By stufflovely
If you know me personally, you know it’s not out of left field for me to make a drastic hair color change without warning. Call me Ramona Flowers, but I friggin’ love drawing attention to my hair with dyes in bright colors like blue, green, pink, or purple. It’s not something I do often (lest my hair get fried from bleach) but having colorful hair has been a decade-long obsession of mine, so I’ve tried just about every temporary, permanent, semi-permanent, and demi-permanent dye on the market.
If you’re like me in this regard, you know that dyes on the ROYGBIV spectrum can take enough maintenance to qualify as a whole lifestyle because they wash out so damn quickly. In that case, let me put you onto one of my favorite dyes out there: Good Dye Young Semi-Permanent Hair Color.
I’ll preface this review by saying that when it comes to hair dyes like this, a lot of prep is involved. Semi-permanent hair dyes are a type of dye called direct deposit, which, as cosmetic chemist Ginger King explains, infuse the hair with pigment directly without a developer. “Direct deposit dye, also known as basic dyes, directly deposit colors on top of the hair shaft,” she explains. “Everything else requires a developer, as that is how the cuticles open up for the hair dye to go in.”
So depending on how vibrant you want these shades to appear, you’ll have to lighten your hair with bleach first in order for the pigment to sit, which is exactly what I did. Here’s the part where I need to lecture you for a second: don’t bleach your hair at home because it can lead to more disaster than it’s worth. “Bleach is very strong and can go wrong if you aren’t careful,” colorist Rachel Bodt previously told Allure. “The technique for this service is very meticulous, meaning it requires a lot of attention and detail.”
I lightened my own hair bit-by-bit at home (hypocritical, I know), but I’ve got a decade of practice and mess-ups under my belt and went in expecting the absolute worst outcome. If you’re thinking about taking the plunge into rainbow-colored hair, consult with your go-to hair colorist about how you can and should lighten your hair — it might be a long process, but it’s worth having healthy, shiny hair at the end.