Hot take: I watched a client's hair recover from box dye over 8 months and it was night and day

The orangey brass faded to a soft beige after 4 rounds of olaplex and a demi-permanent gloss, which made me wonder if more of us should just walk people through the slow fix instead of pushing for a big chop - has anyone else seen a dramatic shift like that from patience alone?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowan66629d agoMost Upvoted

@ryan_carr59 is right about water being a big factor, but I think the brass coming back after a few washes is more about the metallic salts in box dyes reacting with peroxide over time rather than the water itself. The copper and iron in those cheap dyes keep oxidizing long after you rinse, even with soft water. I had a client who moved from Boston to LA with the same box dye in her hair and the brass still crept back for months until we used a malibu treatment to pull the metals out. The water change helped with texture for sure, but it didn't fully stop the chemical reaction that keeps box dye going yellow.

ryan_carr5929d ago

The thing nobody talks about is how different box dyes behave depending on what water you wash with. Hard water vs soft water changes the whole game. I had a client who was stuck with this muddy green tint from repeated box black dye, and we thought it was totally fried until she moved to a house with a water softener. After 2 months of just washing with that soft water and using a cheap purple shampoo, the green faded to a really pretty cool brown, no olaplex or gloss needed. That clients hair recovered from box dye faster than my other client who spent hundreds on treatments but still had rusty well water running through her shower. Water chemistry can either save your color or destroy it depending on the mineral content.