Recently, I attended a webinar (seminar on the web) by Natural Instincts to introduce us to some of their new lines of haircolor. I gotta admit – I had never used this brand before as I was of a mind that all box hair color was the same (save for new advances in haircolor like the the quick-coloring Clairol Perfect 10). This talk was informative and proved me wrong, showing me several of the differences.
I got a chance to try a box from the Golden Shimmer line in Golden Mahogany. First off, I misunderstood how to apply it, which is one big difference from other box colors to me. You are to apply this to damp, NOT dry hair – like I usually do. In the webinar they said, “Apply this to clean, damp hair”, which I heard as “Freshly shampoo’d, before you dry it hair”. IT’S NOT! It should be on clean, second day, product free hair. I didn’t see this pretty important fact until almost the bottom of the first page of the application instructions (*pdf). This kind of peeved me, since I had set aside that specific time to color my hair. *sigh* Anyway, I did manage to color my hair that weekend. Here are my beautiful part roots (you guys are getting to be BFF’s now, since you’ve seen each other so much):
And this is what my pretty glowy hair afterwards (I tried to take it in the same
conditions as my not so pretty roots):
Aside from applying to damp hair, everything else was pretty much the same application as any other home hair color. The smell wasn’t bad – I am going to attribute this to the fact that there is NO ammonia in this color. In addition, there are antioxidents, plus Vitamins C & E, in there with the intent of making your hair healthier than before you colored it. It also comes with a 6wk tube of once a week “Color Treat” conditioner which, I gotta say, made my hair feel very silk afterwards. I let my hair air dry and it wasn’t near as flyaway as I would have expected after a coloring.
All that said, I really liked the results (Hell, I got 2 compliments on my color out at the sunny ballfield the next day – who wouldn’t like that??). And, since it washes out in 28 shampoos (it’s a demi-permanent color), I would definitely recommend this to someone wanting a boost, or to cover grays, without worrying too much about commitment.
