Dying Your Hair - Read This First

It is a well known fact that we ladies like to look our best. We spend an absolute age on making sure we look just right. Come on girls, how long do we spend showering, exfoliating, defuzzing and moisturising? Probably far too long and that's before we even get started with our hair and make up. We might even indulge in the odd facial, massage and mani or pedi, oh, and don't forget the trips to the hairdressers. You see where I'm going with this now? You see for many of us a trip to the hairdresser may well involve having our hair coloured. For others, it will be a trip to the shops and colouring at home.

I colour my hair. I had a crazy idea back in August or September that it would be fun to just let it go grey to see what it was like, but frankly, I got bored and dyed it again. The issue I have, is that I have to dye it around once a week, once every week and a half if I'm really lucky. The reason being I can only use temporary dyes which last 6 - 8 washes (they never last that long, I hasten to add) because I am allergic to any other chemical dyes. Today, I went to the hairdressers, and not having tested a salon dye, we thought let's give it a try. Knowing full well what the likely outcome would be, I rolled up my sleeve and we did a patch test. This is the result.

That was taken around 15 minutes prior to adding it to this post. The large patch on the left is now a deep bright red and itching like crazy. The smaller lump on the right is now playing catch up. I want to scratch my arm to bits, but I won't. Part of the reason I did this was to see if I was still allergic, but partly I wanted to be able to show you all how important that patch test is. Can you imagine this being your head? Trust me, not pleasant, not pleasant at flipping all.

Every time you colour your hair, please, please do the patch test. Yes I know it's a total pain in the butt because you have to allow 24 - 48 hours, but do you really want to take the risk of your scalp, forehead, neck and ears (yes it affects all those areas on me) being sore, swollen and itchy. This is just a contact allergy. I'm fortunate that only the skin that comes directly in contact with the dye is affected. It could be a whole lot worse. Some people have horrendous reactions that cause their eyes to swell, their faces, their airways, resulting in hospitalisation. Really, it's not worth the risk for a couple of days with a bit of dye on the crease of your elbow.

As for me, well apart from desperately trying not to scratch my arm, I will be steering well clear of semi permanent or permanent dyes. There are options open to me. I can go back to my usual temporary dye Nice 'n' Easy Colour Enhancer (I've included the link as I can only find this in Superdrug nowadays) or I may try (and I am very tempted) Lush's Caca Brun. Finally, and again, very tempted, I return to the hairdresser and have some bleached flashes put through. There's always an option.