La Riche Directions – Mandarin Hair Dye – Review

Once again I have changed the colour of my hair completely!!

After about 8 months of having jet black hair I decided I was sick of looking ill if I ditched the makeup for the day and to be honest I just didn’t like how dense and flat coloured black was on my hair.

Orange is my new choice of colour!! I know what you’re all thinking!! I was asked by so many people ‘why would you choose to dye your hair orange/ginger!?’ …well because I like ginger hair and going a more orange tone will make my hair slightly ‘arty’ looking. I rock alternative coloured hair!!


Where did I start?? So anybody with dyed black hair will know it is a nightmare to remove. I used 2 packs of Colour b4 to remove the dye without damaging my hair too much, however this product struggles to remove red pigment so my hair was left red and I needed it as light as possible. So out came the bleach… 3 boxes of it over 2 days; not recommended as it turns your hair into spaghetti!!

Now my hair was blonde I chose to dye it firstly with an Olia dye which did nourish my hair and make it look and feel healthier however I wasn’t happy with the colour and it came out rather patchy!!
I topped up this bodge job with my La Riche Directions dye in Mandarin.

I always buy my La Riche Dyes from Ebay as I have never been able to find them on the high street and the website only sells the dyes in bulk, so unless you want 48 bottles then i’d stick to Ebay. There are many sellers selling the dyes and the more you buy the cheaper they get. I buy my 88ml dyes in packs of 4 which cost me just £14 including p&p (£3.50 a pot). Do note that these dyes don’t come with gloves and using bare hands isn’t recommended unless you want bright orange hands for a few days!!

The dye is a very deep orange almost red tone when in the bottle, however when it  is applied to the hair and more spread out, it is very much just a dark orange.

As this dye is what’s known as a ‘veggie’ dye (no chemicals – it literally just stains the hair) I always choose to leave this on overnight to let the dye stain the hair as much as possible (whack it on, cover your hair in a plastic bag followed by cling-film and cover your pillow with an old or dark coloured towel!). This method will not over colour your hair, it can only go as dark as the actual dye itself. Its a bit like food colouring!!

As this dye doesn’t lighten or penetrate the hair in a damaging way, it has its best effect on pre-lightened hair. Obviously the lighter the hair, the brighter and more intense the colour will turn out.
As I said above, I use this on already dyed hair to top up my natural hair once it starts to fade so I don’t put my natural hair through anymore unnecessary damage through using a permanent dye (I only use a permanent dye when my roots become visible).  

I do however use this dye on my platinum blonde extensions as they have already been lightened and using a permanent dye on them seems like a silly idea to use when I can use this veggie dye and cause no extra damage to the hair.

Here is an image of the colour of my extensions and then the results from my test on them;

 


Pretty bright huh!?

And here is a photo of my very faded ‘permanently’ coloured hair and then after leaving the dye on for just an hour; (first image is of the faded hair, the following 3 are after colouring)

Not the best of photos I’m afraid as the colour is quite hard to pick up. Definitely not as bright as the extensions, but more orange than the faded mess I was putting up with before. The colour has more of a yellow rather than red tone to it and this becomes more visible after every wash.

The dye doesn’t touch my natural ash brown roots at all however if your hair is naturally light or blonde, it may take a little better. My hair on the whole is very much a solid colour with no noticeable patchiness. Its covered all the blonder areas and the darker areas are nicely covered too.

Being a semi permanent dye means this colour should wash out after 6-8 washes. I found that it lasted about 3 washes on my hair however the lighter your hair was to start with, the longer it will last.

This dye does transfer onto clothing, pillowcases and any other surface your hair rubs against (I have rubbed my hair on walls like a crazy lady and its transfers!!) however it washes out of material really easily (whites may need a stain remover).

On the whole, this is a really good dye… just nowhere near as bright as I was expecting and too yellowy for my liking. It would be ideal for those who want a subtle orange tint to their light hair or for dip dying the dips of lightened hair. Not really for us that want really bright ‘stand out from the crowd’ hair.