Ombre Hair Color at Home: Hair Color Advice

How to correct ombre hair color at home with hair color advice from Ask the Pro Stylist is this week’s beauty question answered.

Happy Hump Day beauties and welcome to another Wednesday chock full of Deirdre’s hair care and beauty advice. Today I am answering a reader’s email that attempted ombre hair color from a box at home. GASP! Frequent readers of this beauty blog probably already know my answer, but for those who may be curious, please read on.

Hi my name is Yasbely, I have a couple of questions that I’d be really happy for your reply cause I heard you were amazing at this stuff. OK, well first of all I bought the L’Oreal Paris Ombre kit for medium to dark hair and it turned my hair orange with some red tones, so I went to Sally’s and bought a light ash blonde with the red corrector and it did tone out my orange but its still orangey and brownish now. My question to you is, what do you think I should do and buy? Thank you so much for taking the time in reading this.

By the way I’m looking in to getting a not light, but medium blonde ombre hair color.

Hi Yasbely. Thanks for contacting me. That is great that you heard I am good at this, but I never endorse coloring the hair at home nor can I advise you on what to purchase to correct your ombre hair color. I hate over the counter products. They aren’t professional and not strong enough to give you the desired color you are looking for without doing further damage to your hair. And Sally’s is not a “professional” store; they sell the same thing that can be found in drug stores. The only way to make your dark hair blonde, even medium blonde is with lightener and you will not find a safe alternative in a box.

The only advice I have for you is to run, not walk to a licensed, professional hair colorist and have them fix your ombre hair color before you end up burning your ends, causing massive breakage and inevitably cutting most of it short to correct that. I apologize if this isn’t what you wanted to hear, but it is the only help I can offer. Best of luck to you!

As a working professional hairstylist, I can never endorse a box color to be done at home, especially an ombre hair color kit. It does a terrible disservice for any professional to ever offer tips on coloring the hair at home because it keeps the bread and butter out of the salons, can cause more damage than good and endorses less than optimal beauty products. Secondly, ombre hair color is tricky enough and attempting this intricate process at home will only lead to disaster, as was Yasbely’s case. And lastly the at-home kits such as the one she purchased will never get her hair color to the desired result; it just isn’t strong enough. What she needs to buy for the perfect ombre hair color can only be purchased through a beauty supply that sells to licensed stylists and even then, any advice I gave her may only lead to breakage and compromise the integrity of the hair.

If you have a hair or beauty question similar to Yasbely’s ombre hair color one that you would like to see featured here on a Wednesday, please email me at DeirdreAHaggerty@gmail.com. Next week I will discuss how to keep hair from frizzing in the humid summer months.

Happy Styling!