Seeking Silver: Koleston Perfect 0/81

To see all my Seeking Silver posts click the label 'seeking silver' at the bottom of the post. If you have any hair dye/ toner requests please leave them in the comments and I'll try my best to get ahold of them.

The second dye I am testing out in my Seeking Silver series is the Koleston Perfect Special Mix in 0/81. I purchased this from Ebay for around the £7 mark, but you also need a developer for this to work. I have generic 3% (10 vol) creme peroxide as I'm just depositing colour and not lightening my hair. 

Below is the state my hair was in before applying the dye. I had just bleached my roots a few days before (without toning) so my roots were an extremely pale yellow, with the rest of my hair being virtually white.

To mix up the dye I emptied the contents of the Koleston tube of colour (60ml) into a tint bowl and then measured out 120ml of creme peroxide (as it requires a ratio of 1:2) and mixed well. 

When applying the dye I split my hair into 4 sections, apply with a tint brush at the roots first, then pull and massage the dye through the lengths of my hair afterwards.

After I had applied the dye I noticed it was developing an extremely blue tone, so I cut the developing time short and rinsed it off after 15 minutes, then proceeded to do my usual deep condition afterwards (OSMO intensive deep repair mask) for 5 minutes.

  After my hair had dried my results were as above. The colour came out a very metallic icy grey-blue which I personally think is absolutely stunning, but may not be what you're after. It's definitely an extremely blue based dye which I understand will not be to everyone's taste when looking for a silver/grey colour. In terms of the condition of my hair it felt identical to before I dyed it, which is great!

 I decided to wash it once and check to see how much the colour changes. It did fade a bit and some of the blue tone did wash out, but you can tell it's still a blue toned silver (although I'm sure you will agree it's much more silver than when it was first dyed). 

After the initial wash the colour noticeably faded, but during the next 3 weeks of hair washing the colour stayed virtually the same as in the photo above!

Please remember that to get silver/ grey hair you need to have very very pale blonde hair beforehand, so bleaching will be necessary. I personally wouldn't recommend trying this dye on hair much darker than mine as the blue tones will probably make the hair look murky.

Overall I'm actually really pleased with this dye. I would 100% recommend it if you like a blue based silver/ grey, but if you would prefer a purple or neutral based silver/grey then you may want to skip out on this one. As I previously mentioned I found this dye on Ebay but you can also find it in Sally's or other beauty supply stores!

Thanks for reading!

♥

Seeking Silver: Mellor & Russell Simply Bright

This is the first post in my new series "Seeking Silver". I will be trying out many different silver hair dyes/toners and showing my process and results with you. This web series will be hosted on my YouTube channel with more in depth opinions written over here! If you have any dye/ toner requests leave them in the comments either here or on YouTube and I'll try my best to get a hold of them.

The first dye I am trying out is the Mellor & Russell Simply Bright Cool Silver hair dye which I purchased from... Poundland!?

The picture below is the state my hair was in just before applying the dye. My hair was an extremely dark pink into pastel pink before I bleach bathed it out, so that's why my roots were a much darker/ brassier blonde than the rest of my hair. 

In the box comes the tube of colour, a bottle of 9% (30 vol) and a pair of plastic gloves. The instructions are printed on the inside of the box, so you need to cut/tear it open carefully to make sure you don't make them unreadable. It doesn't come with a conditioner for afterwards, but I usually use my own hair masks anyway.

I decided to switch the developer (35ml same as was contained in the box) to my own 6% (20 vol) as my hair is already extremely pale and usually takes to colours quite well. I would have used 3% (10 vol) if I had any at hand, as that would be adequate for depositing colour. Personally I prefer to mix my dyes up in a tint bowl and apply with a tint brush, but if you're good using a bottle that's fine!

Upon opening the tube of colour I was surprised to see it was a light orange (I was expecting blue or purple!), I was a bit sceptical about using the dye but went ahead anyway. I applied the dye to my roots first (as that's where my hair needed the most toning), and then worked through my lengths. A short while after applying the dye to the hair it started to change to a more grey/ lilac tone; which made me feel more relaxed. 

 The instructions say to leave the dye on between 20-40 minutes, so I decided to leave it on for 40 to see the fullest effect. After rinsing the colour out I used my OSMO intensive deep repair mask and left it on for around 10 minutes to give my hair some moisture, rinsed again and ran some serum through my ends for a little extra lovin'.

After my hair had dried my results were as above. I'm extremely impressed with how well this dye toned my hair, considering it's price. I wasn't expecting it to do much to my hair at all (especially not my roots; which were extremely brassy), but it has brought my hair to a lovely silvery-white shade! My roots are still a tiny bit brassy, but it's not noticeably different from the rest of my hair (unless you look very closely). My hair didn't feel any drier or more damaged after using this dye, which is always a good thing! I've now had this hair for 3 weeks and the colour hasn't changed (although I have been using a good silver shampoo).

If your hair is much darker than mine was before using the dye it won't bring your hair to the same shade as mine, though, it will probably neutralise yellow blondes to a more ash blonde colour. Also if you're looking for a darker steel grey/silver then this is not the best dye out there for you. 

Overall I think this dye is a great option for people after the silver/white colour on a budget, but of course your hair will need to be pale enough to begin with. You can pick this dye up from Poundland, or search around on Ebay/ Amazon for it, but of course you won't find it cheaper than £1. If you aren't in the UK it might not be worth trying to find, as I imagine it would be difficult to get a hold of or much more expensive.

Thanks for reading!

♥