I’ve used what SHOULD be called Color Expert in the past, but there have been two changes since that time, so I’m going to review the hair color and tell you what has changed, and why I think it’s better now.

First of all, to all of my many hair-stylist friends and family: I know it is so much better and healthier to have hair colored in a salon by a professional. But I am, unfortunately, both poor and cheap, and I have to do this at home. I apologize for the offense.

Secondly, I’m so cheap that I typically don’t buy this product unless it’s on super sale and I have a coupon, or I have a special event. All of which happened to be the case this time.

As you can see, there is a lot of stuff in this box. This is a two-step process. The first one is pretty straight-forward; it’s regular hair color.

Roots first. I like this color because it’s not too thick or gloppy, but it’s not so runny that it drips and makes a mess. After ten or fifteen minutes of that, I put the all-over color on, then left that for ten minutes.

Here’s the Trailer Trash part: When I rinsed the color out, I did it with cold water, because I wanted to leave our massive 10 gallon hot water tank full for when I actually showered after the highlight rinse. Consequently, I was on my knees, leaning over the side of the tub, shower sprayer adjusted to “massage,” blasting the tar out of my head with water that was refrigerator-level cold. This did nothing productive for my already-existing headache, and it makes me think that people who purposefully engage in “polar bear” activities are cuckoo nutzo crazycakes.

The first thing that is different from before is that the highlight mixture it now tinted blue, so that it’s easier to see when you’re “striping” your hair.

The other thing that has changed is that, previously, the highlighting came with this wand, which reminds me of a mascara brush. The problem for me is that, having extremely fine hair, the bristles here would tangle and pull out my hair in clumps. It was difficult to get any kind of even coverage, or to control the highlight streak much at all. I was too busy trying not to cry from scalp yanking and damage.

The improvement?

A wonderful finger brush thingy!

This made it SO much easier to pull the color through the strands. Since I have a layer hair cut (necessary due to the fact that I fried my hair back in July, bleaching it to color it pink for the Harry Potter premier), I pulled my top layer up, did a round of stripes in the long hair, then put the rest of my hair down and colored it at the part and around my face. I leaned over and used up most of the rest of the color on the underside for interest, then used the left-over stuff on my gloves to kind of frost the ends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was pretty pleased with the results, but I will make one caveat here at the end. The label categorizes this as a “red.” The actual name is “Ginger Twist; Light Golden Copper Brown.” But I think that is should be listed as a “brown” with the actual name, and it would all be fine.

Regardless, I like the way that it turned out. In fact, I’m blogging this at a cafe near D’s gym as I wait for her to get finished (because our home internet is all messed up), and a girl just walked past me, patted me on the shoulder, waited for me to take out my earbuds (which I wear in public  even when I’m not listening to anything, because I like to discourage people from talking to me), and said, “I REALLY like your hair.” So, I guess this stuff works just fine.