L'Oreal Paris Preference Hair Colour - BOLDS

I'll start off by saying I usually love L'Oreal hair dyes. This one though, that's an exception to the rule. I had high hopes for this, especially as it said "bolds". It doesn't live up to that claim though. My hair just looks black, without even the hint of blue in it. The reference photos on the back of the box aren't true either. Even in the sun my hair just looks black. I'd rather just use another blue/black dye like usual. The application of this wasn't easy either! It was so runny the dye made a huge mess, I wasn't prepared for that. Lucky I was in an area where it didn't matter that hair dye got on the floor or anywhere, but it stains like anything. It went all over me as well, no matter how careful I was. Overall, I don't recommend this.

I'm not fussed on this hair dye. I can take it or leave it. It does an average job of coloring over bleach. I found that after a few washes it faded considerably and looked pretty dull. It was very straightforward with how to mix and apply the dy. I had no trouble following the instructions provided which is always a bonus. The instruction manual was very well written and displayed. Over all I'd say it's an average box dye that does an average dye job.

My daughter and I shared a box of Rose Gold, Melrose which is a lovely rose gold light pink. It does say on the box it is only recommended for those which bleached or naturally blonde hair and we had one of those each to try the colour on. I have light bleached ashy blonde highlights in my hair and my daughter has naturally golden blonde hair. We both did a dip-dye trial and just did the ends of our hair. I just did the very tips as I was worried it would be quite bright and could be uneven. My daughter did approx 10cm of the ends of her hair. The product itself is very simple to use, open one pot, tip it into the applicator bottle, shake and apply. Wait half an hour, rinse and and done! After our half hour we rinsed our hair thoroughly, dried it and got varied results. My daughter has a lovely, very subtle rose gold pink sheen to the ends of her hair that she is very happy with. It is subtle though, and most noticeable when the light hits her hair. It’s not really a ‘bold’ colour at all. Mine barely took although it was the bleach blonde hair that I expected to suck the colour in. It didn’t show up evenly and is barely noticeable. I would only recommend this colour if you want a very subtle wash of rose gold and if your hair is very blonde.

I trialled this using the shade bright red and was overall disappointed. I knew going into this the top half of my hair would take to the shade a lot better than the bottom half since I’ve been growing out an old dye, but turns out just my roots wanted a change! I guess it’s fair to say the colour takes quickly, as I only applied to my roots during the last 10 minutes of overall processing time and they are BRIGHT red, as opposed to the rest of my hair which is still a mid brown colour with a slight red tinge under the right light.

Pros: -It’s a gel formula which goes on really well and doesn’t seem to stain your skin/clothes/benches if you get it everywhere like I do -the dye didn’t smell like nose-burning chemicals when mixing -the processing time is only 30 minutes (I left it longer as my hair is brown) -it washes out pretty well and didn’t stain a light coloured towel like most red dye does -the conditioner that came with it smelt really nice -good coverage from one bottle of dye vs shoulder length hair. My hair felt saturated and I still had some leftovers in the bottle after which never happens

Cons: -the gloves included are TINY. I don’t have giant hands but I split the gloves trying to get them on so resorted to some spares I had -the colour hardly took over top of an old box dye (about 8 months old) -I have never lost so much hair or had so much breakage after using a dye -the fact it didn’t stain any of my skin or clothes etc may have been a red flag

Overall, I probably won’t reach for this as my first choice of dye. Yes, the gel formula was nice and the coverage was good, but I like my hair to change colour when I dye it. The fact I had so much damage and breakage was super concerning, and I’m tempted to live with bright red roots until my hair recovers a little so I don’t do more damage. I think these colours would work best if you were blonde or a similar lighter colour (even though it’s not recommended for blonde hair on the box) unless you want a subtle change of overall colour with some pretty over the top roots.

Although I selected that I had long hair when I applied to be on the trial team, I was only sent one box of hair colour. I had to purchase another box myself to make sure that I had enough to colour all of my hair. I found the Rose Gold stocked at my local Pak n Save and it retailed at $19.00 - which is normally more than I would pay for a hair colour with needing more than one box for my length hair.

On mixing the colour with the developer solution, the smell was not a strong ammonia one which was great. The colour and the developer mixed together quickly and in no time I was ready for application.

Applying the colour to my hair I was very pleasantly surprised. Although the mixture was quite runny, it applied like a dream and I only ended up using about 3/4 of the second bottle for this reason.

Being more runny than the normal cream type hair colours I use, I found application easier as the colour covered more hair at once than the cream type.

I left the product in for the required developing time and gave my husband a minor heart attack when the developed colour when a very very dark red before I washed it out.

Washing the colour out was a breeze and in no time the water was running clear. The conditioner smelled divine and was thick and creamy to apply.

After rinsing the conditioner out my hair was a dark ginger-pinkish colour. Pretty cool!

I dried my hair off with my hair dryer on low setting and absolutely loved the look of my new colour once it was fully dried. My hair felt so soft and was shiny as well, which was lovely. This was Day 1 - I always leave my hair colour at least 24-48hrs before I wash it to make sure it has a chance to 'settle in'.

Day 3: Washed my hair with colour-stay shampoo and conditioner, and I noted quite a bit of pink colour came out in the shampoo bubbles. My hair was noticeably lighter when it was dried, still quite a dark pinkish colour but especially at the roots it was quite gingery. Bit disappointed that after the first wash there was a definite difference in the colour.

Day 5: Washed my hair with conditioner only (I only shampoo once or twice a week). Noticed when my hair was dry that it was starting to look quite faded, mostly a gingery colour with some pink.

Day 7: Washed my hair with colour-stay shampoo and conditioner. Again noticed some pale pink colouring to the shampoo bubbles. On drying, my hair was now very ginger and had next to no pink in the colour at all.

Day 9: Washed my hair with conditioner only. I had no pink whatsoever left in my hair and it is now just a gingery colour, which I do not like at all.

All in all, the application and reveal was the highlight of this trial, but things went downhill very fast after that. If I had had to pay $38 for two boxes and the colour lasted only a week, I'd be pretty annoyed. As it is I'm less than impressed with the longevity and outcome of using this product, even after the beautiful colour it initially was.

I think I've tried every hair dye out there so I was stoked when I saw this one come up for trial because I love trying new ones. I have been dying my hair for a long time now, it was currently a red/brown colour. I selected the shade Magnetic Plum which was a beautiful purple on the box.

It comes with all the usual bits and bobs....one thing I couldn't believe was that the gloves actually fit my hands for once, they are usually giant and fall off so I was pleasantly suprised and they did indeed stay put the entire time.

After mixing together I applied to dry hair, I really like the gel consistency as it goes on like a dream.  It is runny but doesn't go everywhere. I applied all over and then massaged in as directed....I could see the dye changing to purple so I was excited to see the end results.

I let it sit for 30 minutes then jumped in the shower.  It took me ages to wash it out....I couldn't get the water to run clear.  The dye I got on my forehead came off easily and it didn't stain the shower . The conditioner is lovely, I let it sit for 2 minutes then washed it out....my hair felt soft and tangle free.

Upon drying my hair looked good but not what I was expecting.  Definitely wasn't purple and it didn't cover all my greys. It has a purple/red tinge in the sun and it's nice and shiny but I was expecting it to look more dramatic. It looks pretty much the same as it did before I dyed it.

Interested to see how other people went with it. I wouldn't use it again as there are much better dyes out there that actually change my hair colour.....sorry Loreal a big thumbs down from me.

Always knew that this was going to be a bit of a reach for my hair colour, I was on the far end of the colour scale to achieve results. However, there was nothing about this product that I liked. One glove was too small and ripped, the other one fitted fine. The product was easy to mix, but it was so runny, I ended up with product everywhere. It had a very chemical smell, and I was glad to wash it off at the end of 30 minutes. The product had turned purple by this stage, and I was expecting that my hair would at least look like it had been washed with purple shampoo. But nothing, even the gray hair that I do have, and there is a lot was not coloured by this product.