to show, apply dye just to the regrowth; comb it through the rest of your hair a few minutes before the processing fourth dimension is up.

Tools Y'all Need Before You DyeBefore you lot begin any color job, you'll desire to have on hand a few items that don't come up in nearly haircolor boxes.

Hair dye tools Paintbrush: Unless your hair is quite brusk, it'south easier to employ than a bottle. The platonic brush is one and a half to two inches wide.

Bowl: To mix up the dye, and swirl the brush in.

Clips: To concord dorsum the rest of your hair equally you work the dye through each section.

Rattail comb: Utilize the narrow pointed handle to split up hair into even sections, and the rummage to distribute the dye.

2 dark towels: 1 to drape over your shoulders to protect your wearing apparel; one to clean up whatever drips.

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

Timer: To brand sure yous don't wind upward with a color very different from what yous expected.

Before You Offset, Make Sure to Do a Strand ExamSometimes it'due south a great thought to leap headlong into a new projection—only a home haircoloring session is not 1 of those times.

Hair dye strand test You must ("must, must!" says Sharon) do a strand test to (1) make certain you like the color and (2) decide how long you need to exit the dye on. Hither's how: Dye a department of hair a quarter to a half inch wide about a quarter inch above your ear (so you can see the color against your skin). Make sure it'south underneath the height layer of your hair. Wipe off the color with a moisture cloth after half of the designated processing time (i.east., 15 minutes if the box says thirty). Blot dry, and then check information technology against a white towel in natural calorie-free to get an accurate read of the shade. If you're happy with it, that'southward all the fourth dimension you'll need. If it's not quite there yet, reapply dye for the remaining time and check color once more before committing your whole head.