L'Oreal Box Hair Dye Review

I have been dying my hair out of a box for years.  Hair color is just not something I feel the need to spend lots of money on, especially when I can buy the color from a box and get results that I feel looks just as good. I have seen so many commercials with Beyonce flaunting her radiant hair color from L'Oreal. (Which, lets be honest, there's no way Beyonce dyes her hair from a box.)  I decided, however, to give it a shot.

I picked up a box of L'Oreal Healthy Look Creme Gloss Color. The shade I decided on was 5G (aka Golden Truffle.) It was about 9 bucks at Wal-Mart.

When I opened the package at home, I was seriously overwhelmed by all the tubes and bottles in the box.  It came with standard instructions and a pair of really "fancy" plastic gloves.  In all, there were 4 seperate components to this hair color.  The first was a tiny tube that I was instructed to rub on the ends of my hair to prep them for the color.  I did as instructed.  I then mixed a large tube of color into a bottle of developer and shook for 2 minutes, also as instructed.  I applied the hair color, let it set for 30 minutes, rinsed in the shower and applied the 4th tube, a conditioner designed to protect the color.

Overall, I have to say I will probably not buy this product again.  First and foremost, there were entirely too many components to sort thru and mix and use.  I really could have used about half of the tubes.  Secondly, the smell of the product was the most horrible of any hair product I've ever used, salon or otherwise.  The smell stunk up my bathroom and made my eyes water.  It was nearly unbearable.  Lastly, the color itself wasn't as fantastic as I'd hoped it would be.  It came out much darker than I expected. (My hair was already a mousy brown color, and according to the back swatches, it should have came out just slightly darker with some golden under tones.)  It turned out a very mat, dark brown color with hardly and gold undertones.  (I'm hoping that some of the darkness will wash out today.) Also, I really feel like 30 minutes is far to long to have the product sitting on your hair.

I think, from this point on, I will just stick with my cheap, 3 dollar box of hair color.