How to dye your hair at home - tips and tricks

I would like to consider myself something of an expert when it comes to diy hair dyeing. I have been dyeing my hair at home since I was 14 years old - although back then, my mum helped me!

I've had all sorts of colours - reds, pink, blond, browns, blue, purple, ginger (by mistake).....you name it, I've probably tried it.

I thought I'd share with you some of the things I've learnt along the way!

How to do it well:

1) If possible, get someone to help. Make sure it's someone you trust though! It can be tricky to do the back of your hair or to do highlights evenly when you can't see which bits have been covered.

2) Don't go too cheap or too light. I have a prime example of this for you with some photographic evidence!!

Bad, ginger highlights!

This was my hair yesterday. It doesn't look too bad in the photo but believe me, it was uneven and it was ginger. The usual kit I use is only £5 and is the Garnier Multi Lights kit for brown hair. Unfortunately, I can't find this product any more so I bought a kit from Wilkinson's (of all places) for £2. It was supposed to be for brown hair. It was awful.

It's a good idea to only go one or two shades lighter or darker than your natural colour. You don't want your hair to look like it doesn't match your eyebrows!

3) It's not the end of the world if the colour goes wrong! Read the instructions and you will probably find that you can dye another colour over the top. That's what I did.

I used this:

Garnier Nutrisse in 4.3 Dark golden brown

It mostly worked. My hair now is a little bit red and a bit darker than I would have liked - meaning I won't be able to use my Headkandy hot toffee hair extensions for a while. Oh well.

My hair now:

I took this outside for a more realistic colour match..

4) Look for a dye that has a good conditioner in the box. Dyeing your hair is not good for it! And neither is bleaching....I like the Garnier Nutrisse products because you get a little bottle of conditioner that does 3 washes. It smells a bit fruity but I can live with that.

5) Wipe off any spills IMMEDIATELY from yourself and surfaces. You can put Vaseline around your hair line if you are using strong coloured dyes like the Directions range. I had a bad incident in my uni halls where the shower cubicle got stained red. (I still got my deposit back though - everyone was using the same dye so every body's showers probably looked the same!)

6) Take a risk! Most products these days are designed to be super easy to use by yourself. There are loads of crazy colours available or you can try dip dyeing (ombre) to get a faded look. Don't feel like you have to pay a fortune at a salon to get some colour in your hair.

I hope that helps all you virgin hair dye types! Any other questions, drop me a line!