DYING to go lighter! Feria Hi Lift Hair Colour

Ok, it’s a cheesy title. Forgive me, I haven’t posted in a while so I’m feeling frivolous.

I wanted my hair to be a nice light brown for the remnants of Summer, and also needed to cover my darker brown roots, so I got this hair dye that is specifically for darker brunettes wanting to go light: Loreal Feria Hi-Lift Cool Brown 'Downtown Brown'.

It’s called a ‘hi lift’ colour, as it’s supposed to be a stronger formula that will lighten dark hair considerably. I was a bit worried that it would dry my hair out, but they include a nice big tube of super moisturising conditioner. It’s a creme dye, so it can drip a little if very saturated. I want to try a foam dye, since they are supposed to be completely drip-free. It wasn’t to runny though and didn’t have an overpowering smell. I tend to be sensitive to dyes and this one wasn’t too harsh.

The instructions say to leave it in up to 35 minutes, but I left it in a bit longer because it didn’t seem to be lightening up all that much. I’m glad I did, because even with the extra time it didn’t get quite as light as the shade guide promised. My hair was a medium to dark brown shade and dark brown at the roots, but the result is a bit darker than the ‘black hair’ shade.

L: Shade guide                                               R: How it turned out on my hair

Although it’s supposed to be a ‘cool’ brown, it still turned out a bit more orangey than the dye’s example pictures. It isn’t a bad result though, it’s more like a gyaru orange brown. My hair tends to go reddish every time I lighten it, so I expected a bit of warm tone to show through. It’s ‘multifaceted’ so the colour isn’t flat, but rather picks up highlights/lowlights in your hair and gives it a bit of depth. My roots are very slightly darker than the lengths, I probably should have left it on longer on the roots before doing the rest of my hair. It’s not really noticable in real life, but shows up on camera in certain lighting.

As far as at home ‘box dyes’ this one is pretty good. It didn’t lighten it as much as I wanted it to, but it’s a nice colour, it wasn’t patchy and didn’t leave stains on my hairline. I used most of the dye to fully saturate my shoulder length hair, so if you have long hair I’d recommend buying two boxes.

Now that Autumn is here, I’m thinking of dying my hair a medium plum brown colour…. what do you think?

Do you change your hair colour depending on the season?

Ishah xx