How to Color Your Hair at Home: Ombré Hair With Box Color

Zelana Montminy: Ombre hair color has been seen on stars like Rachel Bilson, Drew Barrymore and Alexa Chung. It’s an easy color to do at home. Since the key to this look is being a little messy and imperfect. Salon colors some owner of Juan Juan, Jennifer J. and her assistant Jessica are going to be showing us how to get this salon style ombre hair at home. Jennifer J: Ombre hair color is when it goes from darker to lighter. It’s very simple and we’re going to do it in three steps. First step, the application; second, processing; and third step, shampooing. I’m going to give you some great tips to make your at home coloring look like pro salon color. Here’re the things that you’ll need. You’ll need hair color that you can pick up at any drug store, some towels, a butterfly clip and some Vaseline to protect your skin. You’re also going to need either a tint brush or a toothbrush. Lastly, you’re going to need a blow dryer. So, the first and most important thing is choosing the right color. Rule of thumb, if you want to go darker, semi-permanent is a way to go. But if you want to go lighter then you have to move to permanent color. The next step is you’re going to be protecting your skin. You want to make sure you have something on your hairline so your skin doesn’t get stained. Vaseline will do. But today, we’re just going to be using a salon formula. Just put a quarter-sized on the back of your hands, dab it on your hairline, really close to your hair. So, now, we’re going to section your hair. Let’s make sure that we section everything first before we mix your color because we don’t want your color to just be sitting in the bottle, processing before we get started. We just, basically, need a center part and then two more parts on the side and you’re done. So now, we’re going to open up the box color and we’re going to mix the color into the bottle that’s already provided. And there are gloves in the directions. So, make sure you put those on. So, I want Jessica to start in the middle going down the left side. We’re going to keep the front out completely right now because we want to keep that lighter. So, starting down the left side, we’re going to apply the color about three inches down and then the right side and then we’re going to move on to the back. So, you see Jessica’s using the squirt bottle. And now, she’s going to use her finger to make sure the color’s distributed evenly. So, the back can be a little tricky to do your style. But if you just be thoughtful about that first layer and make sure that that top layer looks good, the back is fine. After the color’s applied, take a good piece of hair like a good half inch to one inch section and put a little bit more color on it and you’re going to blend it down with your fingers but we’re not going to put it on the ends. Now, this is a pro tip that the box won’t tell you. Make sure if you’re working with the color that has ammonia in it that you’re going to leave this part to the last five minutes because it will dry your hair out. And we want to keep your hair in great shape. The key thing here to have the salon look is to not only use the gloves but to find a brush that will actually help blend the color down so it looks more seamless rather than having a line. Here in a pinch, you can always use the toothbrush. When you’re blending the color down, it doesn’t all have to stop at the same exact point in your hair. With ombre color, it’s a little less structured, so, it’s okay if you’re a little messy. This is also what makes it look really organic and pretty and definitely more like salon color. It’s an ombre look and it’s not perfect. The next stage is letting the hair process. It’s going to take anywhere from ten to thirty minutes. When you need to check a strand, just get a towel and you can literally just wipe the color off and take a look. If it’s not ready, you can reapply. But my recommendation is to check the hair every ten minutes. The most important thing before you shampoo is make sure you rinse all the color out. When you’re done shampooing, put the conditioner that’s in the box on your hair. It’s a deep conditioner. It’ll make your hair really shiny and soft. The last step here is just to style. We’re going to blow dry Jessica’s hair. The key to ombre color is just loose wave, just carefree hair. It doesn’t have to be structured. And it will really show off the color. So, it’s really easy to do. You really can’t mess up especially if you’re using semi-permanent color. Zelana Montminy: Thanks for watching Bellasugar. Stay beautiful.