The Time I Got Orange Hair Courtesy of PINCHme and Clairol nice ‘n easy

Maybe I should have titled this article, The Two Times I Got Orange Hair Courtesy of PINCHme and Clairol nice n’ easy. I am the type of person who will sometimes give things (and people) a second chance even when they’ve proven they do not deserve it. That happened with this hair color. After the one I mentioned in my free samples article failed, I convinced myself that I owed it to the brand to try it again before writing my review. That one was a different color, Medium Ash Blonde 8A, and maybe this color would not be as bad. It could have been user error, I told myself. Yes, I victim blamed. My Spring 2018 Walmart Beauty Box had a coupon for another free box of nice ‘n easy. Thankfully, I forgot about it, and the coupon expired before I could redeem it.

Let’s start from the beginning. It was a cold winter day just after the seventies ended. Okay, just kidding. I will take you back to a time when my hair was mostly natural. Prior to coloring my hair with this dreaded product in May of this year, I had not colored my hair in many years. I had not even added highlights since January of 2015. So, my hair had not seen chemicals in over three years. It was happy in its dark blonde, almost light brown stage. When it was up, it looked brown. My stylist calls it a dishwater blonde, which is better than the dirty blonde title I gave it.

I loved the color. There was an awkward stage where it looked a little mousy, which was the reason I added highlights in the past. After stark white hair as a child, a strange shade of yellow as a teenager (which I usually altered), then the aforementioned mousy stage, it reached this beautiful color that I truly fell in love with. Time was not kind to my strands. Around the same time I started to fall in love with my color, I started noticing random gray hairs growing in. As more gray hairs started to come in and PINCHme wanted to send me this free product to try, I realized it was a sign. It was time to color it to get rid of my unwanted grays.

PINCHme is a free sampling service. It is an easy company to get free samples from because it does not require social media sharing (like this blog post), and it only asks for short product reviews to qualify for new offers. I am not going to go over my usual spiel, because I want this article to go over the product, not the service that sent me the product. Let’s just say I am a fan of PINCHme and do not blame the company at all for my poor hair. The company simply matches users with products to test and has no clue how each person will like them. If you want to read more on PINCHme, here is an article you can link into.

The first time I colored my hair with this product in May, I used Medium Ash Blonde 8A. I covered all of my hair, because I wanted it to match. This was the shade I felt looked the closest to my natural color, so I hoped it would cover my grays without losing the color I loved. My stylist has always told me that I have a lot of red in my hair. When she stripped it for highlights, she had to mix it with something (not a stylist so no clue what) to help lift the red. It is important that I mention this, because I realize people without as much red base in their natural hair might be able to use this product and get the results they desire. Other than sectioning the hair off (because I am lazy), I followed every step of the directions right down to the time it suggested I leave it on.

I applied it to my roots first and worked my way down. By the time I removed the product, it had been in about 25 minutes. Once my hair dried, I noticed it was a brassy orange. Some orange hair is beautiful. The brassy orange that looks like a cheap blonde knock-off is probably the worst hair color (to me). That is the color I ended up with. To make matters worse, not one of my gray hairs received any color. If I did not have any gray hairs, I never would have altered my hair color. Yet, my beautiful color turned brassy orange while the grays laughed at me. This product failed me on every level. Since I did not section my hair, I figured it could have been my fault.

Between the first coloring and the second, I went to my stylist for a haircut. She tried to keep a straight face as I told her about my hair debacle. I told her I was planning on trying again, and she tried to hide that she did not think it was a good idea. My stylist is a lovely woman who wears her heart on her sleeve. Hiding emotions is not one of her talents, but we have that in common. It is one of the many reasons I love her. With a new color, 8, Medium Blonde (my hair was lighter after the first coloring), I decided to try it again. Why?

Each coloring kit comes with four pieces. A set of gloves is necessary, because this will stain your skin. Step one is the color you select. When you are ready to color your hair, you mix the step 1 with step 3. The last step is a conditioner to lock in the color (maybe I should have skipped this step). There is a lot, because you use it again in a week (assuming you like the color you achieved).

Step 2 is less than half full when it arrives, but it fills almost completely once you add step 1.

I read the directions carefully, because I did not want to convince myself that I owed this product a third try if it failed again. After taking the time to section my hair, I applied it to the roots first. It took about 5 minutes. Since I purposely used a different shade, I needed to color my ends. All of my sectioning work seemed like a waste of time at this point, because it was once again a big mess. At that point, I just coated all of my hair. This took about five more minutes. Here’s where I get confused. It says to let it sit for 20 minutes. Is it 20 minutes from when I started or when I finish? I did it from when I started the first time, so I decided to do it from when I ended the second time.

After my first failure, I should have known the orange appearance my hair had while it processed was permanent. You know how your hair looks different when it is up and wet versus down and dry. My only hope was that washing it out based on the start time instead of the end time on my first try did not give the hair enough time to turn from orange to blonde or cover the grays.

Not only was my hair just as orange as it was with the other color (maybe even more orange, actually), but it once again failed to cover a single gray hair. How is it that a hair color meant to cover gray hairs failed me twice? I should also add that my husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) used to color my hair in high school. It never turned orange. Neither of us can remember what hair color I used though. Odds are it was not this one. Then again, I had a much lighter starting color in those days and no gray hairs. All I know is I will never use this hair color again. While it may work for some people, it certainly does not work for me. After two tries, I feel I gave it one more shot than most people would have. As I cannot think of anything that would make me want to try this a third time, I am definitely done.

Have you tried this hair color? What was your experience? Do you have a lot of red base in your hair? What hair color do you use? Is there a blonde hair color you recommend that actually covers gray hair? I realize I will have to start getting my hair colored professionally again at some point. Until my grays overtake my hair, I was hoping I could find a product to take care of this myself. Thanks to my amazing Split End Mender (which will make FabuFind status on my next Empties, I only get a haircut 2-3 times a year. When my hair gets almost no split ends, I do not even think about a haircut until I am unhappy with how uneven it grows in.

Thanks for reading along. See all PINCHme articles. While this was Not For Me, I will keep trying Clairol products. A bad experience does not dissuade me from trying other products from a brand. View my main page for the guide map to the site and deeper deal exploration.