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Japanese hair dye review; Beautylabo & Palty

Whilst in Japan I came across the problem of which hair dye to use – in the UK I was using the same brand and colour each time. Of course I knew and had heard of potential problems with Japanese hair dye, such as it not staying in Caucasian hair due to it being made for the Asian market. Even so, I thought I would give it a try…so here are two reviews for you.
Beautylabo Whip

Beautylabo whip is a relatively new item in the Beautylabo line with 15 colours in the range, 4 of which are new and were featured in the April issue of Popteen in a special fold-out. The novelty behind the ‘whip’ products is a new innovation that has also been hitting foreign markets lately – a foam (mousse) hair dye, rather than liquid (cream?!).

So why is it so great? The mousse application is supposedly easier and more manageable. The mousse doesn’t drip, so there are no worries about accidently dripping it on the work suface etc. *cough*

Also you don’t need to section your hair like you would with a regular hair dye – some brands have even gone as far to claim that you don’t need a mirror, but that’s just silly in my opinion as I’d probably poke myself in the eye – I never claimed I had amazing hand-eye coordination haha. You just massage the mousse in and away you go~

Gloves, powder and mix, conditioner, instructions etc.
And what it looks like when you put it all in the container.
Yep, you mix it in the container it all comes in (great use of packaging) and shake it up…
What you get is a stiff, non-drip foam (mousse).
My friend and I had fun holding it upside down and seeing if it would drip…it didn’t! 
After application…
It lathers on like a shampoo and then just sits like a regular dye. 
The final result: I felt that the end result wasn’t as bright as I had hoped for. Nicola of Graphic Noise also tried out the same colour; Caramel Custard, and said that it turned her hair a very yellow-y shade…which I was kinda hoping for, but unfortunately it just gave me a very light brown…and that was from an orange-y blonde beforehand. The application and dye itself was great and I would certainly use a similar product with the foam ‘technology’ again, but Beautylabo just didn’t cut it for me with colouring.
I would like to mention that it did stick better than a lot of Japanese hair dyes though, which usually wash out. Which brings me to…
Palty Bleach

Ok, so bleach isn’t really a hair DYE but I had tried Palty hair dyes previously and they just didn’t stick at all – as in they would wash out after a couple of shampoos…not good. That’s why I choose to use the Palty Bleach instead. I was a bit cautious to bleach my hair as I know it can be very damaging but I hadn’t done it for almost 6 years so I decided to give it another go.

I had a friend help me with the application after sectioning my hair and he did a very good job, but unfortunately there had not been enough of the bleach for a full coverage so that meant I had to use two lots.

First try, with the bleached hair and un-bleached. 

The final result: I was really happy with the colour, it was a lovely bright blonde for Spring , which I had been hoping for. My hair was a little more coarse and wirey afterwards (see pic) however my hair wasn’t in a much better state before that so I wasn’t really bothered by it.

Well that was back in Japan, and now I am in the UK and my roots were pretty bad (black roots with blonde hair, ewww) so I had a haircut and grabbed some dye from the brand I previously used. I decided to go back to being a brunette (less maintenance) but I also kept the blonde on my under layers after seeing some lovely two tone in the latest issue of Popteen.

So here is a small preview…

Have you used Japanese hair dye before? If so, what were the results like? 

Would you use it now if you hadn’t before?