Clairol Perfect 10 hair colour in lightest cool brown

I recently changed my twitter pic to a photo of me that I took in our basement flat, with the lack of natural light my dark blonde hair looked much darker than it is in real life.  When I got a fair few compliments on my new 'darker' colour I decided that maybe I would try a darker shade for real next time I coloured my hair.  Nothing dramatic, just a shade darker than my usual dark blonde.  I have used the Perfect 10 range of hair colours exclusively for the last couple of years and have been really pleased with them.  I have used 3 or 4 of the blonde shades and each has been true to the colour shown on the pack, let my hair's own tones and highlights show through and been good enough that even my hairdresser expressed surprised that it was a home colour out of a box.

So it was with no fear or trepidation at all that at 5.25am yesterday morning I applied a good wallop of Shade 6.5A described as  "Lightest cool brown". 

I now have black hair.  Not lightest cool brown but darkest dark black. FFS.  To be fair it seems to be worst in the mid length sections of my hair where presumably there was already quite a build up of colour - the blonde shades I used never really grew out and left a root issue, they just seemed to fade away all over, just with more greys in the root line.  I can only think that the frequently coloured mid-sections are more porous than the virgin hair at the root line, here the colour is passable but still much much darker than I would have expected from the description on the box. Its also done that horrible thing where it has swamped the mid sections with colour so there are no natural tones or highlights just one colour, clearly out of a box, nasty cheap looking hair. Sob.

What is it with hair dyes that makes them do that? The blonde ones have always been fine, my hair has been left glossy and shiny with believable classy looking colour.  I now look like one of those women who seriously thinks that dyeing her hair 4 shades darker than it was even in the bounty of her youth will somehow imbue her with the glossy good looks of a woman 10 years her junior.  Instead it makes her look like a witch.  I look like I take dressing up for Halloween far too seriously.

You are itching to see photos aren't you?  I can sense your thinking 'yea whatever, enough with the waffle bring on the shameful photos'.

So here it is, when bad hair colour happens to tragically optimistic fools in the early hours of the morning:

To be honest it probably doesn't look as bad as you had been expecting but given that it used to look like this:

I realise its also  horribly patchy - rectified that last night with Em's help!

It feels a hell of a lot darker to me.  I have washed it a couple of times to try and tone it down and whilst I can live with it for now I am not sure what to do next.  I think I might just have to revert to using the dark blonde I was using before and hope that this fades like the blondes used to.  I think we both know that isn't going to happen.  More than anything I am hacked off that I am now likely to have to pay a hairdresser to fix a problem I created by using a £7 poxy hair dye, bloody stuff.

Couple more pics, decided to take advantage of having the camera out to show you a couple of Benefit newbies that I am loving at the moment.  First up Velvet eyeshadow in Gimme some plum, described as an iced plum - which sounds horribly frosty, its not.  I had set out to buy Where there's smoke described as smoky pewter but it was more dirty brown than taupe, which is what I was after.  Having decided I wasn't going home without a Benefit eyeshadow I am really glad I got this one, I have been wearing it all over my lid with a bit of black powder or liner on the lash line to give my eyes some definition.

Its my perfect colour for a pulled together look without being overly made up.

My other recent purchase is the lipstick, Benefit full-finish in Do Tell, a warm pink, with no hint of brown which works as a nude but pink mlbb colour.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can tone down my hair please share - I have tried washing with Head and Shoulders but am loathe to use ColourB4 as its already dry and I don't want it a shit colour and frizzy as hell too!

Clairol Perfect 10 Hair colour to dye for

See what I did there? Yep, I am bigging up my own rather pathetic pun, sad really.  Apart from one very long winded and astonishingly scientific hair colouring post right back when this blog was a baby I have never really mentioned colouring my hair.

Which is rather odd as it is something that I do about once every 2 - 3 weeks, quite an oversight in fact!

I have been colouring my hair since I was 14, firstly with Toners (Rich Mahogany) then Glints (Pimento Red) and then I grew up and let the hairdresser do it (caramel, honey and red highlights and light brown base colour) and then when the greys became really persistant I went back to doing it myself at home.  I made the usual mistakes - why does the colour on the box never look like that when its on your head?  After lots of trial and error I bought my first box of Clairol Perfect 10 in Medium Ash Blond last July (in response to a bit of a hair trauma!) and have stuck faithfully to this range pretty much ever since - had a brief flirtation with a mousse home colour, loved the formula not the results.


Over the last 12 months I have had 3 different hairdressers, (yes I am picky and yes I will switch hairdresser the minute you lash up my cut) each one has asked about my colour and each has commented on how great the colour is and what fantastic condition my hair is in, all were surprised to hear that I was using a home colouring kit, kudos Clairol!


I have used Medium Ash Blond and Light Ash blond alternatively, just to prevent my hair getting too samey, I tend to use half the pack for a full head colour or divide it into 3 if I am only doing my roots, so not only does it give great results but it is stupidly inexpensive!  I recently had a dabble with lightest Ash blond which I felt was just too light for me, the greys seemed to dominate and with my pale skin and grey eyes I just felt that I was becoming almost invisible.  I needed a lift so last night nipped to Asda and purchased Dark Blond, plan being I'd get up 10 mins early this morning, slap on the colour whilst I brushed my teeth rinse it off in the shower, job done.


I did manage to get up 10 mins early, stumbled into bathroom and promptly mixed half the tube of conditioner with half the bottle of Activating cream, stirred it for a while trying to work out why it wasn't thickening up and then realised what I had done! Luckily had half the activating creme left so rinsed out the bowl and began again!  New hair colour done and upstairs by 8.15am to start work!

As usual I am really pleased with how this has come out, I think I had been rather sucked into the thinking that the lighter my hair the better, on reflection this darker more neutral shade is much more flattering on me, at least I think it is and response from the fam has been positive!

My hair feels lovely and is really shiny as well.

Think I will be sticking with this dark blond for some time, I really like how it doesnt completely mask your hairs own tones so it looks very natural, not fresh out of the box and this neutral shade is warm enough not to make me look like death!

 If you are thinking of a bit of home colouring I would definately recommend trying Perfect 10, it is one of the few colours I have used where the shade on the box is pretty much what you get on your head, most aren't even in the same colour spectrum, it smells fine, the conditioner is lovely and is the only one from a colour kit that I have actually used between colouring to keep my hair looking good and my hair is in great condition, whats not to love?!