At-Home Hair Coloring: Think Out of the Box

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Golden Glitches

The bleach and peroxide needed to lighten your hair can leave it looking and feeling like straw. That's why keeping hair healthy -- by conditioning it regularly and cutting back on heat styling -- is as essential as having the perfect color.

Issue: Your blond turns tangerine. If you use a shade that's too warm, you'll bring out underlying red pigments in blond (and brown) hair, causing brassiness. To avoid that, buy a cool ash-tone dye, suggests George Papanikolas, Joico celebrity stylist. Or use a blue-tinted shampoo to tone down the orange cast, says Angela Cosmai, colorist at Pierre Michel Salon, in New York City, who has formulated her own Color Enhancing Shampoo in Sky Blue, $24.

Issue: Your roots are too bright. Your scalp produces heat, which means that blond dye placed within half an inch of it will bleach more quickly than the rest of your hair. First try placing the color at least that far from the scalp. Run the remaining solution through hair, then go back and add color at the roots.

Buy Angela Cosmai Color Enhancing Shampoo in Sky Blue

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