This Is How I Permanently Coloured My Hair in Lockdown

how to colour your hair at home in lockdown

I couldn’t get to the salon to colour my hair, so I turned my bathroom into a hair salon and did it myself.

Story first published in May 2020, and re-published and updated in July 2021 for the second Sydney lockdown.

Whether you’re looking to just enhance your natural colour or change it completely out of lockdown boredom, hair dye is nothing short of transformative. It doesn’t just change the way you look, it can also change the way you feel about yourself.

Even if you are only showing off your new hair highlights, colours or tones to family and friends on zoom, or to your dog at home whilst in self-isolation, colouring your hair really does make you feel refreshed, revitalised and gives hair new life, in an otherwise dull situation.

But. And there is always a but isn’t there? Colouring your hair at home can often present a host of problems too. And you should always make sure you have all the right tools to ensure you do an A-class job at colouring your hair at home.

So, before I go into a full blow by blow tutorial on how to permanently colour your hair at home, here are five hair dye tips (given by my hairdresser) to help you do it safely and help take your hair colour to next level fabulous. Even if you are only going a shade darker.

  1. Remove skin stains after colouring: Once you have finished putting the wet colour in your hair, do remove any stains from the face and skin. This can be done easily enough with warm water and soap. Even Witch Hazel works to remove it from the skin. Don’t stress if it doesn’t all come off, as it will remove when you shampoo the excess colour out of your hair in the shower. It just helps to get as much of it off the skin first, so it doesn’t stain the skin.
  2. Use the right developer: If you are simply enhancing tour current hair colour, a simple supermarket brand (as long as it’s ammonia free) will do the trick to give you a good colour. However, if you are changing the colour of your hair entirely from dark to light, or the other way around, you will need to source the right developing technologies from a hair warehouse to protect your hair as you strip the colour and change it to something else.
  3. How much product should you use: Make sure you purchase the right amount of product. For example, if you are only enhancing the colour of your hair (nothing too crazy), and you are colouring your whole head, make sure you purchase at least two boxes of colour depending on the length of your hair. One box should be enough for short hair, two to three boxes is a must for longer and thicker hair.
  4. Plastic is better: When colouring your hair, metal tools are a massive NO NO. Always use plastic mixing bowls, plastic application brushes and plastic clips to tie back hair. Metal will interfere with the colouring process and has even been known to burn through hair, yikes!
  5. Stay away from the eyes: Do not ever use hair dye to colour your brows or your lashes. Even if you use a low chemical base colourant on your hair which is ammonia free, all hair colourants have a certain amount of intense chemical treatment in them. They are being used to colour, lighten and change your hair. The eye area is so delicate and if you use hair dye to colour brows and eye lashes, you could do some serious damage to your eyes.

L’Oreal; owners of L’Oreal Paris and Garnier are aware of the many challenges of colouring hair at home.

They put together a ‘Tips to Nailing the Box Hair Dye List’ to help you achieve the perfect permanent hair colour at home whilst in self-isolation. They are:

  1. How to choose the right colour
  2. Preparation
  3. Where to start the application
  4. Ensuring the best and most even coverage
  5. How much time to allow from start to finish
  6. How long the colour should stay on
  7. Whether hair colour can be used to colour other hair on the body
  8. Special care
  9. The colour of the mixture whilst it’s developing
  10. Once the product has been mixed, find out if it can be used for another application

Click HERE to access their exclusive hair dying guide on how to master the box dye hair kit at home.

And check out the video below where I show you how I coloured my own hair permanently at home.

Rebecca Wilkinsons dying her hair at home in isolation

To colour my hair at home, I used the following equipment:

If you’re looking for natural hair dyes, which are completely chemical free click here to see the full range of natural-based hair dyes available at Nourished Life.

Rebecca Wilkinson

Beauty Editor

Rebecca is a freelance content creator and beauty editor for Bondi Beauty. She is a pescatarian, who may yet become vegan. She loves all things beauty, health & travel, has a weakness for coffee and is obsessed with cats and yoga. If she's not answering her mobile - it's probably because she's trying out the latest beauty trend, like massaging crushed pearls into her skin for the ultimate collagen and vitamin boost to skin cells.

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