Colors from Nature

My hair grows really fast. I credit this feature to my dad’s side of the family: the Orlandos all have thick and lush heads of hair that tend to go rather prematurely grey.

I haven’t seen more than an inch of my own natural hair color since I was 13. I’ve colored my hair for years, sometimes myself, but more often I have sought out wonderful stylists with artistic vision who could bring out the very best of my head suit.

Since moving here, I’ve visited one salon and it was an OK experience but at a high cost. And unlike at my beloved Salon Visio in Hood River, I WASN’T offered a delicious and soothing cup of tea, I WASN’T treated to a world-class head and neck massage, and my stylist WASN’T paying attention when I described to her what I wanted.

Now, New York is a mecca for world-class salons and stylists. The tricky business is that they are also some of the priciest salons and stylists. While I don’t mind paying good money for great hair, my hair grows just a little too quickly to pay top dollar for a touch up every 4-6 weeks.

With my mousy, ashy blond roots starting to show I decided to save a few bucks and touch up my color at home. This can be a risky endeavor, so I conducted lots of research. Drugstore color can be really damaging to the hair and also not provide the results one is hoping for. The worst-case scenario would be to color at home and then still have to go to the salon to pay for a color correction.

After reading through tons of reviews on my favorite beauty product review web site, Makeup Alley, I decided to try Naturcolor. Naturcolor is a low peroxide dye (only 3% so it can’t really lighten the hair) formulated from herbal extracts that is really gentle on the hair, the body, and the environment. It’s made in Italy and is only carried in health food stores – I found it at the Whole Foods in SoHo.

After calling the 800 customer service number and consulting about my desired effect, I decided to mix two colors in order to get a rich, dimensional auburn color. You can see in the picture above that is exactly what I got! And my hair is seriously silky, shiny, and soft. Naturcolor is THE best at-home color I have tried.

I’ll have fun finding and trying another salon next month. In the meantime, I’ve found a great way to stretch my style budget.