Hair 101: How to Easily do Your Own Hair Colour at Home.

DIY Home Hair Colour.

37% of women colour their hair at home. There are a lot more women doing home colours now more than ever. Looking at roots every day can have an effect on the way we feel about ourselves and lower our confidence. We all need a bit of hair TLC. Colouring your own hair can be tricky so we spoke to Hayley Kerr, hairstylist and colour expert to help give you some professional advice on how to do your hair colour at home safely and professionally.

To quote Fleabag: “Hair is everything, Antoney!”

”Hayley says “I wouldn’t recommend a complete change of hair colour. If you are thinking of going from black to blonde at home then you’re crazy. That is something that can only be done in a salon over a 12 month period or even longer. If that’s what you had in mind just hang on a little bit longer and get that done in the salon.” 

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Choosing a colour

When choosing your hair colour most brands go off a number scale. The number that you see is the depth of the colour or how dark or light the colour will be. For example, a colour could say 6 gold which would be Dark blonde with gold or 7 copper this would be a Medium-blonde Copper hair colour.

Hair colour scale

Patch testing.

Once you have chosen your hair colour the next and most important thing to do is to patch test.

You may have been colouring your hair for years all the colours and never had a reaction but you can suddenly become allergic to anything at any time in your life so it’s not worth the risk as you may end up in hospital. An allergic reaction can happen up to 48 hrs after the colour has been applied so make sure you give the patch test 48hurs before colouring your hair.

How to patch test.

Patch test 48 before. Using a cotton bud dot the colour behind your ear and leave for 48 hours before colour application. Allergic reactions can show up as swelling, redness, skin irritation or itchiness in worst cases it can even cause swelling to your entire face and put you in hospital. If you have any reaction to your patch test remove it by washing it off with cool water immediately. DO NOT proceed with colour.

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1. Prep

Make sure your hair is clean especially if you have resistant grey hair. Contrary to popular belief that dirty hair takes colour better. This is, in fact, a hair myth all dirty hair does is makes it more difficult for the colour to penetrate through. Leaving you with patchy or worse no grey coverage.

Make sure to cover all your surfaces and wear an old t-shirt in case you splash any colour onto you by mistake. For a professional application, you’re going to need the right tools this includes: comb, tint brush, bowl, gloves, hair clips, towel, vaseline, face wipes and a mirror. 

2. Application

• Wrap a towel around your neck and clip it so it won’t move.

• Apply vaseline around your hairline and on to your ears, this will act as a barrier so that the colour won’t stain.  

• Put on gloves

• Mix the tint and developer together in bowel with brush 

• Take a comb and section your hair into a centre parting all the way from front to back.

• Then from ear to ear another parting from side to side so you now have 4 sections. 

• Apply colour along the roots of all these sections moving onto the next section. Ensuring not to take too thick of a section, you should be able to see the colour from the previous section.

• Once colour is applied go around with a face wipe to clean up your hairline or any blobs of colour on your ears or face.

• After the desired development time add a bit of water around your hairline to emulsify the colour to remove the colour! 

• Rinse the rest of the colour with warm water then apply the conditioner leave for 5-10mins and rinse with cool water.

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Root application – apply only to roots leave for the full development time. 

Full head application – once the colours have been applied to the roots comb through to ends and leave to develop. 

Roots and freshen ends – leave roots on for 15 mins then comb through adding any leftover colour leave for 5-10mins.

Dry and Style your hair as normal, remember to add more condition to your hair after a colour. This will help maintain the integrity of your hair whilst giving it extra shine.