If you’ve ever colored your own hair, you know that the process involves practice, patience, and a fair amount of precision. But with an endless amount of products, dyes, treatments, and tutorials available to everyone today, it’s easy to achieve a bright, bold, and beautiful hair color at home.
Splat has gathered up 10 pro tips for safely and expertly coloring your hair at home. Read on to ensure that you get the results you’re looking for without breaking the bank or waiting for the salons to reopen. Coloring your hair at home has never been easier, and by adding in the 10 pro tips listed below, you can get professional-quality results from the comfort and safety of your own home.
1) Choose the right color and formula. For bolder changes in color, you’ll have to pre-lighten your hair so that the color can deposit evenly, and many of Splat’s color kits come with bleach for your convenience. For more subtle transitions, you can try layering color over the hair color you already have, or stick to shades in the same color family as your own hair. We think natural blondes look great with Berry Blast).
2) Buy an extra box! There’s nothing worse than finding out that you’re running out of color when you’ve only gotten halfway through your hair. And - when it comes to using the vivid, bold, and beautiful colors that Splat offers - it’s better to have an extra box on hand in case you start to ‘run dry’ on dye. It’s best to buy one box more than you think you’ll need, just to be safe.
3) Prep your station like a pro. Set up your hair color ‘station’ like the professionals do: have everything ready and laid out in front of you to help make your hair color transformation as easy as possible. Even though Splat color kits contain everything you need, we suggest having extra towels, gloves, and hair clips on hand just in case. And make sure to wear loose articles of clothing that you can easily remove without tugging at your hair.
4) Read the directions…and follow them! Your natural inclination may be to put the directions aside and go straight to applying your color, but please, read the instructions! This step is crucial. Boxes of hair color are designed to produce a specific, controlled result – that’s why they’re available on the mass market. If you skip a part of the instructions – even a small one – you run the risk of getting the wrong results.
5) Consider mixing colors! While each box of color is formulated to achieve a particular color result, you can put your skills to the test and mix two colors together to get a custom result. It’s perfectly safe to stick with shades from the same ‘color family,’ but you can also mix colors together to get a variation of the shade you’re looking for. Try some of Splat’s Crimson Obsession to Splat’s Purple Desire for some extra warmth. Splat’s Midnight color kits work great with our original complete color to give an even bolder boost of color, add dimension, or accent pieces. Adjust the bold and use our Pastel Mixer to make your own light soft colors.
6) Conduct a strand test. The ‘strand test’ is another one of the more commonly skipped steps, but again, it’s one of the most crucial. The strand test not only allows you to see the color your hair will achieve after a specified amount of time, but it also ensures that your skin and scalp won’t have a reaction to any of the ingredients in the dye. 2021 is all about taking care of yourself after a grueling 2020, and that includes having the patience to ‘start small’ before ‘going big.
7) Color in sections. Would a professional hairstylist ever color a client’s hair without parting it into even sections? NO – and neither should you. Part your hair into 4-6 even sections before coloring, and start with the bottom layers as you work your way up.
8) Start with your roots and finish with your ends (most of the time). If you’ve ever colored your hair, you know that your natural regrowth is ‘virgin’ hair compared to your ends, and it absorbs color differently than hair that’s already been colored or processed. Your ends are the part of your hair that consistently receives more damage (from heated styling tools, breakage, the sun, and even towel-drying your hair), so your roots and ends have to be treated separately. If you’re only depositing color and not lifting with developer or bleach, apply the color to your roots and midsections first. Then, work the remaining color through your ends. The opposite holds true when bleaching or using a dye with lifting power (such as new Splat’s new permanent line, Double Lift): when bleaching or lifting your hair, start with the midsection and work your way to the ends. Apply bleach to the roots last since the heat from your head actually boosts oxidation and speeds up the process.
9) Try the shampoo trick. A few minutes before you’re ready to rinse, squirt two drops of shampoo in your remaining dye and add water (about the same amount as your remaining dye). Mix together and spread the product over your ends. This adds a diluted boost of color to your ends, which prevents over-processing of color and damage.
10) Follow the rules of rinsing: Lather, shampoo, condition. When your dye is done processing, you’ll want to break up the dye before rinsing and shampooing your hair. Run a little bit of lukewarm water into your hair and massage gently into a lather. This helps break the dye down so the excess will rinse out more easily. Make sure to shampoo your hair (don’t just rinse with water!) and condition it. You can use the conditioning treatment that’s typically included in your box of color, but don’t be afraid to use your own trusted conditioner as well. Once done, quickly rinse your hair with cool water to close the cuticle and lock in your color.Adding these 10 pro tips to your color-at-home routine will help you achieve the bold, beautiful locks you’re looking for. While we recommend leaving the more challenging hair care transitions to the professionals (like major color corrections), it’s never been easier to get your own bold burst of color at home. It’s a brand new year, after all….so get ready for a brand new you!
