Thursday, July 12, 2012

Korean Hair Dye

..I did it.
I'm the girl who went against all of the logical reasons to not use Korean hair dye on western hair. How did it work? (Do tell, do tell!) I'll tell you, but first- a prologue.

I was standing there in Home Plus looking over the very short hair dye section, checking expiration dates and the color it would turn my hair (the problem with this is that dark brown and black were the only starting colors). Most of the dye was also expired. The dye I ended up going with, a dark blonde Loreal Paris number, expired in February. But, because there was English on the box, the ingredients had to be listed. The only other language that offered their ingredients was Chinese because, for some reason or another, Korean laws don't require packages to list all ingredients (at least that's what I've read and come to understand). The ingredients are important, though! I just wanted to darken my hair a tiny bit and get rid of the brassiness that always seems to develop, but even the dark dyes had hydrogen peroxide 6% (a lightener) in them. So, when I bought this dark blonde, I didn't think it would darken my hair at all because of the peroxide, but I was hoping that it would get rid of the brass.

And, boy, did it. And my hair is quite a bit darker than it should be. Considering that the box was DARK BLONDE and that I am now mid-light brown, something happened. Oh, I am also tinted green, a bit. Hahaha I always say that I've been every color but green, but now I can say that I've been them all!
What I really want to know is which will fade first: the brown or the green? Hmm... I'm hoping for the sake of my professionalism that it's the green.

Honestly, though, I did do a strand test this time. I have never bothered about it back home, but considering that I was dealing with expired dye meant for a completely different type of hair, I thought it wise. I did not notice the green. I didn't notice the green until one of my 6th graders pointed it out, actually. Ha.

Gotta love that honesty. Without him, I never would have known that I have finally been every hair color.

So the prologue turned into the whole story... But. To summarize this experience, I would say that using Korean hair dye, if you're a western person, is risky and unpredictable. But, my dye was also expired, so I can't say for certain. Although if you're really particular about your hair color, don't use box dye. That is the advice I give you. Go to a salon. Your hair probably won't feel like you've just bleached it, either.



All this being said, if I weren't a teacher, I would probably enjoy having slightly (it's really only very slightly) green hair.


Rock on, loved ones.
I will post another blog after the Boryeong Mud Festival that is happening this weekend :)

1 comment:

  1. Also- I have once again dyed my hair with Korean dye. This time it was not expired, and my hair did not turn green. :D Also, instead of leaving it on for the normal thirty, I did twenty-five minutes. My hair was still fairly dry, but not as bad. HomePlus has spray bottles with hair-fixing olive essence, though, that is really great at helping with that :)

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