Saving me a small fortune! (L'Oréal Excellence)

Member Name: laukez

Product:	L'Oréal Excellence
Date:	03/11/09 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good rich colour, decent staying power

Disadvantages: Smell!

Until a year ago, I had been a bottle blonde since I was fifteen. Because of this, I'd always paid to have my hair salon dyed. Since then, my mother has stopped bankrolling my haircuts (sob) so after an initial salon trip to head back to a more natural brown ish red colour, I have since dyed my hair at home in order to save the pennies!

After trying several different brands, L'Oreal Excellece Creme has established itself as my firm favourite. The packaging is not as funky and trendy as some other brands, and at first I was dubious that I would end up with an old woman shade of dull brown. But, on the recommendation of a reliable friend, I bought this dye in a Mahogany Brown shade and haven't looked back since.

The kit provides you with pre-conditioner, gloves, the dye itself, an activator and a post-dye conditioner. The pre-conditioner is an excellent idea. You rub it into your hair before you start dyeing where your hair might need some extra help. I've had trouble when dyeing my hair before with getting the colour to be even through my hair where it perhaps is a little fried from over use of straightners. The pre-conditioner helps overcome this, and is an excellent addition.

To make up the dye you squirt the colour into the activator bottle and give it a really good shake up. The kit comes with a fancy comb applicator which screws onto the top of the bottle, but this doesn't work for my hair as there is too much of it - I have long and very thick hair. So, I stick to using the old style squirter, and this does a fine job.

With this product it's advised that you work it through your roots first, leave for ten minutes then apply to the rest of your hair, and leave for a further twenty. In my opinion this is good advice - your hair ends up looking the same colour all the way through instead of being paler at the roots. So after rinsing, you apply the beautiful smelling conditioner and there you have it. Hair dyed within half an hour.

I really like this dye kit. Although it take it bit longer than the ten minute ones the results are better. I find the ten minute dyes wash out pretty quickly, whereas this one lasts a good few weeks longer. The colour it gives me is rich, and not too flat. The red in the mahogany gives it a lift and stops it from being a boring flat brown. I'm naturally a light mousey brown shade and the results on me are a mid-brown with a hint of red.

For a home dye kit, the results are surprisingly multi-tonal unlike other kits which can just look like a block. On average I'd say I dye my hair every other month with this product, which is OK for a home dye kit in my opinion. At around £6-7 it saves me about £60 compared with a salon dye so I can't complain. Unlike other kits (in spite of my mountains of hair) I don't need two boxes, so its worth paying a little more for this one compared to other kits.

There are a couple of niggles with this product - it stinks (which I'd expect during application) no matter how long I rinse it for after the smell hangs around for until at least the next wash. Also, the colour does fade from its original very rich tones quite quickly - I'd say after four washes it looks less rich than it did. But to me, this isn't too bad. The colour doesn't look awful after this time, just a bit less nice than at first.

Overall, this product is saving me a fortune on salon colours. I was nervous about dyeing my hair at home for the first time but haven't looked back since. I'd recommend this product to anyone looking for results which are not too drastic, but look good. This kit offers the closest I've found to a salon dye effect, which is the best recommendation i can give it.

Summary: The best home dye I've found