Review: Garnier Olia Hair Dye Part I

I've been thinking about dying my hair for a while now... I've dyed it a few times before, but since I wanted to grow my hair out I stopped for a while. My hair was a really brassy brown color and kept on growing (yay!!) until I had what my mom calls the "mushroom effect" (nay...)

So to let my roots look a bit better, I dyed the top portion of my head a dark brown color that blended nicely with my natural black so that it gave me a really nice ombré effect that I've had since the beginning of the year. I really really liked that, and letting it go natural let my hair get quite long, the longest I've had in a long time. 

But you know... The boredom of summer and the brightness kinda got me going and so I decided to lighten my hair!! I'd learn my lesson long ago that unless I wanted monthly dyeing for my roots, I should do an ombré, which I was totally cool with.

So, today I went to HEB (Texan grocery store ;) ) and bought the Garnier Olia hair dye in medium golden brown and lightest cool brown. The reason why I chose this kind was a. there was a coupon that said $5 off and b. this hair dye is ammonia free. This dye was $8.97 at my local HEB, but at the cash register place, they took an additional few bucks off or something because I only paid $8.60 or so including tax. SCORE!!:) 

Now, this is where us Asian girls have to think for a bit about what color to get. There is no way we can achieve any color other than black unless we use asian hair dye, which is designed specifically to lift Asian hair, bleach, which we all know damaged hair like no tomorrow, or blonde American box dye. 

Before anything, I'm obviously not a hair expert of anything, so I'm not certified in any way to give you advise on hair. Happy? That was the disclaimer :P but as a fellow Asian haired girl with personal experience, do not, no matter what, bleach your hair (if you desire brown hair. Blonde, knock yourself out. There's no other way to become blonde. But if you want brown hair, don't bleach. That is a big fat no-no) I've gone to the salon before, and you know they always do the "you can't lift Asian hair without bleach" or "you should stay between 2 to 3 shades of your natural color" speech. But I mean, c'mon. The whole reason why we want to dye our hair is for change, and 2 to 3 shades lighter than black is not that different from black... 

Anyway, sorry straying from the review for a bit :P I'm sure I can tell you my hair story another time :P out of the three choices to lighten my hair, I wasn't going to use bleach. Have I mentioned I hate bleach enough to you? Well I'm telling you again, say no to bleach! And although I love my Asian hair dye, I've been a little broke as of late :P so I decided if I'm only going to subtly lighten my hair, I might as well try American box dyes for once. 

Since I'm still trying to grow my hair out and want to be as healthy as possible, I decided with Olia because of it's ammonia free-ness and it's claim to be composed of mostly oil. Oil is good for hair so... If it can dye it at the same time, why not? So I gave it a go ;)

Since I have Asian hair (highly resistant to dye) +previously dyed (color can't lift color :P)+ Olia being ammonia free (less chemically and damaging to hair), Ill be lucky if my hair is able to go up a few shades. But you know, a girls gotta try ;) 

Honestly, I'm going for a subtle change anyway, so I thought this was going to be the best dye for me. So, on we go!!

These are the things that come with the box. It comes with instructions but... I just didn't want to take a picture of that :P the thing I would like you guys to notice, however, is this amazing pair of gloves!!!!!! No joke the nicest pair of gloves that I've ever seen come with a box dye. Big thumbs up for that!!

I made the blonde dye first because I wanted to let that dye sit in my hair longer. I wanted to take pictures of how the brown dye looks mixed up and stuff but... My hands were covered in dye and I didn't dare touch my phone at that point :P

When the two solutions are sitting on too of each other, one of them is a really pretty orange color :P that at first got me really worried about how my hair was gonna turn out :P but after mixing it it turns into a normal dye-like color (did that paragraph make any sense? Lol) 

I'd like to say I took a lot more pictures for you guys but... I'd be lying :P honestly it was such a messy process and I didn't wanna screw up my phone so... Sorry :( 

I used the brown on the top layer and roots of my head, and the rest I covered with blonde dye starting at the roots. I left it on for one and a half Doctor Who episodes lol (new Netflix obsession :P ) and then hit the tub.

After rinsing, I kept the conditioner, which smells heavenly by the way, in my hair for around 10 minutes while I shaved and soaked and all that jazz ;) while I was rinsing, my hair felt really stringy which got me super worried, but I think leaving the conditioner in helped it a little. I only used four fifths of it in the shower, and I have another tube from the other box so I'd say I'm set for a while. I put a little but of the conditioner on it again after I got out as a leave-in kind of thing although its not meant for that... Oh well :P 

Honestly, it's dark and I have terrible lighting at my house so ill probably do an update with tons of pics later along with the final verdict of this hair dye :) but so far my hair still feels healthy and my ends are slightly lighter than before. My roots  also have obvious brown tones in it, and I seriously cannot wait to see my hair in the light!!

Night y'all!!