Clairol Perfect 10 Hair Color Review

I have been doing hair for years.  I mean, gosh, I have been doing hair since I was in high school.  I remember my best friend sobbing because I told her that I was going to make her look like Farrah Fawcet and I did.  PERFECTLY.  Apparently she did not like Farrah, and it never occured to her that I would actually succeed with her hair in doing what I promised.

One of the people whose hair I work on regularly is a male who has been prematurely gray for a long time.  He needs to maintain a darker haircolor for the workplace since there is a bit of a bigotry against gray hair and any other *aging* factor in the workplace.

I have used just about every hair dye out there at one time or another from professional to over the counter.  I have not been very impressed with many of the brown hair dyes.  They are often too brassy or too red in their composition.  His hair is on the ashy side which you would think would dye up nicely, but for some reason, no matter what brown we put on him, we end up with something red or brassy.

The first dye we found that worked better than the others was Gray Busters from Clairol.  Clairol usually has very reddish undertones to their brown dyes.  No matter what type of Clairol we have used the end result fades out to reddish tones that often earned this unfortunate man the nickname of bozo from guys which were especially mean at times.

Gray Busters medium neutral brown (5n) gave a pretty nice brown with excellent coverage, except that over time, the hair looked dull and the roots were not dyeing nearly as well as the rest of the hair making the hair look too dark and the roots too light a la Peppie Le Pew.

WHAT IS CLAIROL PERFECT 10 LIKE?

I had two opportunities to try CLAIROL PERFECT 10 HAIR DYE for free at some promotionals that they were doing at the local shopping mall.  I decided to try it out not expecting anything very good.

What we discovered was a pleasant surprise.

The kit comes with plastic salon quality gloves, a bottle of developer with two choices of tops- a fine point applicator top and a comb top with holes on each prong for distribution of the hair dye.  There is a tube of dye to mix with the developer, and also a tube of conditioner.

HOW DOES THE KIT WORK?

The mixing is very easy.  The container is nice to use.  I did not find that the comb tip to the applicator bottle worked for this situation.  The hair is tapered long (think Michael Landon) and the comb did not distribute the hair dye evenly enough for the hair to make it work using that way.

The dye takes about 10 minutes to start darkening.  It will dye the skin although not quite as badly as some brands we have used.

The color looks a lot darker than it ends up appearing.  Once applied, we usually wait about 20 minutes for the dye to take to the hair.  That seems to work better than the recommended 10 minutes.

Once the color has been used a few times, we start with using the product on the roots and then blending down through the hair the last few minutes and letting it set.  That seems to work better than overall dyeing.

There is no horrible smell and it does not burn the skin at all.  The gel quality of the dye makes it not as prone to dripping as other brands can be.

WHAT COLORS I HAVE USED

I have only used the Medium Natural Brown 5 haircolor in this brand, but I have used it quite a few times.  I found that putting in some highlights before dyeing worked better than the straight dye for this person, but each situation would be different.

I have used CLAIROL PERFECT 10 HAIR DYE 10 times on this same hair and it does tend to dry out a bit over time.  I find that changing to another dye from time to time for a break works better, but I find that the PERFECT 10 HAIR DYE in NATURAL MEDIUM BROWN 5 is the best most natural brown that I have seen in hair dye of any brand so far.  No red or brassy colors when it fades out.

It is long lasting and I find that we can go for about 8 - 10 weeks between full dyeing and about 3-4 weeks for the roots- and the dyeing is on new grown only- not because of fading at the root area.

FINAL COMMENTS

All in all for the brown dyes, I pick PERFECT 10.  FERIA used to be a great choice, but has bad gray hair coverage and we can only use as an alternate dye once in a great while.  

This dye will dry out hair a little over time but most dyes will do that.  The conditioner in this dye kit leaves the hair VERY shiny and natural looking and it lasts a long time too.