L'Oreal Paris Preference Hair Colour - BOLDS

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 loved this product so much! The colour is gorgeous & vibrant and so easy to use! The instructions were easy to read and the colour mixes nicely. I'm in love with this purple.

I've wanted silver/Grey hair for ages and tried a few other products with no success. This product gave me the result I was after, so easy to use. There was plenty of product enough to do my whole head. I couldn't reccomed this more. The lighter your hair the better. It didn't smell yuck and was really easy to mix togeather. The after care conditioner is a generous size so will do more than one application. My hair is pretty damaged but I still got a really awesome result. This is 100% going to be the colour and brand I'm sticking to from now on.

A beautiful vibrant colour, easy application and processing. Was gentle on my scalp and no irritation. A bit of stains on skin to be expected but came off relatively easy. Have washed a couple of times and the colour runs into my shampoo but the hair itself doesn't look to have faded too much

I haven't colored my hair in a very long time, and was looking forward to this trial. I am a big fan of non permanent hair coloring for a change that lasts only a small amount of time, rather than committing to a permanent change. The instructions were clear, and easy to follow. It pays to have newspaper on the floor when using the product to avoid bath mats getting stained. The provided conditioner is amazing, I wished they were selling this separately. The amount of coloring was more than my long hair needed. My hair has a beautiful shade of purple now, and is very shiny. I was surprised how intensely the color took, because I normally do not get vibrant results like that with my dark brown hair. Quite a few people complimented me on my hair, and assumed I had been to a professional! I would definitely consider using this brand and product range again, maybe trying a different color. It will be interesting to see how long the color actually lasts, considering a hair wash every 2-3 weeks.

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.

My goodness. I have dark brown hair and this dye has literally changed it to purple. Not just black with a tinge of purple in the sun like we are used to. Literally, PURPLE! I'm so shocked. I need to buy another box asap as there wasn't enough to cover my whole head. But I did quite a good job so it's not very noticeable. Very impressed!

My hair was rather plain and they say a change is as good as a holiday, so I looked forward to receiving this. I wasn't disappointed. The box has plenty of info on it and I thought looked nice. Instructions for use are inside the box as per usual. The colour comes in a screw top bottle rather than a tube, which I found better for adding to the developer. It says gel but is runnier than a gel. Pour this into the developer bottle and give it a good shake. The top of the bottle has a screw top also so makes for easy application. No use of scissors needed. Use gloves provided and apply to towel dried hair. Easy to apply, and I found I had dye left over and I had throughly saturated my hair. Left in for 30 mins. It said to rinse until water ran clear, however after about 20 minutes I gave up trying to get clear water. I have had this issue with every dye I have used, so possibly user error. The dye itself doesn't have a super strong smell which is handy as my bathroom is small. The conditioner comes in 54 ml tube and says to use once a week. I estimate about 3 uses total. It is thick, creamy and smells really nice. After drying my hair, it felt soft and looked quite silky. Unlike other dyes I have used, I found this didn't really stain my skin. I dyed my hair myself, and as I wear glasses, my eye sight isn't as flash without them. I recommend rinsing bath/shower after rinsing out dye, however I found it was easier than some others to clean off as well. I absolutely LOVE the colour and will be purchasing for future use.

Love love love this colour my hair is so purple lol it makes me feel confident and I've had alot of positive comments on how great my hair looks and it's covered the grey hairs well.