You can colour your hair at home! Tint Department has, and always will be, here to give you the confidence to colour your hair at home.
In this complete guide, you'll find all of the instructions and advice for home hair colouring.
LIGHTENING/BLEACHING
BLEACHING YOUR ROOTS
If your hair has been lightened, you will need to bleach your roots to maintain your blonde hair. Approximately 4 weeks of growth is ideal, as your root will be long enough for you to lighten without overlapping your blonde - but short enough to use the heat from your head to help with the lightening process.
You will need: Lightening Powder, Developer (I recommend 20 Vol), Tint Bowl, Tint Brush & Gloves.
STEP 1: Mix your Lightening Powder with Developer in a 1:1.5 or 1:2 Ratio. This means 1 part Lightening Power and either 1.5 or 2 (double) the amount of Developer. You want your mixture to be runny enough to easily apply, but thick enough to hold without dripping.
STEP 2: Section your hair in to 4 sections. Two at the front (think Spice Girl buns) and two at the back.
STEP 3: Start applying the bleach from the back of your head forward, starting with the back two sections. The back of your head is generally cooler, so this part takes the longest to lift. When applying your bleach, make sure you're only applying to your natural roots - overlapping with already lightened hair can cause breakage and an uneven result. Work quickly, but carefully - making sure you're taking small sections so everything is exposed to the bleach.
STEP 4: Once all of your roots are coated with the lightener, go back through your hair to check you haven't missed any spots. A good way to do this is to take sections opposite to the way you first did them - eg. if you took horizontal sections, check through your hair using vertical sections.
STEP 5: Leave the bleach on for 40-50 minutes, or sooner if your hair processes quickly. You want to check often and wait until you see a pale yellow colour. This part is important - don't panic when you see orange tones, you need to get through this stage for toners to work correctly.
STEP 6: When you roots have reached a pale yellow stage (or the time is up) wash out the bleach gently but thoroughly. Then move on to toner!
Here's a video to help:
AT HOME HIGHLIGHTING
Adding a few highlights, especially around the face, is a great way to brighten up your blonde without doing a full bleaching.
Here's two of my favourite highlighting videos:
USING HAIR TONER
HOW TO USE HAIR TONER
All hair lifts to a warm yellow or orange colour. The job of a toner is to counteract this warmth, leaving you with the beautiful brass-free colour you're looking for.
There's a lot of options when it comes to toners, but making sure you select the right one for your concern will make sure you get the result you're after!
Unwanted YELLOW Colour: Use a purple or violet based toner
Unwanted ORANGE Colour: Use a blue based toner
Every product at Tint Department has the base of the product listed, so you know exactly which product to choose based on your concern, and how light/dark you want to be! For a full guide on this, click here.
It's important to remember that any product can be used as a toner! Toning is the act of correcting the unwanted colour in your hair. This means a permanent colour, permanent toner, demi-permanent colour, purple or blue shampoo and semi permanent colour are all toning products. Pick the one which best suits your needs, and gives a result you like the colour of.
COLOURING YOUR ROOTS
ROOT TAP / ROOT SMUDGE TO BLEND DARK ROOTS
If you have lightened or highlighted hair, there are ways to deal with your roots without lightening them. While there's no way to make your hair blonde without bleaching/lightening, you can go with a softer approach and do a root tap / melt / smudge / shadow root. This will give you a balayaged effect and is very easy to do at home!
STEP 1: Pick a colour closest to your natural root colour, or 1-2 shades darker.
STEP 2: Apply the colour to your root, close to your head, from the back of your head working forwards.
STEP 3: Then, using a wide tooth comb, comb the colour down the hair. Only comb the colour down 1-2cms from the start of your previously highlighted hair.
STEP 4: Let the colour develop as normal. When rinsing out - use COLD water. This is very important to avoid the colour bleeding in to your highlighted hair.
Here's a video showing how to blend dark roots:
COLOURING YOUR ROOTS WHEN YOUR HAIR IS DARKER
If you colour your hair darker, you'll find your roots appear very obvious as they grow out. Luckily, this is easy to fix at home and can be done as soon as they appear. It's best to not let them get too out of hand, as this can create banding.
Here's a video on this - it's actually a simple process to do at home!