How to Color Long Hair - tips

If you have long hair (like I do), and you color it, one of the biggest problems is not having enough hair color products to completely color long hair.
Here's some tips on how to extend your hair color or dye to color long hair easily.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Coupons
• Large applicator bottle

1. To provide effective coverage when you color long hair, you need to have enough product. Most boxes do not provide enough product to color long hair, so you'll need more than one. Watch your local store ads for 'buy one get one free' ads, and for manufacturer's coupons offering dollars off coupons on hair color products. Most stores will allow you to use the manufacturer's coupons at the same time. When your preferred product brand is on sale, buy as many as are allowed and stock up.

2. If your long hair does not take two full bottles of hair color, use one and a half bottles instead. See the below article on how to save opened hair color.
   
   Instead of using the provided smaller applicator bottle, add all of the ingredients for one box and half of the ingredients from another to the larger applicator bottle, instead of trying to mix two separate bottles.

3. If you need a little bit more hair color than 1 1/2 boxes will cover, add up to 1/4 cup of hair conditioner to the larger applicator bottle and mix well. The additional conditioner will not affect the normal coloring process.

4. Always start at the root, and work down, as hair ends are more porous and will absorb more color. If the ends of your hair are considerably lighter, darker, or more porous, consider coating the ends with conditioner before applying hair color to them.

5. If you regularly end up with 'holidays' (those blank spots the hair color missed), you might want to try mixing in a little bit of shampoo to your hair about 10-20 minutes before the processing time is complete, and lathering up your whole head. Let the lather sit until time to wash out. While it won't completely mask severe 'holidays', it will make them less noticeable.

Tips & Warnings

• Wash and rinse your long hair gently after any coloring, and try to let it air dry without blow drying or styling, if possible.
• Try not to wash long hair for 2 days after coloring.
• Some people with long hair swear by having an extra set of hands to help with the coloring. My experience is that unless they themselves have long hair, they do not work quickly enough to get all of the hair covered quickly, which leads to overprocessed or uneven coloring. I can do it quicker myself.
• If you do get a great sale or free hair color, store your extra, unopened boxes in a cool, dry place. I store mine in the refrigerator.
• Do not try to use any hair color that has been mixed for longer than the recommended developing time. It will have oxidized already, and will be useless.
• Do not attempt to store any mixed hair color, as the chemical reaction will burst the bottle.

Resources

• How to Reuse Hair Color
• How to Make a Hair Color Glaze

[kims3003]

on 9/16/2009 Great article and very helpful!

[janetarfin]

on 8/6/2009 Thanks, I really appreciate this article!