Those who know me well will be more than aware of my propensity for changing my hair colour.

I have been pretty much every colour from peroxide blonde to black, with every colour in between from copper to ash to strawberry blonde.

Currently I am grey. A silvery blonde grey that I like a lot, but even though it is called “Silver Steel” it doesn’t have that dark steel look that I have been craving.

On a recent trip to LondonEdge, there was a fabulous stand there for Herman’s Amazing Colours. Now I had seen them at LondonEdge before but had never had a reason to try the product.

Hermans!

I got chatting a lovely lady about the Herman’s product and she told me that all the colours were semi-permanent, vegan friendly and non-animal tested. This sounded pretty good to me. My hair was already peroxide blonde from bleach, which meant I didn’t need to re-bleach it.

A bonus to this product was that the product contained no extra bleach, as my hair has been suffering with a lot of damage recently. The lady on the stand reiterated that it was a semi-permanent colour and would last approximately 20 washes.

Now if you followed my blog about Colorista (8 wash colour) you will know that the blue streaks are still visible in my hair over four months later, so I was quite optimistic that this colour would work even better for me, especially as I am naturally curly with pre-bleached hair, which should be the optimum kind for colour lasting.

Still some blue in there…… 16 weeks later!

So, I ummed and aahed over which colour to go for; Should I try Sylvia? Or how about the Gilda?

What colour to choose?

I handed over my money and chose a pot of Gilda, a dark steel colour.

Gilda

Two days later and I was eager to try it out. Firstly I washed and towel dried my hair as per the instructions.

I then spread a thin layer of coconut oil on my neck, forehead and ears to stop any staining.

Grey?

Popping on some latex gloves I started plastering my hair in the thick coloured cream. Application was very easy and felt like I was covering my hair in a conditioner. The cream slid through my hair easily and coated it very well.

It’s on!

The instructions stated to leave for anywhere between 15 and 40 minutes. I wanted a strong grey colour so left it for the full 40 minutes.

The cream was of a thick enough consistency that it didn’t drip or run. I clipped it up with a plastic crocodile clip to keep it off my skin and sat back to read my book.

Good coverage

Getting the colour off after the allotted time was very easy. It was just a case of washing under running water until my hair was clean. I then conditioned it as per normal.

I left my hair to dry naturally as I am trying to reduce the amount of heat that is used on it at the moment. When it was eventually dry I was really pleased with the results. A medium dark grey with a slight purple tinge – Just what I was looking for.

Wet, but Grey!

The next morning I got up and styled my fuzzy mop of hair and I have to say I was pretty impressed. A great amount of coverage, without any damage being done.

Whilst the cost of the product is quite a bit higher than my normal product (almost double) this is an easy to use product that gave me the results that I wanted AND caused no damage to my already ruined hair! This means it is worth paying that bit extra for the bonus of not making my hair any worse than it already is.

The finished effect

So, how do I feel about it now? Well I have to say that whilst I like the product and the ease of use, on my first time of usage the colour hasn’t done too well.

I was advised that the colour would last UP TO 20 washes. Whilst that is great, I was happy if there was some loss after maybe 10 – 12 washes.

From the back

However, I went to a family wedding at the weekend, with very steel grey hair. It looked amazing. I washed it for the first time the day after the wedding and a LOT of  the colour has come out. There is still a tinge of colour there, but it is definitely not the steely grey it started out, more of a silvery steel.

Happy with the result…. so far!

It seems when I want to lose a colour out of my hair, I can’t get it to shift. However when I want one to stick…. it runs all down the drain!

Not quite steel

I do have a little bit of the dye left so I may put that on in the next couple of days and then see just what happens.

At the moment I am indecisive about the lasting power of the colour, but will give it the benefit of the doubt and try again.

All I can say is…. Watch this space!