Clairol Beautiful Collection Semi-Permanent Haircolor

Before this weekend I was completely ignorant of the difference between hair coloring formulas. Luckily, the salesgirl at Sally’s filled me in on important details before I made another bad hair choice.

The first bad hair choice, if you’re wondering, was using a permanent hair dye to darken my hair. I falsely thought that if I was darkening the hair, there’s no way I could be doing any damage to it—WRONG! No matter what the hair color is, permanent hair dye contains peroxide, also called developer. The kind of hair dyes you find at Walmart and other drug stores contain what’s called 20 volume developer, which is enough to do damage. The damage occurs when the peroxide lifts the hair cuticle enough to allow the hair dye to penetrate. :(

Annnyway, long story short after the dark dye faded away, I noticed that my hair had lightened up about 3 shades and felt drier! BAH!! That’s why I looked into the gentlest hair coloring method possible and I decided to use the above hair dye which is ammonia free and peroxide free. It’s called semi-permanent color and washes out after about 15 washes. The particular brand I have is infused with jojoba oil and aloe vera so it’s particularly moisturizing, probably because it’s designed for freshly relaxed her.

Yes, it’s annoying to have to color your hair so often, but is it worth it? I think so. There are lots of cool shades to try, too, without having to commit and dealing with damaged hair.

If you’re reluctant about dying so often, you can go a step up and use demi-permanent color. This kind of color is also temporary, but it lasts longer than the semi-permanent color, which is deposit only. Demi-perm color uses a 10 volume developer so there’s still peroxide, but much less. If my hair color washes out too fast, I might consider going demi.

Hope this helped someone out there! I know I would’ve appreciated this info before the last time I dyed!! :)