Back2Black (eSalon Review)

After chopping all my hair off over the summer, the possibilities were endless for my finally healthy hair. Ever since my ultimate flop at having blonde hair last year (and pretty much destroying it in the process), I had accepted that with the current backed up and colored state of my hair, having the platinum locks I wanted wasn't going to happen. However, now that about all my hair had never been colored, this was finally achievable. After a single (30 Vol.) bleach process, my hair was rather patchy and orange in some places, needing to be toned. I never got to that step though because after a month or so, I was pink. Though the bubblegum was a fun color for about a week or so, due to the orange tones in my hair, I ended up with an ugly fade after about two washes. With no possibility of going back to blonde and no desire for another crayola color, dying my hair black seemed like the ideal option.

Black is my fall back color for everything. Just like how a lot of my friends will shave their heads if they don't like their haircuts, if I ever fuck up my hair color, black is always there for me.
examples include:
-the ninth grade in which I let my friend dye my hair into a purple to blue to green ombre (why??? why???). After a solid hour of crying, I ended up with a blue black box dye.
-the tenth grade when I let the SAME friend (what was I thinking????) do a "color melt" (aka a plethora of neon shades randomly scattered around my head). Shoutout to Feria to that one.

So as I was not yet ready to go back to brown and wanted the pink as far away from me as possible, I was pretty hype to go back to my trusty shade. For those unaware, the first time I dyed my hair black, I regularly went to a salon, super pricey, and the second time, I used a box dye that did no favors for the appearance and health of my hair. Not wanting to repeat these mistakes, I instead went with my mother's recommendations to try out eSalon.

eSalon is an online service that claims to provide salon quality dye for a marginally cheaper price and more convenient home application. Having gone through many many many different brands of dye, all promising similar features, I was pretty skeptical. The setup of picking out your color is stupid-proof and admittedly kind of fun. After providing information on your hair type, length, and current color, a set of avaliable tones are shown for you to choose from, for the magical eSalon fairy stylists to mix for you- one thing I'd like to add is that I was pretty unimpressed by the options for black, having only one labeled "soft", and one labeled "blue". Having hated my black hair from sophomore year that featured purplish tones, I went for "soft".

 The kit features: a developer, your custom color, a stain remover, stain guard, two pairs of gloves, shampoo, and conditioner which is pretty good for an at home hair kit. In the beginning, the dye was a little bit frustrating because it takes longer than most products I've used in the past to develop (and when it did, it turned a dark brownish color which made me quite nervous). Even after leaving it on for an hour, the color seemed rather brown, but after washing it out (WARNING: This stuff will take FOREVER to get out. I'm not kidding it seemed almost impossible), I was left with a beautiful, shiny, black!

Overall, I was pretty impressed by the quality of eSalon's dye, as it has left my hair in the same state health wise and the tone is just as promised. I'm especially a big fan of their custom color and the way they show you exactly what tones were used to mix it on their website and in your custom directions (complete with very cute illustrations)!

I also hit up their other service, The Match Up, that provides a similar custom-to-you feel through handpicking hair products on a subscription base, and would super recommend their color safe shampoo and tone corrector that takes the bronze hits out of your color as it begins to fade. Though I definitely have my critiques (developing, the amount of time it takes to wash out, and a slight bit of fading after a month), reasonably priced dye doesn't get much better than eSalon and I'm very content currently looking like the bitch from apt. 23.