Dyeing your hair can be a super fun way to change up your style and express a little individuality! But unfortunately, salons charge an arm and a leg for the job. Still, that doesn’t mean dyeing your hair is out of the question; it just means you should dye your hair at home.
Now, you might think a DIY hair job won’t look as good as a salon’s, but that’s not true! All you have to do is take a few tips from the pros, and you’ll be able to give yourself a salon-quality dye job. That’s why we put together a handy list of tips and tricks, so you’ll know exactly what to do.
Take a look below at our step-by-step guide that explains how to dye your hair at home. You’ll never need a salon’s help again!
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First, you’ll need the dye.
For a basic dye job, it’s easy enough to follow the instructions inside the box of whatever dye you pick. For a professional-quality job, you’ll still need to do that—you’ll just also be following a few extra tips and tricks. So, make sure you’ve got a dye you like!
Does your hair fall below your shoulders? Or, if it’s shoulder-length, is it extremely coarse? Then the best thing you can do is assume that one box of dye probably won’t cover it; to ensure that there are no missed patches and the color is spread evenly across your whole head, you’ll want two boxes of dye.
Create a middle part running all the way to the back of your head, and split your hair into four sections with two in front of your ears and two behind. The more your organize your hair before you start dyeing, the less likely you are to miss anything.
Hair clips will help with that.
If you’ve ever had your hair dyed at the salon, you’ll remember that your stylist probably used hair clips like these. The clips will keep your hair out of the way so that you can focus on each area at a time, and make sure you’re not missing any.
Here’s the thing: if you’re buying permanent dye, choose a color slightly darker than what you want—because of the strong developer, the color will naturally lighten. However, if you’re using a semipermanent dye, stick to the lighter side of what you want. With no developer, that dye actually gets darker the longer you leave it in.
That goes for natural or more intense dye colors.
Looking for a more colorful hue for your hair, like this cool teal color? No problem. But the tip for shades of dye still stands, so make sure you know what you’re getting and how your hair will respond to it.
Then don’t dye your whole head; it’s unnecessary. Instead, get a semipermanent dye and only color the gray area, which may require you to work strand by strand.
A color brush will come in handy.
Whether you’re covering grays strand by strand, or covering all of your hair, a brush like this one will ensure the most even and precise distribution of dye. It costs less than $5 to get this brush on Amazon, so consider investing for the good of your dye job!
So you’ve used dye and brush to coat the parts of your hair that you’re dyeing. What now? While you’re letting the die sink in, don’t twist your hair up in a bun or ponytail; the color won’t be even. Leave it down. Also, before you rinse out the dye, sprinkle some water on your head and mush it around for a few seconds—this prevents lines or streaks!
You need to condition your hair.
Once you’re done rinsing out your hair, it’s imperative that you condition it too. The boxed dye will come with conditioner to use after the fact, but going forward, a nice hair mask and conditioner like this will both strengthen your hair and bring back out the color if it gets a little faded.