On one hand, I hate to blog about superficial appearance issues, and on another hand I don’t really care, so just sit right back and I’ll tell the tale of the last two days of my hair color journey. As faithful reader(s) will remember from a previous post, I had an incident with my hair color and it turned a somewhat strange shade of red. After a week, it was still turning my pale towels pink with running red dye. I was rolling with this even as it stayed dark on top and faded out on the sides and became a strange melange running the gamut of dark vibrant burgundy on top to pale copper on the ends. Yes, all on one head.

Our paralegal, however, was appalled and when she crept into my office with a quiet whispered recommendation about a product called Color Oops, I knew it was time to address it. I had figured I would let the color fade for several weeks, then just recolor something darker over all of it, although I suspected uncomfortably that I would still have the issue of darker on the bottom, brighter on the top. After doing more research, however, I decided to take her recommendation and do a color removal.

Yes, I know it’s still mercury retrograde.

I didn’t use Color Oops, I went to my local Sally’s and got a product called Colorfix which seemed to rate better. On Friday night I spent time in my small bathroom gagging at the smell of rotten eggs from the product, stepped into the shower, and emerged with my dark red hair a thing of the past. Instead, I had a head of pale orangey hair, not a flattering shade, but still. I was astounded. GB advised me this morning that there is still a variation in the color between the top and the bottom, so I did it again, only using the milder color correction method. I think there’s still much darker strands in back and underneath, but I don’t think I can keep going and not have my hair destroyed; anyway I think everyone’s hair is darker underneath than on top so I think I can deal with that.

My hair, despite smelling like rotten eggs, is actually in pretty good shape, a little dried-out but nothing like what I expected. I don’t know if this pale copper shade is my real color (it’s much lighter than I would expect my real color to be) but it’s not terrible. I haven’t decided whether to lay another color down now that I’m back to a somewhat clean slate, or let it go for a little while and rock the natural look. While at Sally’s, I bought a protein filler, which is reportedly intended to stabilize hair and ensure a more even color result, so I’d use that first, but anyway. I’ll have to decide tomorrow before I go back to work on Monday.

So my review of Colorfix:

• It definitely smells absolutely appalling – but in my case the smell went out of my hair once I’d washed it the next day.
• It is inexpensive – $13 for a box, although it says you can get about 6 applications out of it, and I only got about 2.
• It worked for me – took me from dark copper red / auburn to a much paler shade in 1 full application and 1 mild color-correction application.
• Many reviews tell you not to bother with the third processing step – I did it and I was glad I did. Yes, it darkened my hair, but it darkened it to a more normal shade, from a brassy pale orange to a deeper honey shade (although honey makes it sound slightly better, I think, than it actually is) and seemed to leave it in better shape. The directions say that if you don’t use it, your color will continue to darken over several days and if you recolor promptly, you will not be able to ensure that you have fully eradicated the old color.
• It left my hair drier than when I started, for sure, but was not damaging and I think if I leave it alone for a few days and treat it to some good conditioning, it will be fine.
• Definitely worth the price and the convenience, in my opinion, so I give it a thumbs up. It gave me much better results than I had anticipated.