L'Oreal Couleur Experte

*** L'Oreal Couleur Experte ***

Well on Friday I am off to a wedding and slightly short of money this month thanks to the car costing an arm and a leg, just for the MOT. So my plans of a lovely trip (EXPENSIVE ONE) to the hair dressers, I of course went in search of something that I could do a lot cheaper, hassle free and by myself. I usually do dye my hair with Schwartzkopt dyes in the blue boxes as I feel their colours are more vibrant, but I saw this L'oreal product sitting on the top shelf in Tesco's.

The colour I opted for was 3.0 darkest brown (cocoa) if I add any pictures you will definitely see that my hair infact is now black in reality, it definitely doesn't seem brown to me.

This product aims to create a professional finish in 2 easy steps.

(easy?) certainly not, time consuming, and tricky for the highlighting bit unless you have a hand from someone else. I felt that the end finish was however good.

It does also say that it creates a natural look, covers grey hair and previous highlights that are in your hair. And they state this is a new shade, with new highlighting crème with anti-brassiness, I don't know whether that means doesn't make your hair look brassy like orange-like highlights (ginger/red/orange). For best results it must be on unwashed hair, and for the highlighting stage, damp hair.

FIRST THOUGHT

Box is more striking than other brands, very bold with its red lining at the side, and quite a tremendous amount of detail on the box, unlike other boxes that just give warnings and addresses. The colour in the end I chose was cocoa, but in the end I found that they probably had about 15-20 choices in front of me, all ranging from blonde's, reds and browns. Definitely a good range of products. The print on the side of the box with warnings is very small print as they cram so much on, I know my mum would have trouble reading it, and probably would have to get a magnifying glass out, lol but I believe she'd just skip reading that bit, even if it was warning you of something really important, you just don't want to get eye strain reading it.

L'oreal is a name you trust, they do products not only for adults but kids, things like shampoo and conditioner. I believe most of their products are expensive but the packaging and product is quality, so I was rather shocked at first at the £9.79 mark for this hair dying kit, which was the most dearest in there, but then I thought that is reasonable, because I took a sneak peek inside the packet, and you do get a good dose of everything.

PACKAGING

The cardboard box is larger than most of the other brands out there that's probably why it struck my attention more as all the boxes took up a long span of the shelf. Instructions are basic, about how to dye your hair easily, listing the contents, and small picture clips of colour hair changes it will do from blonde-to-brown (before and after pictures).

Inside the box it is splattered with do the skin test for 48 hours before applying the product. They must have said or pictured this 10 times already, just to cover their own backs. Sensible but didn't get me to do it. (don't recommend you follow my advice though) skin reactions can be potentially dangerous and painful.

OPENING THE BOX

Inside it is nicely divided into two plastic trays, with everything numbered to correspond to the instructions given so it's like even a guide for dummies. I feel though that there was a lot of packaging, in the way of plastic and cardboard, in which however most of it could be recycled in our "blue bins" if it were to be cleaned.

First I pulled out the contents, a huge long strip of instructions which fold out about five times, read through the instructions and pretty simple. They do HOWEVER mention 48 hours PRIOR to dying your hair that you do a skin test, they say that if you've ever had a henna tattoo or tattoo you may be more allergic without realising it, I've never really tested my hair before dying it which is terrible really. But I've never had a problem. However if you have sensitive skin or never dyed your hair before I do recommend following the skin test, you never know what new ingredients they put into their concotions!

You get a tube of crème gel, which is the colorant, 48mls of that, and 72 ml applicator bottle which has the developing crème mixture within it. You get TWO lots of gloves, one for each stage which I found really handy as you don't have to faff around every five minutes washing them getting dye all over your hands. Then in the second tray you get your sachet of lightening powder, and developing crème with the highlighting brush in it. Then you have a rather large 44ml tube which is a conditioner with apricot oil - sounds like rather professional luxury finish to me.

STEP ONE

Is your all over colour, you mix 1 and 2 together, shake them quickly and remove the cap to stop the bottle from expanding and even bursting, trust me I've known bottles to get pressurised quickly as the chemicals are reacting, and once when I lifted a lid off one before it spilt all over the place. It then gives you instructions to whether or not you are dying your hair completely or just doing a regrowth application, it gives you the time for each of these, but for me it was a complete all over dye. This develops in 25 minutes but I always leave it an extra five minutes just to be on the safe side.

I was a little disappointed when I washed the dye out as the shade was darker than it was listed on the box, I expected dark brown my hair was near enough black, which is a shame because I didn't expect such a dramatic colour change. My hair however does look really shiny, and apart from that the coverage of the hair is fantastic there isn't any patchy bits and its all an even colour.

STEP TWO:

Give yourself multi-tonal highlights to compliment your base colour.

Now this is the tricky part. New gloves and mix the powder and crème into a smooth paste, I found it really hard navigating around my bathroom, trying to reach the back of my hair, and thinking have I put too much on or not enough. I really do recommend getting a friend or family member to help at this stage as they can really see what you are doing, also trying to move your arm to where you think it should go ends up going all over the show in the mirror and you cant co-ordinate what you see with when you move your hand.

Anyway the time for more of a dramatic finish is 30 minutes, I left it on for 30 minutes because I felt that my hair was a darker shade than I expected and I really needed it to stand out. Also it notes that you should keep it 1cm away from the top of your roots if you have long hair, the instruction booklet came in to help here with pictures of different hairstyles and where you should shape the highlights to compliment your face, and shape of face.

To finish off, wash the hair thoroughly, and finish by applying the rich nourishing conditioner which contains apricot oil and smells quite sweet.

It was however quite therapeutic grabbing each strand and mixing in the colour, but the time it took me to do it was…. Lets say, probably half the developing time.

FINISHING THOUGHTS

Quality product, has left my hair really shiny, and well covered by the dye.
Only thing that annoys me is it is time consuming, well over an hour for the whole process, and then you have all the cleaning up to do. I found that it did make my neck area itch but it was fine after five minutes, I haven't had any bad reaction to it at all. Certainly not harsh on the hair because it feels really soft and silky, it doesn't look dull, and to top it off smells lush with the conditioner added.

Overall a quality product, with sufficient enough amounts of each product to mix, and enough to do just longer than shoulder length hair. I thought halfway through the process am I going to run out of mixture for the tips of my hair, because it would look like a half dodgy job but there was plenty which left my hair saturated.

BUY AGAIN?

Not really, costly and it doesn't do what it says on the box, the colour of my hair compared to the box is so much darker and I wasn't satisfied at all. Probably with about 10 washes even though its permanent it will start to fade and look more natural and no so harsh. Next time if I do buy it I'll opt for a much lighter colour and really stick to the developing times.

TOO MUCH HASSLE?

Yes, if you want to do it get someone else's help.
The instructions took up most of my time, most were about warnings, allergies and skin tests.

THANKS FOR READING!

PICTURES UP SOON!