Should you Dye Your Hair from Home?

With many hair salons – including our own – closed temporarily due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and most of us practicing social distancing to protect ourselves and our peers, leaving home to carry out weekly errands has been put on hold.

This probably means that certain beauty rituals, like getting your roots done, can’t be carried out the conventional way. Of course, it’s always better to get your hair dyed at the salon, but in these circumstances, until normality resumes, you may want to consider doing your own touch-up at home.

If you’re desperate to cover your greys, or add a bit of boost to your current colour, it’s still possible (though not advisable). We’ve covered everything you need to know in this post below.

First thing’s first

If you’re just not comfortable with dying your hair at home, or you’re worried about how the chemicals will affect your hair, just hold off. Nobody will care if your roots are coming through, or your greys are showing – the most important thing right now is your health.

There are many issues that come with dying your hair at home. First, you’re not an expert colourist, so you will struggle to create a colour that looks anything like the colours your hairdresser can produce. Second, you may end up dying your hair an unnatural shade of orange, blue or green, which happens when certain hues blend with the tones that are already in your hair. Third, you just won’t get the same salon experience – the expensive products, the level of care, the attention to detail that your hairdresser can provide.

If you can wait, please wait. Of course, nobody knows how long this situation will continue for, but waiting to come and see us once lockdown is over is one of the best ways to support our industry right now. And, on a less serious note – please do not attempt to cut your hair at home! We’ve seen some absolute disasters on social media recently, and, quite frankly, you would look better with a bit of extra length than sporting the sort of atrocious cut we’ve come across recently.  

For first-time home hair colourers…

If you’ve never coloured your hair at home, take this approach: don’t do anything your hairdresser would advise against. For example, choosing a colour that’s two shades away from your current or natural colour is best left to the experts. The last thing you’d need while on lockdown is a dye-job gone wrong – you wouldn’t be able to nip to your local salon to fix it.

You should also only consider doing a root touch-up at the moment. Using a box dye will never produce the same results as a professional dye job.

Remember also that hairdressers are still happy to give advice during this time. Get in touch with your own colourist if you want to run through a hair dye decision with them before you take the plunge.

When adding permanent colour…

Touching up your own hair with permanent colour is daunting because it can seem so, well, permanent. There’s a big potential for this to go wrong, so you need to proceed with caution. Make sure to choose a shade that’s as close to your current shade as possible. Make sure to follow the specific instructions in the pamphlet that comes with your hair dye.

In all cases, you should always follow the instructions laid out in the user leaflet. It’s not enough to buy from a brand that you consider to be “safe”, as if you don’t follow the instructions.

Remember the importance of performing a patch test before every application, even if you’ve used a certain brand or colour before. Manufacturing processes and ingredients for hair dye may vary, and experiencing a bad reaction to a certain ingredient can prove deadly. Keep in mind also that a DIY patch test doesn’t always guarantee your safety. The hair salon is a much more professional environment for getting your hair dyed.

We’d like to finish on a note of thanks to our customers for understanding our requirements to comply with government laws and temporarily close our salon. You can keep up to date with our latest news on Instagram @qhairdressing, and remember to stay safe in these uncertain times.