I’ve been spending a ton of money dying my hair at the hair salon lately, so I decided to dye my own hair this time since I haven’t done so in a long time.
I choose to use L’Oréal Superior Preference in 8 1/2A Champagne Blonde (Cooler). I got it for about ~$8 from my local drug store.
I’ve always been a fan of ash colored hair. I HATE BRASSY HAIR. The problem with lightening black hair is that it will always have a brassy color. To avoid having brassy hair, you need to look for a hair dye product that either says “ash” or “cool.”
I picked L’Oréal’s Champagne Blonde color. When trying to lighten hair color using dye instead of bleach, it’s best to get a lighter color than you are going for. Most likely, your hair will not come out the same color as the box if you naturally have black or dark brown hair.
Another good thing to do when picking a hair color is that you should look at the shade guide. Often times for the blonde hair dyes, the before hair color is already blonde! So it is good to look for a box that has a before color that is slightly darker.
In my case, the champagne blonde box shows a “light brown” as a before photo. I actually consider their labeled “light brown” hair color to be medium-dark brown. So you can safely assume that if your hair is even darker than the color shown, your results will also be slightly darker.
Inside of the box, you get the usual: Instructions, pair of gloves, color optimizing creme, color gel, and color & shine conditioner.
My Hair Before Dying: Black virgin roots, parts of my hair is dyed brown or bleached, and I also have lots of blonde streaks. I have hair that goes down to my hip and my hair is super thin. The bottom part of my hair is a little damaged. Before dying my hair, I cut and trimmed my own hair. In addition, I did not wash my hair two days before dying it.
Note: Since I have so little hair, I only need one hair dye box, if you have thicker hair that’s long, you’ll probably need two boxes.
How I Dyed My Hair In 12 Easy Steps:
- Wear a shirt that you don’t mind getting dirty (button up or something that you can easily take off is preferred, or you can be like me and do it topless).
- Take a plastic shopping bag and rip it in a way so that you can tie it around your neck like a cape. If you get it right, you can actually stick your arms through the handles and literally wear the bag too.
- Make sure that the area you are dying your hair at is protected incase you drip or make a mess. Keep some paper towels at hand incase.
- Comb and untangle your hair and use a clip to pin up at least 1/3 of your hair. The only hair that is down should be the hairs around your neckline.
- Put on your gloves and follow the instructions on how to mix the color optimizing creme and color gel together.
- If you have a bowl and brush for hair dying, use it. If not, use the squeeze bottle that the box comes with along with a comb.
- Start by dying the parts of your hair that is down. Always dye from the tips up. I like to put all of my un-dyed hair in the back and move it infront once it has been covered with hair dye. Do small portions of your hair at a time so that you can make sure that each part is entirely covered with dye.
- Once you have completely covered all of your hair that is down, unclip your hair and drop another layer of hair and again clip up the rest of your hair. You will repeat this process until you are finished.
- When all of your hair is entirely covered, you can continue to place all of the remaining hair dye into your hair. Eventually work your hair into a lather.
- Now you can clip your hair and take the plastic bag that was wrapped around your neck and wrap it around your hair instead so that it is almost air tight.
- Wait 50 minutes before rinsing out the hair dye. While waiting, blow dry the plastic bag with your hair in it at medium heat.
- After the time is up, simply rinse out the dye until the water runs clear. Do not use shampoo, but skip to the provided conditioner. Your hair will feel healthier than before you dyed it and you will love the color if you did it correctly!
I have to say, I was scared to see the results of my hair dying, but I love it!!! Photos do not do enough justice for it. I must say that I am planning on dying my own hair from now on and this is the color that I am planning on using from now on. I have achieved the best ash color from this hair dye out of all the different at home boxes that I have tried in the past.
I am planning out testing out a toner soon, hopefully you will see a blog post on that too!
L’Oréal Superior Preference Champagne Blonde Overall Rating: ★★★★★
- My new go to color for hair dying at home
- Beautiful ash color, it’s really ash!!!
- Very easy to do by yourself, you don’t even need a friend to help
- My hair feels healthier than it was before I dyed my hair
- This color is very flattering
- This product cost me only $8 in stores, compared to paying about $80 + tip at a hair salon
- I can do touch ups whenever I want
- If you want to see some real life photos of me with my new hair color, look at my Lakers blog post
Everything on this blog is so cute! Love all your pictures! I’m your newest follower 🙂 Would you mind checking out our blog & following back via GFC and Bloglovin’? Looking forward to your next post! xx
sixthtractate.blogspot.com
thanks! i will definitely check out your blog 🙂
Oh the photography of after looks really georgeus. I want try this product.
xoxo
if you like ash tone, this box turned out great! they also have a slightly darker ash i believe.
How light did it lifted your virgin black hair? I’m so sick of roots and paying 100$ for it every few months 🙁
ahh yea paying to get your hair done really puts a dent in your wallet.
below is a photo of my hair in different lighting. if there is more light, my hair looks lighter brown like on the top photo. if there is less light it looks dark brown like in the bottom photo. hope this helps!
Wow, I learned some stuff about dying my hair. I learned it has to have the word ash and cool. Thank you I did not know that! Now that the weather is getting warmer here, I wanted to dye it… hehe~
haha yes! it is key that it says one of those words on the box if you want to avoid having overly brassy hair 😀
I hate brassy hair too!!!! It annoys me so much whenever my hair starts to have a brassy tone >-< This hair dye seems really nice! Thanks for the great review and tips~
Liz
chewylove.blogspot.com
no problem. hope it helps you in the future, and thanks for reading!
Seems like it has a nice effect in the end. 🙂
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thanks 🙂
i really like how it turned out!
Very nice color.
http://theshortiesfashion.blogspot.co.uk/
thanks katarina 🙂
My hair is a tiny bit lighter than ur after pic? I want to lighten it up a tiny bit more without the orange. Do u think this color would do.it?
I think this might help do the trick with lightening a tiny bit and making it less orange. But a great way to completely get orange out is to try using a toner. check out wella color charm toner in T18 lightest ash blonde and a 20 volume regular lift creme from a beauty supply store.
Im so shocked. It worked. I wish i would have taken a before pic. My med blonde highlights were good for most part but the rest was lit brown/ with orange tint. Didnt look bad but had a certain vision in my head. And i got what i wanted. If you look up jessica burciaga blonde hair thats pretty much what i got and exactly what i wanted. N i was just about to drop another 40 in gettn more highlightz, so thanks a ton.!
oh yay! i’m soooo happy to hear that your hair came out exactly how you wanted. thanks for updating me!! 🙂
My hair is a medium brown and I’m would like to go dark blonde without it looking brassy or orange. Will this product do the trick??
i honestly cant promise you that this product will do the trick, but i think it can help get you there? if you hair is *naturally* medium brown, i think it might work. if you have naturally darker hair, and you dyed your hair to medium brown, it will probably lighten it to a dark blonde but have a tad bit of brassiness. im very positive that this product provides better results than other hair dye boxes when it comes to brassy tones though.
if you wanna give it a go, just try it out and take that leap of faith. you can use a toner afterwards or try buying a purple shampoo. haha otherwise if you are too scared, you should probably just go to a color specialist. hope this helps, sorry im no hair expert!!
I use a purple toning shampoo. I think Clairol shimmer lights is like 10 bucks at sally’s and I leave it on for like 5 minutes after I rinse all the hair dye out it and it really helps lighten the bronzy/yellowish tones in my hair.
I have shimmer lights as well, and it does do a good job on the blonde parts of my hair. But sometimes I feel like it’s also somewhat drying, do you ever feel that way? Anyways, thanks for adding in your experience! 😀
how did you manage to get the black part of your hair so perfectly blonde without brassiness? Did you have to use powder and developer?
I just used the box hair dye! So whatever that came in the box was all that I used. The thing with L’Oréal’s Champagne Blonde color is that it’s considered one of their “cooler” shades, meaning that it tries to look more ashy. You want to make sure to avoid any dyes that are labeled as “warm” or even anything that’s neutral, as those will give you a brassier look. It really doesn’t matter which hair dye you choose, just look for something that says “ash” or “cool” in the name! Hope this helps 🙂 LMK if you have any other questions.
thanks for the info! 🙂
yes of course, np!
I had no idea you can lighten dark hair with just a box colour! I think I’ll use this instead of torturing my hair with bleach and developer. Thanks for the post!
no problem! of course you need to remember though, that the color on the box is not going to be the color that your hair will turn since it’s naturally darker. but yes, you can choose a box that is for example, blonde and get a medium brown color. also keep your eye out as there are boxes that are made specially for dark color hair to help lift it extra shades!! 😀
Helo, how many box of this hair dye did you used? I have long hair and dont know if just one dye would be enough? Thanks…
i typically use only one box, and tend to have enough extra to completely drench/soak my hair in the dye. however, i also have super super thin hair!! literally, the circumference of my pony tail is the size of a quarter. i would say if you have normal-medium thickness and long hair, you should be fine.
Your hair color looks wonderful!! If I had known about that shade of dye I wouldve bought that one instead lol. Have you ever tried Loreal 9A Light Ash Blonde? Will that produce similar non-brassy results? Thanks for your help!
hi karen, thanks for your comment. and yes, i’ve actually tried 9A before and the results weren’t too different from 8 1/2A, but i did feel like it came out a tiny bit more brassy. also, the lightening results weren’t really any lighter. it seems that any box that i tried that was lighter than 8 1/2A produced around the same shade since my natural hair color is black. any lighter, i would probably have to do so with bleach or wait a couple of weeks and dye again with the box.
let me know if you have any other questions! i’m happy to answer as best as i can.
It seems to me that there is a huge case of “the Emperor has no clothes” here. It is not possible in a one-step color process to bring black hair down to a light ash blonde. This is truly a case in point: while everyone posting here is saying the result is “not brassy” and “really ash”……the photos (including the basketball game photos) CLEARY show this result was extremely brassy/reddish and not at all “ash”. Not sure this is a case of mass delusions or simple wishful thinking….and I’m sure I’ll get a lot of backlash….but there are NO ash tones in the color result….only reddish tones. SMH.
Hello~ you know, everything that you said is correct. But coming from an asian who always dyes her black hair lighter using box dyes… this box really does a better job in controlling the brassy-ness in comparison to other boxes that I’ve tried! It’s impossible to get truly ash hair from a simple box dye, especially in one go. But this is the best that I’ve found when I wrote this post, now I’ve found a better one for ash hair!! Though sometimes it makes my hair too ashy to the point that it has turned green, lol.
My hair color is dull. Probably best described as a medium ash now that I’ve dyed it about a week ago….I’d love to get a blonde color that shines. What do you suggest?
A WIG! Lol~ jk, that’s probably not the answer you’re looking for. But yea, maybe it would nice to lighten your hair and get some lowlights? That might be a little difficult to achieve with a box hair dye though (especially the lowlights)… but if your natural hair color is any sort of medium brown, maybe! I’m assuming your hair is darker though since you said you dyed it.
PS. Sorry for the very late (and useless) response (I’ve been on vacation 🙂
did you use foils to highlight your hair? How did you do it yourself?
no i didn’t use foil. i just divided my hair into 3 separate sections (top of head, middle layer, and bottom layer thats next to the neck). i start at the bottom layer coating from tip to root, then drop the next section and so on. once i’ve completed all sections, i use the remainder to make sure that i’ve saturated all of my hair. when i’m done, i usually wrap my hair with a plastic bag or saran wrap.
but thats when i dye my hair a new color. if i’m doing touch ups, i do it differently 🙂
I just got the 9A Light Ash Blonde for the first time and the directions say to leave it on for 25 minutes, but you said you left yours on for 50 minutes. I’m trying to avoid the brassiness and I heard if you wash it out too soon or too late that that will cause brassiness so I want to make sure I keep it on long enough.
Just make sure to tone your hair after, or use purple shampoo. What I like to do is dilute purple hair dye with conditioner and tint my hair color to give it a much more ashy color.
Awesome issues here. I am very glad to peer your article. Thanks so much and I’m looking forward to contact you. Will you please drop me a e-mail?
Hey Arav, whats up! You can feel free to email me at sarah@xlicious.com.
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Thanks for your kind words! Hope you’re having a great day!
Aw, this was an incredibly nice post. Taking a few minutes and actual effort to produce a good article… but what can I say… I put things off a whole lot and don’t manage to get nearly anything done.
Thats sweet really. I try my best, hope you do too! 🙂
Very nice information thank you! Very helpful!
Glad you found it helpful 🙂
I will NEVER EVER BUY THIS CRAP EVER AGAIN!!! I have blonde hair and i have tried champagne blonde by different brands and had NO issues! This brand everyone is ranting and raving about is the WORST! It turned my hair a brassy red, not mention my hair feels weighed down !!! I can’t even get a comb through it! It’s GARBAGE!! Unflattering color! My hair feels flat , gummy, and weighed down. NEVER AGAIN!!
Happy to hear that you’ve found other brands that work great for you! DIY hair color at home is a difficult task, and can definitely leave you with destroyed hair. I know I’ve had my fair share of experiences in the past~
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Hi, I am reading all these comments on hair coloring and fascinated by results. My hair is very dark and now has quite a lot of gray. I have colored my hair for 30 years or so, everything from auburn to butter blonde. I wanted platinum or champagne but have never gotten it right but still trying. My hair is short now and much easier to color and style. I use the purple shampoo along with blonde shampoos. I color my hair every 4 or 5 weeks after a haircut as it grows fast. I really love the Clairol products for ease and price. Thanks for letting me post these comments.