I have never been able to bring myself to pay 50+ to have my hair colored at a Salon. Especially since I only do single color. Instead, I've always used hair color from the drugstore and it has mostly worked out fine. The bad parts are, I usually make a huge mess (hair color all over my bathroom and me), sometimes I can miss spots and, because I use dark brown, my hair often looks black and kind of phony until I wash it a couple of times. I found myself not coloring on a regular basis. I'd just wait until the grays were too much to handle. Then, I read about eSalon. It is customizable, salon quality, hair color you do at home and, while it is a little more expensive than drugstore brands, it is way cheaper than going to the salon. Of course, you still have the same issues doing it at home as you had before but, and I will explain, it isn't as bad.
The first step is to go to their website (
https://www.esalon.com/) and fill out a profile. They ask you about your current hair, what you want, how your hair reacts to color, etc. You will also be given the opportunity to upload photos and I suggest you do to get the best results. They have such confidence in their product that the first order only costs $4.95 for S&H. It took 7 days for mine to ship (it says 2-3 days on their website although I hadn't seen it then) and arrived 2 days after it shipped. In the first shipment you get: 2 bottles of customized hair color, 2 bottles of developer, 2 pairs of gloves (very nice!), a packet of stain guard, a stain remover towelette, a packet of conditioner, an application brush, and personalized instructions.
I sectioned my hair into 4 parts per the instructions (something I don't always do) and applied the stain guard around my hairline and neck. I chose to use the brush to apply it since I've never done it that way before. Well, I am a convert! I will never again go back to applying hair color directly from the developer bottle. It takes more time but it is much neater and I felt like I really got all the hair covered, especially the greys. I left it on for the recommended time and then followed their instructions for finishing - you mix the leftover hair color with water and massage it into your hair for 2 minutes before rinsing and then applying the conditioner. The hair color turned out beautiful. It was very rich and deep but natural looking and all my greys were covered. It looked great for a couple of weeks and then I noticed all my greys were showing again. Not just at the roots but like the hair color had washed off. Since I am only covering greys, I couldn't tell if it was my whole head or just the greys. In my feedback email, I mentioned this. They replied and said the would take it into consideration for my next shipment. (You are put on auto-ship and you chose the frequency but it is also very easy to turn off.)
My 2nd shipment came in July and only contained one bottle of hair color and developer because at this point you are touching up I guess. It also did not have the brush but I had saved it from before. Otherwise, it had all the other stuff.
My instructions this time called for it to be on longer and I believe they slightly changed the formula. It has been more than two weeks and the hair color still looks great and my greys are still not showing (yay!). I will continue to get shipments and I may even move up the date since I am only on every 12 weeks. I should mention that the options for hair color are limited by your natural or dyed color - basically, the darker your hair, the less options but you knew that, right? For $4.95, I really can't see why you wouldn't try this.
Update: After more than a month, my color looks great and the only grey I see is new growth. I think I'll move up my shipment date!
No comments:
Post a Comment