In many cities, salon coloring can cost as much as a pair of sneakers: between $50 and $80 to freshen up your roots or slightly change your reflection. When the beauty budget gets tight, many look at the boxes of home coloring on the shelves, before putting the product down for fear of ending up orange or with damaged hair.
Between oil-based colorings like Garnier Olia, without ammonia, and technical coloring treatments such as Creme Supreme from Schwarzkopf with a micro-bonding system, the offer has little to do with the colorings of our beginnings. The promises are similar: uniform result, softer hair, coverage of white hair, for a price of around ten euros in supermarkets. It remains to be seen whether this inexpensive home coloring can really compete with a salon appointment.
Cheap home coloring: what you really gain
On a financial level, the difference is clear: a box of major brand home coloring is generally between $8 and $13, whereas an equivalent salon service costs several tens of euros. For those who have to camouflage gray hair every four to six weeks, switching to the home kit allows you to multiply the touch-ups without blowing the bill. Another advantage often cited by consumers is the freedom to choose the moment, without an appointment or waiting time at the hairdresser.
In terms of results, the latest innovations seek to best reproduce the salon protocol. Schwarzkopf’s Creme Supreme, for example, relies on a pre-serum, a coloring cream and a treatment mask enriched with the Triple Bonding Haptiq System, supposed to create new micro bonds in the fiber. “The Triple Bonding Haptiq system protects the hair during coloring. It fills in damaged areas and repairs them. After coloring, you will even have remarkably soft hair,” explained Wilfred Stroop, Schwarzkopf ambassador and hairdresser at Media Park in Hilversum, in a workshop cited by Gael magazine.
Garnier Olia and Creme Supreme: a ten-euro home hair color with a professional look
The Garnier Olia range illustrates this new generation of products. This is a permanent oil-based coloring, formulated without ammonia and containing 60% nourishing oils, available for around ten euros in supermarkets. To help with choice, the brand also provides an online color simulation tool, Hair Color Virtual Try On, which allows you to virtually test bright blondes or deeper reds before deciding. The instructions for use remain simple: pour the revealing cream into the bottle provided, add the dye, close then shake before applying the mixture to dry, unwashed hair, in small sections, starting at the front in the case of white hair, then massage and leave on before rinsing until the water is clear. “I’m really pleased with the result. It was very easy to use. The instructions were simple to follow. The coloring doesn’t have that horrible ammonia smell, it was actually quite pleasant,” Amy said in a review relayed by the Metro website. “I love the result and the way my hair becomes soft. The color lasts a long time before I have to redo my white roots. It works extremely well and saves me time and money by avoiding going to the salon,” summed up an anonymous buyer in another review relayed by Metro.
At Schwarzkopf, Creme Supreme is positioned as another professional result home coloring option, with eighteen shades and a recommended price of $13.99. The three-step protocol combines a pre-serum to be applied to the lengths to prepare the fiber, the coloring cream then a nourishing mask which closes the cuticles to fix the color and add shine. Tester during a workshop, Véronique, Schwarzkopf ambassador, confided: “I was a little apprehensive about participating, because I have bad memories of my first home colorings. About 25 years ago, I tried and the result was much darker than I wanted. Obviously, the products were not as advanced as today. My biggest fear? Not getting the desired color. But this The fear was completely unfounded. The coloring went smoothly and I am very satisfied with the result. I only have my hair colored at the hairdresser two to three times a year, so it is an excellent solution between two appointments.
Instructions for use and limits of home coloring to avoid unpleasant surprises
To obtain a uniform result, a minimum of organization remains essential. Before starting, it is better to prepare a towel, gloves, old t-shirt, instructions and choose a shade close to its natural color, as recommended by Wilfred Stroop, who also advises reading the instructions on the exposure time carefully. Brands generally recommend applying the color to dry, unwashed hair, drawing successive lines to distribute the product, then massaging to cover each strand, without forgetting the back of the head or the area behind the ears. After rinsing, it is often recommended not to shampoo, simply rinse until the water runs clear, then wait two to three days before the next wash to let the pigments set.
Hairdressers point out, however, that these kits are mainly suitable for simple cases, such as reviving a color or covering white roots, and not for radical transformations. The professional Leonora Isufi, at the head of the LeoHairArtist salon, warns: “We withdraw. Why? Because we cannot improvise as a hairdresser. First of all, a professional is, in a way, a chemist and must have knowledge of colorimetry. It is not simply a question of choosing a box on the basis of a color indicated to obtain this result. You should know that, to obtain a certain result, it is sometimes necessary to use three or even four tubes When you come to the salon, you will not have the fear of coming out with a completely different color than expected. Then, when you come to color your hair at the salon, we always carry out a hair diagnosis on which we test the product in order to examine any allergic reactions. An allergic reaction can occur within 48 hours. previously colored hair than on virgin hair Using a box containing standard products and doses therefore does not take into account the particularities and needs of the hair,” she explained in an interview with Elle magazine. A point of view which reminds us that before definitively swapping the living room for the bathroom, you must take into account your hair history, the condition of your lengths and any allergies, even if it means reserving the ten-euro kits for the simplest touch-ups.
