Box Up Your Color

For the past year and a half, Ive been dying my hair myself. Sometimes, I opt to pick up a custom box dye sans developer at Sally's and other times, I head heavy healed to the nearest drug store to see what the shelves have in store for me.. 

Now, coloring your hair from a box can be tricky and I definitely do not recommend it for those of you who are attempting to pull lighter stands. This is for the dark hearted only (sorry blond babes). 

Any dye, whether it be box or salon, has chemicals in it. It will damage your hair. Now, going to a salon, a colorist will have the ability to perform a personal analysis on the condition of your hair and select a color in order to accommodate to your stressed tresses. Color in a box, unfortunately, does not have this luxury...as we all know. 

However, making a trip to a salon is no longer an option for me since ive traded my life for higher education. Thus, box coloring has been espoused so forcefully into my life--and im not complaining. 

Box coloring IS damaging. Let me stress that again. So, please, keep in mind that you should probably take precautions with your hair before and after the dying process. Try to do a strengthening masque before and after. Color dries out your ends. Do you what you can to keep those beauties hydrated. I sometimes put a drop of olive oil in my condition or use a weekly repair treatment called MENDING from B&b. It has worked wonders on my staple hair. 

BACK TO COLORING: Ive learned that the average developer in a box is at a 40, this means it lifts your natural color and deposits the color in the box (developer is that cream based conditioner looking stuff you mix the color with). This is what is very damaging. So, upon purchasing a Box dye at my local CVS (Revlon's Dark Auburn..it was 2 for 6 bucks, couldnt walk away from that deal, obviously). I decided to purchase my own gentle 10 developer as opposed to using the 40 to be less damaging on my ends. I emptied out the squeeze bottle that came in the dye and filled it half way up with my developer and then placed the color in. Mixed it up..and you know the rest.. 

Please remember: Your roots are vulnerable to color! So make sure to go a level the same color or darker than your roots (levels are the numbers usually listed on your box. EX: Dark Auburn 4). Here is the scale (1 is BLACK, 10 is BLOND..I usually use a level 4 on my hair). I recommend level 4 and 5's for medium browns and Ash tones.