We can spend a lot of money on beautifying our hair. On any given day we’re either spending money on salon treatments, styling products, or even hair improvement products. Financially, this beautification can be costly.
Hair coloring and hair cuts can be extremely expensive. At a salon, a color and a cut can run you $100-$200 plus a gratuity. If you’re watching your expenses, that type of hair care expense every 6 to 8 weeks is just not budget-friendly.
Sure, you can treat yourself to a salon trip every now and then, but if you’re just touching up greys or wanting to spruce up your hair — you can do this at home for cheap, ladies.
In this article, we are going to walk you through what you’ll need to do your own hair so you can save up to $150 per coloring.
What you’ll need to color your hair at home
You can get most of the hair coloring essentials at Sally’s Beauty Supply. Here you can get color, developer, and all the tools you might need.
You’ll need to buy a few things upfront that you won’t need to repurchase next time. These purchases are the tools you’ll use every time you spruce up your hair.
Brush and bowl
In all honesty, you don’t need a special brush or a bowl, but if you want to keep things relatively similar to how you get it done at the salon, you might want these.
A hair coloring brush is like a large paintbrush used to smooth color. But, you can also use gloved hands.
A hair coloring bowl is a plastic non-reactive mixing bowl where you’ll combine your color and developer.
If you want to use a bowl you have laying around, you’ll want to make sure it’s not a metal bowl.
Reusable gloves
To dye your hair you’ll need some protective gloves (don’t skip this step.)
You can buy a large box of disposable gloves (This can cost around $15 for 100) or you can buy one nice pair of reusable gloves and just rinse them off when you’re finished.
Now, you’ll need to buy your color and developer
Color
At Sally’s, there is a great range of colors to choose from. These boxes usually run for about $8.
If you have short or thin hair, 1 box should be perfect for you. If you have very long or thick hair, you might want to grab 2 boxes.
If you’re touching up roots, you’ll only use about 1/2 of one tube.
This is about $8-$16 for color depending on your hair length.
For touch-ups, it costs roughly $4 for each application.
Developer
Buying your own developer strength is really why buying at Sally’s is so great. With box dyes, you have no control over your developer strength (which can make them unnecessarily damaging.)
You’ll want to choose your developer and grab an 8-ounce bottle.
These run around $3 for one bottle. Don’t buy in bulk because the developer can expire over time.
Look on the hair color box for the proper developer-to-color ratios. In general, if you’re using two boxes of color, you’ll need the entire 8oz developer bottle. If you’re using one box of color, you’ll only need half of the developer.
Ask an associate what level of developer you’d need based on your current hair color. These developer strengths range from 10-40.
Total tally of doing your own hair at home
If you have medium-length hair, this is what you’ll spend on sprucing up your color at home.
- 1 box of color $8
- 1 bottle of developer $3 (You’ll likely only use half of the bottle and can use the rest next time)
That’s $11 on hair color. 11!
Yes, initially you might need to buy a coloring brush or a mixing bowl. But you’ll be able to reuse these items. If you’re only touching up greys and root growth, it’s even less than that!
Doing your hair at home is at least $70 in savings!
If you’re really feeling adventurous, you could save even more and give yourself a trim.
Follow all the direction on the box and you’ll have gorgeous, cost-effective results
Every brand will vary slightly, so just follow the directions on the box and you should be golden. This is one self-beautifying expense that can be greatly reduced to be budget-friendly.
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