Male or female, young or old – sometimes we just need to change up our hair. Sometimes we shoot for the stars and chop it all off or dye it a dramatic color to achieve a change, only to realize a month later that we should never have changed it, to begin with.
There are two safe options when you feel the urge to change up your look: ride it out until the feeling passes or do something temporarily. One of the best things to do when you want to change up your look is to use temporary hair color. It’ll allow you to try on a look before you commit to it and play around with many colors without ruining your hair.
Temporary hair color can last anywhere from one day to six weeks, depending on the product and purpose. Some temporary color is made to serve the purpose of coloring your hair for a special occasion. Some are made to last ten washes and some thirty washes. Then there are the semi-permanent ones that will last up to six weeks, depending on how well you take care of it.
Brands
Splat
One of the most well-known brands for temporary hair color products is Splat. These products get a bad reputation for not working well, but it only doesn’t work well when you don’t follow the instructions. No matter what color you’re trying to achieve, you need to bleach your hair first, until it becomes as close to white or platinum blonde as possible. This is the only way to maximize the boldness of your hair color.
Once you have the right base color, you can start putting petroleum jelly or coconut oil on your skin surrounding your hair so that you avoid stains when the color runs or while you’re rinsing it out.
Separate your hair into quadrants so that you can work on smaller sections at a time. This will help ensure that you get all your hair. When you’re done applying the dye, rinse it out with cold water. Make sure you rinse away from your face, to try to minimize skin stains. Rinse until the water runs clear. Do not use hot water! It will strip the color faster. Use treatments, shampoos for color-treated hair, conditioners, and color protection products to maintain your color.
Splat offers bold colors, pastels, midnights, ombre kits, 1-wash, 10-wash, 30-wash, and semi-permanent options; they also offer color remover, iridescent spray, and hair chalk. Splat is a vegan product, cruelty-free, and made proudly in the United States of America.
L’Oréal
L’Oréal is another well-known company that offers hair products, including temporary and semi-permanent dyes. They offer two types of one-day colorings.
This includes one called Hair Makeup. You put the dye on a strand of hair, run a brush through it, and let it set. The other is a 1-day color spray, which, as you may have guessed, is sprayed into your hair. The color is formulated to work even on top of hair that hasn’t been lightened or bleached. L’Oréal does have many bold color options, but they also have many natural hair color options, which is more than Splat can say. L’Oréal has also been around for a long time and has a good reputation due to many lifelong customers.
John Frieda
John Frieda is a company that has been building a reputation for three decades and has made a pretty good name for itself. The company has a wide variety of hair products, from frizz tamers to color enhancers and lighteners. Many of the products are in the form of shampoo and conditioner. You can whiten your blondes, deepen your reds, and warm up your browns. The downside of John Frieda’s products is that there are no bold, bright, fun colors available. However, the products work great if you’re after some tone adjustments.
Lime Crime
Lime Crime is a brand that offers an array of fun, bright color options. You can choose full coverage or color tints. If you want the color to last longer and be more bold, vibrant, and bright, you will want to choose the full coverage products. If you have platinum to medium blonde hair, hair tints will work great. Hair tints include more subtle, pastel colors.
The tints don’t last as long as the full-coverage options. The full-coverage dyes and the tints are available in many colors and shades, including, but not limited to, anime, bubblegum rose, chestnut, jello, aesthetic, and neon peach. Lime Crime’s products are vegan, and the ingredients are sourced from around the globe.
Lime Crime also has color sprays and color conditioners. The spray is available in eight shades, two of which are glitter. The conditioners are to be used to maintain hair color, increase shine, and perk pigment up. It will help to keep your fantasy hair more vibrant for longer. There are five conditioner pigment options and one conditioner for any color. These are used to increase shine.
Keracolor
Keracolor is a brand that makes color depositing conditioners that infuse color into your hair every time you use it. You can add bold colors, maintain their vibrancy, and keep your color looking its best between salon visits. These conditioners contain keratin, which is important if you want strong hair, softness, and shine. Keratin smooths down cells forming hair strands. These cells are the hair cuticle, which absorbs the keratin and allows your hair to be glossy and healthy-looking. Keratin can even help to tame frizzy, curly hair, make it easier to style. It can also keep hair straighter.
The amount of time each color stays on for depends entirely on the condition and color of your hair before use, and what color you choose. If your hair is lighter before use, the colors will be much more vibrant and last closer to fifteen shampoos. If you have darker hair, it may take a few treatments to achieve the color you’re after, and it will last between ten and fifteen shampoos.
To apply, simply soak your hair and apply a good amount of the conditioner. If you’re dying your whole head of hair, comb it from the roots to the ends so that the product is evenly distributed. If you’re just wanting to apply it to certain areas, use your fingers, and preferably a mirror if you can. Keep in mind that sometimes you don’t get the vibrancy you’re after on the first try.
Sometimes it takes a few treatments to get to your goal. You can even apply the conditioner to dry hair if you want a more dramatic result. The longer you leave it to sit on your hair, the more color will stay. If your hair is light, the color will be truer to your expectations.
The color can last longer than fifteen days; all you need to do is apply the color multiple times and use regular shampoo as little as possible. When you apply the color to your hair, make sure that you completely saturated all sections you want to be colored and brush it through from roots to ends. If you have any yellow or orange tones in your hair, it could affect the outcome of your coloring.
If you’re aiming for blue, you may end up with green, simply because that’s what happens when you mix yellow and blue. Silver, silver-blue, platinum, and light pink are great choices if you have light blonde hair. If you do have yellow tones, going for silver-blue will help you avoid getting green results when you’re looking for blue.
As with any new hair product, you should be aware that it can cause skin irritation. To help keep this problem under control, test the product out on a small patch of skin and a small strand of hair. Do not use this product to color your eyebrows or eyelashes. Do not use peroxide or ammonia to attempt to remove the color – it will damage your hair. Keracolor is all about harmless coloring, so their products are not tested on animals and are vegan, paraben-free, and sulfate-free.
Damage To Hair
You may be wondering about the level of damage your hair will sustain from using temporary hair coloring. The truth is, temporary colors don’t change the color of your hair strand; they simply coat the shaft of your hair instead of penetrating through to the cortex. Whether you use 1-day, 10-day, 30-day, or a semi-permanent dye, you won’t be ruining your hair, so long as you don’t use ammonia or peroxide on it.
