/Hair/ L'Oreal Paris Preference Medium Ash Brown

this was purchased by me.
It's been a long time since I last dyed my hair. Three months have passed! My roots had started to show and I wanted to go back to a slightly darker, natural looking hair color. I had this L'Oreal hair dye I bought a month ago in my room so I decided to use it.

This costs about $9/box and comes with a color gel, color optimizing creme, conditioner, instruction and gloves. It looks like the bottle for the color gel looks larger than the other Preference dyes I've used in the past. Maybe that means an increase in the amount of dye you end up with?

This hair dye is supposed to has "Preference's Superior Fade-Defying Color and Shine System" which "creates a rich long-lasting color spectrum with luminosity, shine and beautiful gray coverage." It "defies fade-out for up to 8 beautiful weeks." The shade I bought was Medium Ash Brown 5A which is supposed to lessen the red/orange tones in hair. Here's the shade guide from the box:

These are the ingredients for the color gel, color creme and conditioner:



Let's see how this worked on my hair! First, this is what my hair was like before the coloring process. It's quite yellow/orange in the light and my roots are showing more than usual.

natural light


natural light/flash
I mixed the color gel and creme together and applied it to my hair. I didn't do a patch test with this dye (very bad, I know) and when it came in contact with my scalp it stung a little. Also, this dye had a very strong chemical scent that made me gag a few times. Luckily, one bow had enough dye to cover my long, thick hair (it's been 5 months since I last cut my hair). I left the dye in for around 30 minutes before rinsing it out and conditioning. This was the result:

natural light


natural light/flash
My hair is darker and the dye seems to have toned down the orange-ness that was there before. After conditioning, my hair felt very soft and it was shiny which was nice. The one think I really didn't like was that the chemical scent lingered in my hair immediately after I washed it and for two more days. I'm fairly happy with the results, though, and the color of my hair looks relatively even. L'Oreal's Preference hair dyes have a strong chemical aroma, but they work well with my type of hair so I continue to use them.

Overview
likes
.affordable (even cheaper with online coupons)
.widely available in most stores
.one box has enough dye to cover a lot of hair
.easy to apply
.leaves looking and feeling nice
.lessens orange tones in hair

dislikes
.very strong chemical smell
.chemical scent stays in hair a few days after washing out dye

bright young person loves it

this much.