Going Green With Colorista Washout Turquoise

A few weeks back, I stubbornly tried to dye my hair pink using the l’Oréal Colorista Washout in #DirtyPink. Nothing happened. That’s not surprising though as that dye was meant specifically for blonde hair and I was warned against using it on dark hair. The Colorista line does however also contain some dyes that should work on dark hair, which is super fun. Bright colours are usually pretty unobtainable for us dark haired girls that would like to stay dark haired, instead of bleaching their hair to death before dying. l’Oréal gave me their Colorista Washout dye in #Turquoise to try at the launch event a few months back, and now the time has finally come to give the colorista turquoise a go.

This is what the packaging looks like: a promise of beautiful blue streaks over black hair. The box contains one tube of dye (no mixing required), two sets of plastic gloves and an instruction leaflet that tells you how to apply the dye. The process is really simple: wash and dry your hair, apply the dye wherever you want, leave in for 20 to 30 minutes depending on how vibrant of a result you’re going for, then rinse until the water is clear. Piece of cake!

I decided to dye all of my hair, roots to tips, as I don’t really like the combination of my shade of brown with turquoise. I used the entire tube of Colorista turquoise and left the dye on for 30 minutes to get the most vivid effect possible, aaaaaand *drumroll*… Here are the results!

Before – after

Before – after

The first thing I notice is that it came out a completely different colour. My hair is green!

I think we can all agree this isn’t the same colour, right? I can’t really blame l’Oréal for this, though. Dying hair is a science of its own and you can’t expect to get the same result on vastly differing base colours. My hair had lots of red tones going in, and I’m pretty sure that affected the end result greatly. Luckily I do love this green colour, maybe even more than the blue it was supposed to be!

The vibrancy of the colour is quite amazing, considering the base is dark. Especially on my ends, which are a bit lighter than the rest of my hair, you can see the green really well. I’m really impressed by the colour payoff.

As much as I love this colour (and I really do), I do hope it will actually wash out. I’ve read and seen a bunch of horror stories online about the Colorista washout range, and I’ve noticed it mostly gives trouble on hair that is light or has been dyed or bleached before. Some people are stuck with the colour forever, especially when they go blue over blonde. My hair is completely natural and dark, so I’m hoping I’ve got that going for me when it comes to washing out the dye. I did a strand test before dying all of my hair to make sure it would wash out, and it was actually gone within three or four washes on that strand. I did do an oil treatment in that period too, which might have helped, but that’s ok as I can just do that again should I want to get rid of the colour more quickly. I’m a little bit worried about the lightest parts of my ends though, as I’ve noticed the damaged and split parts of my hair have gone the brightest colour, and actually really blue. I’m not 100% confident it’ll wash out of those parts, but then again, it might be better to just cut those off anyway. Worst case scenario: Colorista turquoise leaves a bit of a green stain. If I really can’t get rid of the final cast of green, I can always try to go over it with a dye in my natural hair colour. Another benefit of having dark hair :)

Over the next few days/weeks I will keep updating this post to show you how the dye is washing out. I don’t wash my hair very often (about twice a week) so it might take a while, but this is the place to be if you want to see exactly how it’s doing!

After 1 wash

During the first wash the water turned a deep turquoise, and my hair came out like this. The darkest parts of my hair have almost completely gone back to my natural colour, while my ends and the lighter parts of my hair (around the front) have turned a lighter, less deep green. The green itself is actually brighter than it was, but everything that had turned rather black in the beginning, is now back to brown. So my hair is currently brown with green ombre around the ends. The bottom photo was taken in direct sunlight by the way, my hair looks a little bit greener indoors (see top photo). If it keeps washing out at this rate, I’ll be rid of the colour sooner than I wanted!

After 2 washes

Before this wash, I had a scalp mask and hair mask on for a few hours, both of which consist entirely of natural oils and butters. I’m not sure how that affects the colour but I wanted to mention it nonetheless. After wash #2, the green has gotten less prominent again. The difference between my ends and the rest of my hair is less noticable, and the colour now looks like a green/grey cast over my entire hair. I still think it’s pretty and have no regrets so far!

After 7 washes

The magical number seven. We’re stepping into “should wash out soon” territory now! The dye box says the dye should stay for 7 – 15 washes, so we might be nearly there, or we might be only halfway through. When I shampoo my hair, the water still turns bright blue every time, which means dye is still coming out. That’s a good sign. As far as the colour goes, right now you can’t really tell my hair is green anymore, unless you compare it to my old hair colour. When I wear my hair extensions for example, they appear distinctly red compared to my hair:

There are still a few strands of clear green in my very ends, on the hair that used to be almost blonde before. The rest of my hair is just a very cool brown colour at the moment. It still looks nice at this point and there hasn’t been a stage in the washing out process so far that looked weird or that I didn’t like; I think my hair has looked pretty throughout. So far I’m much happier with this product than I was expecting!

After 15 washes

Well, here we are, almost 2 months and 15 washes in. According to the box, the dye should have all faded out by now, and guess what? It hasn’t. I’ve attached my before and after dying pictures above so you can compare how it used to look before dying with how it looks now. I’m almost back to my old colour, but there’s definitely a light wash of coolness over my hair still that wasn’t there before. The most noticeable thing however, is that the pieces of almost blonde hair in my ends have stayed green, as I feared in the beginning:

Very distinctly green. It’s like I have green highlights.

Here you can see my current hair colour compared to the hair extensions once again (which were an exact match to my old hair colour). The top layer is my own hair, the bottom layer is extension hair. You can see the slight green tinge over my natural hair here.

So, in conclusion: it’s true what they say, despite the high hopes I had, l’Oréal Colorista Washout in Turquoise doesn’t actually wash out. Even on dark, virgin hair. It’s very nearly gone and the end result isn’t dramatic at all, but still, it’s good to know going in. Even though I’m personally still happy with the colour and don’t mind the green that’s left, I am going to take this experiment over to step two and try to get rid of the green tinge. In the name of science. For all of you who are also left with green hair and who may be less comfortable with it than me. Stay tuned on my blog to see how that goes!