When Natural Instincts contacted me to take a break from salon color and see how their new Vibrant Collection stacked up, I was definitely interested. Since I've been letting my hair grow, I've been doing salon color on and off for about a year. I want to make sure I don't damage my already fragile hair and still love how the color looks. Money remains tight for me, so if I could find something that worked as well as my pro, I'd consider switching.
Natural Instincts recently launched Vibrant, a new permanent color collection that includes a refresher you use after two weeks. In research, Natural Instincts found that 95% of women felt that their hair improved immediately after coloring. However, within two weeks, their love affair with their newly colored hair begins to fade along with the vibrancy of their hair color. So Natural Instincts includes a Week Two Color Refresher. This refresher is said to bring your mood back up, helping you to fall in love with your hair all over again.
I had stopped coloring my hair at home for a few reasons. The first being that the color banding where my untouched, 100% gray hair is colored for the first time is too hard for me to color successfully. You need to add a slightly browner color to the roots, to ensure it doesn't turn bright orange or pink. While I love to mess with my hair, dealing with root banding is above my pay grade.
Secondly, my hair is so thick, it takes forever to rinse out. I hate standing with my head upside down in the kitchen sink for 15 minutes. It's easier to have someone else do it. Sure, I could just shower, but then bright red hair dye goes EVERYWHERE in the shower. Nobody likes that mess.
(The three steps of at-home hair color.)
Finally, while I love hanging out with my stylist, I hate having to take vacation days to get my hair done and spend two to three hours on a day off in the chair. I don't mind my time hanging at the salon one bit, but It seems like I never get to take vacation days for vacations. Natural Instincts Vibrant formula only takes 10 minutes of processing time. I'm in!
(My gray roots.)
I decided to give at-home color a shot and chose Medium Reddish Brown, 5RB. I followed the directions and applied the color to my roots first and then pulled it through the rest of my hair. Because I know I have really gray hair that hates color, I left this on for a few extra minutes for good measure.
The application is a traditional bottle method. You mix the color and developer and apply it to your hair using the bottle. It's no mess, very little mixing and no new-fangled foam. I will say that I have very thick hair that is to my shoulders and one bottle of color did the job. I was scraping every bit of color out of the bottle to finish, however. If your hair is thicker or longer than mine, you might want to have a second bottle on standby. I waited a few minutes past my ten minutes and rinsed.
The rinsing part wasn't too bad at all. In fact, it came out much more quickly than many of the other colors I've tried in the past. I applied the included conditioner and chatted on twitter for a few moments while the conditioner worked its magic.
(My hair a few hours after coloring it. Very pretty!)
The end result? The red is really pretty. My hair felt incredibly soft and smooth and looked great. While it did cover the gray, I was left with some banding at the top, where the gray turned more of a lighter reddish orange than the rest of my hair. This makes sense when you think about it - most of my hair is dark red and the roots are coming out almost white. Of course they would be lighter. I had hoped that by using a Brownish Red, the brown would fill in, but it didn't quite match the rest of my hair. However, the gray isn't gray any more, so I would have to say it did successfully cover the gray.
(The roots are slightly lighter than the rest of my hair, but not by much!)
I'm not sure if anyone would notice the banding other than myself and my stylist. I'm fairly certain that the second time the hair was colored (in another 4 weeks) it would blend in with the rest of my red hair. I love the overall color, I just wish the banding at the roots was not as noticeable. I'm really, annoyingly picky about my hair. Just ask my stylist. I'm certain she'll agree!
Two Weeks Later...
I used the color refresher. It's much different than just using a colored shampoo or conditioner. You start by shampooing your hair. Then you put on gloves and apply the color refresher to your hair and leave it in for either five or ten minutes, depending on if you want slightly brighter or really bright results. I opted for the really bright results because, well, why not? Bring it, Natural Instincts!
I applied this in the shower with no problem. Definitely wear the gloves. You'll thank me later. This color refresher was like a color-infused conditioner to the tenth power. It reminded me a bit of this, which I loved. After waiting for ten minutes (and scrubbing my face for the umpteenth time to remove spray tanner gone wrong), I rinsed out my hair easily. The color didn't even come off on my towel, which was surprising. My hair looked immediately brighter, even my roots, which were starting to fade a bit. My hair was incredibly soft and felt amazing.
When my hair was dry, my color was definitely brighter, even at the roots, which did actually help me love my hair color all over again! I really liked using Natural Instincts Vibrant and am actually considering saving some vacation days for well, vacation!
Have you tried the new Natural Instincts Vibrant? Tell me about it in the comments!
Product was sent for review. Clairol does test on animals.
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