Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Foam Party!

I had a foam party last night.  No, it's not as scandalous as it sounds.  I dyed my hair with this John Frieda Precision Foam hair color that I mentioned yesterday.  Having only ever used Clairol Perfect 10, which is a normal, garden variety hair dye, it was an interesting experience.  So, without further ado, what it's like to cover your head in foam:


Here's the dye.  What you get in the box is a set of instructions, a pair of thick black gloves (thicker and sturdier than the usual latex gloves), the squeeze bottle the dye goes in, the nozzle for that bottle, the colorant, and conditioner.


So, step 1: you pour the colorant into the squeeze bottle with the developer (already in there) and gently tilt the bottle upside down 5 times.  Don't shake, tilt.  Mine turned purple.  I was a little scared.  The bottle was only about 1/3 full, which made me a little skeptical.  Then put on the gloves, and put the foam nozzle on the bottle.  Squeeze the middle of the bottle until you have a tennis ball sized amount of foam on your gloved hand--it'll turn right into this thick, slightly brown foam.  It was so odd.  Smear the foam across your roots, and work the product in.  Continue until you've used up the entire bottle worth of foam.  It's quite a bit of product.  Normally I don't get enough dye to cover my whole head, but here I had just enough (for reference I have very thick hair that's about 4 inches past my collarbone.  The dye didn't smell as nasty as Clairol does, but it certainly smells like ammonia.  


My one issue was that in the instructions and all the videos I've seen, everyone ends up with a head full of white foam at the end of this process, and you're supposed to keep rubbing the foam in for a while after that.  Well, the foam dissolved into my hair.  My hair was certainly saturated with dye, but was it white and foamy?  No.  I thought I was doing something wrong, but the foam hit my hair and just went poof!  Maybe if you have less hair it works better?  I got some dye on my forehead/neck, but it washed off relatively easily without staining.


Then I left the dye on for 20 minutes (30 if you have grey hairs).  Clairol Perfect 10 only takes 10 minutes, so I sat down to watch some Veronica Mars while I waited.  After a few minutes my head started to itch and tingle.  I don't have a sensitive scalp at all, so I imagine that if you did you might feel some burning, or maybe it was just me, but my head was itching like crazy!  Thankfully it went away once I got in the shower.  You rinse your hair out until the water runs clear, and then slather on some of the included conditioner and leave it on for 5 minutes.  My hair didn't feel as straw-like as it often does after the Clairol dye, and the conditioner worked pretty well.


Once my hair dried I assessed the color.  My hair before this round of coloring was a light, slightly brass reddish brown with light brown/blonde roots.  After this round of coloring it's a medium, warm chestnutty brown that verges on auburn.  I really, really like the color.  It looks very rich and natural on me.  HOWEVER, it's not the color that it should be as far as the box goes. The color it promised my hair would be was much lighter and redder.  I'm happy with the results, but just be warned, the promised results don't seem that accurate.  Also, my hair holds on to and soaks up red tones like nobody's business.  I've dyed friends with similar hair colors as mind with the same box of Auburn dye I generally use and on me, it's legit red, and on them, it's a slightly warm brown.  My hair loves red dye.  This makes me think that the red in this hair dye may not be that strong.  We'll see how the color wears over the next few weeks.  Why didn't I include pictures?  Well.  My hair changes color drastically depending on the lighting.  It's impossible for me to get an 'accurate' picture of my hair color because in some lights it's straight up red, or brown, or blonde.  It's not consistent at all, so I didn't want to throw people off with pictures.


Awkward Chic rating: B+/A-.  I really like the idea and I love the color.  But it's a little pricier than my usual dye ($13 instead of $10), it takes twice as long to develop, and it irritates my scalp. Will I use it again?  Probably.  I want to see how well the color ages before I decide.

Image via target.com.

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