Getting flawless colour isn’t as hard as you think. Here are 5 tips to help your hair colour look perfect:

1. Timing really is everything when it comes to achieving a balanced, cohesive colour result.

Hair has different porosity at different sections. The more porous hair is, the faster it will absorb colour and the darker your colour result will be.

Think of your hair in three sections; Roots (new growth hair), Mid-lengths, and Ends. The least porous part of your hair is your new growth at your roots. Your mid lengths have increased porosity, and your ends will be the most porous part of your hair.

Roots: This is the newest, freshest hair so it takes a bit more time for the colour to perform when colouring hair roots. Always begin your colour application at your roots, and allow additional processing time to allow the colour to fully absorb into your roots, which are naturally the least colour absorbent section of your hair.

Mid-lengths: This hair is a little more porous, it has had time to be exposed to natural and unnatural elements such as sun exposure, colouring, highlighting, and heat styling. Increased porosity means faster colour absorption, so your mid-lengths need less time to process the colour.

Ends: The ends of our hair have been through the most and are the most porous section of your hair. Your ends probably feel the driest and they might be prone to split ends or frizz. They will also rapidly over-absorb colour so you definitely do not need to leave the colour on your ends for as long as your roots.

Colour will process faster at the ends, and colour processing will slow moving up towards the roots. If you apply colour to the full length of your hair all at the same time, you may have a darker, duller colour result at your ends where the colour has processed faster.

Adjust your colour application to allow for the increasing porosity towards the ends of your hair. Give your new growth hair the most time to absorb colour – give it at least a 20 minute head start – after that, gradually comb colour down through hair adding more colour to you mid-lengths, then finally on to the ends.

Consider adjusting your coverage and products for different sections of hair. If you have porous lengths, you can avoid applying permanent colour again to your lengths, after an initial application. We call it Colour Perfection – more on that in a minute.

2. Total Saturation.

When doing a root touch up, total saturation is really important. Part your hair into 4 sections and apply colour patiently and methodically, really massaging the colour into the new growth hair so that you don’t miss any areas.

3. Know your limitations when going lighter. Say no to hot roots.

“Hot roots” is what you may get when you try to colour your already-dyed hair a lighter colour and the roots end up looking noticeably warmer than the rest of your hair.

Hot roots happen when the hair closest to the scalp lifts lighter and faster than the rest of the hair due to the heat coming off your scalp. This is also a result of putting a lighter shade on it and through the lightening process exposing natural warmth. Remember that “colour cannot lift colour,” so if you have any type of dye on your hair, applying a lighter colour won’t be able to make your hair lighter – you’ll need a separate lightening process to achieve a lighter base colour level.

4. Comb it down to escape the band.

When you colour over hair that has been previously coloured the hair colour overlaps, creating a darker band where the new colour is touching the previous colour. You will usually see this band around your crown. Escape this by applying colour just to roots and feathering down with a comb to the previously coloured section.

5. Apply the right product in the right place

We talked earlier about how the different parts of hair absorb colour at a different rate due to the porosity of the hair. When there is existing hair colour in your hair, applying colour over and over again leads to build-up, and darker, duller colour outcomes of the lengths of your hair.

If your lengths are porous, particularly dry or damaged, try our Colour Perfection colouring approach. This approach applies permanent colour to the hair once only. Permanent colour is never applied to the lengths (apart from your very first application with a new colour, to achieve full length coverage).

Our Colour Perfection approach blends colour cream with either a 20 or 27 vol developer for either standard or intensive permanent colour coverage at your roots only. The 27 vol developer can cover colour-resistant greys, or achieve up to three levels of lift.

Boost the colour, tone and shine in your lengths with either a toner or semi-permanent colour. Our gentle 5 vol will deposit tones only, and can be blended with any of our colours to boost the tone and shine of your hair. 5 vol is a no lift developer, which gently deposits tone, and can be used to boost colour in your lengths while avoiding a permanent colour application in your lengths.

Applying permanent colour only where you need it will preserve the condition of your hair in your lengths, as well as avoid colour build-up.

I absolutely love The Shade, there is no nasty smell or harsh feeling and my hair looks and feels great. It has really helped the condition of my hair. I also adore the shampoo and conditioner and all the other extras that are included- thank you so much.

D. Demouce

Was so amazed at how good this turned out. Best home dye I’ve every used. Will never go to the salon for colour again.

Alice Ward

I love, love, love The Shade. I love that it’s so conveniently delivered to my door and I love how good my hair feels after use. Highly recommend The Shade to anyone considering trying, just do it, you won’t be disappointed.

Leonie Cook