Ever since I had Riley (and if I’m being honest, even before), I’ve been lazy about beauty maintenance. My eyebrows have gone months (terrible) without getting done. My semi-new gray hairs tend to stick around for much longer than they should. And my husband could testify to my prickly legs as shaving is just not on top of my priority list when I’m trying to squeeze a shower in to a busy day. So when I get the opportunity and take my precious (to me) time to do something like dye my hair, I’m pretty bummed when I don’t see results like I wanted. I’m downright livid when I find that it made my hair look even worse. I wouldn’t normally want to use a public space to bash a product or company, but I feel like it’s my civic duty as a girl (and bonafide hot mess) to make sure others don’t fall prey to the same mistakes I have.
I recently bought L’Oreal Feria hair color at CVS because it was on sale and ExtraBucks woo! (If everything I just said there was gibberish, just ignore it.) Now, I know all my hairstylist friends may start yelling at me for even using box color, and normally I’d be right there with you guys. But when you’re trying to cover persistent grays on a budget, home remedies are necessary. Being that it was more expensive and kinda fancy looking, I thought Feria would be great. It promised shimmering highlights and vibrant color. Don’t believe everything you read. (You would think a semi-intelligent human being would already know that, but I digress.)
My first inclination that this hair color wasn’t to be used again was the smell. Hair color does sometime have a harsh smell to it when it’s working to change the pigmentation of your hair, but this was overwhelming and when I pulled some hair a big closer to my face to get underneath, I couldn’t breathe and was nervous that I got it in my eye thanks to a severe burning sensation.
After rinsing and drying my hair, it didn’t seem like it did much to my roots. While it did cover the gray, I had purposely bought a darker natural brown color to change it up a bit and while the drier ends up my hair changed, my crown did not. I also noticed a redness and slight itchiness around my hairline, something that’s never happened with any of the other various hair color lines I’ve used. I don’t have very sensitive skin so that isn’t something I normally worry about with beauty products.
Lastly, in the last week I’ve found numerous sections of hair that have just broken off including a large chunk in the underside of the back of my head as well as what I call “palm trees.” Palm trees are the little frizzies around your hairline that seem to stick up at inopportune moments.
I’m sure many of these symptoms could just be normal for using box color, but I have never experienced them with any of the many times I’ve colored my hair (even the time during senior year when I turned my whole head white…oops). While others may have had success with this hair color, I will be avoiding it like the plague…and mostly likely writing a strongly worded letter to L’Oreal!
Have you ever done something crazy cosmetically? I should put up a timeline of terrible personal hair color choices. There have certainly been enough instances!
Bononno 