Pravana ChromaSilk Creme Hair Color - 4.56 Mahogany Red Brown Unisex, 3 Fl Oz (Pack of 1), (I0105043)

... or you *WILL NOT* have vibrant or lasting results, especially if you have darker hair. Even if your hair is naturally blonde, you'll still want to bleach it with at least a low volume developer to get your hair a bit dry and "thirsty" so it soaks up the color more thoroughly. Yep. You need at least a little bit of bleach damage for it to stick.If you're nervous about bleaching, I recommend doing what I did and using what's called a "bleach bath". What you do is:1. Wet your hair (DON'T WASH IT) and lightly towel dry it.2. Mix the bleach and developer as directed on the bleach package and let it process in the bowl for a minute or two.3. Dilute the mixture with a few pumps of your regular shampoo and mix thoroughly. (I used two parts shampoo and three parts bleach ratio, but a 1:1 ratio is typically recommended.)4. Lather generously through your hair just like you would with plain shampoo. (Make sure your hair is *completely saturated* with the mixture.)5. Put on a clear shower cap and let it sit in your hair for about 20 minutes, checking it every so often. (Don't leave it on for more than a half hour.)6. Rinse, wash, and condition normally. If your natural hair is pretty dark, you may need a second application (I did). Two applications of a bleach bath is far less damaging than two applications of straight bleach, so fear not!7. Dilute the hair color with conditioner! Trust me, Pravana Vivid is highly concentrated. I used a 1:1 ratio and it was enough for me, but if you're nervous about it not coming out vibrant enough then use 1 part conditioner and TWO parts dye.8. Leave the dye/conditioner mixture on under a shower cap for as long as you want! The longer the better! There are no harsh chemicals in the dye, so don't worry about damage.9. Wash and condition normally. (I personally washed twice afterward to avoid as much color bleeding as possible. It will still bleed quite a bit, but two initial washes right after coloring minimized it a little.)Following the directions above, the color stayed fully vibrant for WEEKS before I noticed fading. (I wash my hair two-three times a week, so don't wash every day. Dry shampoo between washes will be your best friend. I use Batiste.)BEWARE though, it stains EVERYTHING it touches. BIG TIME. I used violet and my girlfriend used blue, and our tub straight up looked like cotton candy! Also, even after a few washes, if you so much as drop one strand of hair in a wet bathroom sink and don't notice it, you'll come back later and find a hair strand shaped color stain. And your pillows? I recommend getting black pillow cases lol.That being said, it was super easy to get the stains out of the tub and sink. I used Clorox bleach cleanup spray and let it sit for about 5 minutes, then rinse. It took the stains out without a trace. (Might need to do it twice. I did!)If you want your hair to blind people in the sun (which I totally do), then buy it!

I jumped on that gray hair colored bandwagon, but was vastly disappointed when I couldn't find anything in my town to do the job. Luckily, I was able to order this online. Thank you Amazon! Anyway, I read a bunch of different ways to use it online and here's how I did it.First off, I have really dark hair. The lower half of my hair was bleached, but the rest wasn't and I wanted all gray so I bleached my hair. A LOT. If you dark brunette hair, be prepared to do a lot of damage to it if you want to go gray. I know my hair, so I bleached it way more often than I should have in just a couple of days. I don't recommend it, I'm just impatient and again I know my hair, I know what it can handle. Benefit of doing my own hair I guess. You can see from the photos how much I had to lighten my hair to get it to take the gray. Besides bleaching, I also had to tone it to try to tame the orange and yellow hue.Before I used the Pravana Silver, I used Clairols Shimmer Lights Shampoo for about a week to further tame out the yellow and orange. I'm telling you this because if you don't tone those colors out, THIS SILVER WILL NOT WORK PROPERLY. You're hair needs to be as light as possible with a little undertone colors as possible. No orange, and the yellow color needs to be as light as the inside of a banana.Once I was ready, I mixed the Pravana Silver with some Aussie conditioner (I love the smell!) so it was a light lavender color and applied it all over. I learned about mixing it with conditioner from reading a bunch of reviews from different web pages. Anyway, I applied it, threw on a shower cap, and left it on for hours. Benefit of mixing with the conditioner is that it helps alleviate the damage from all the bleaching, and when I washed it out my hair was super soft.And I love the color! I got so many compliments on it, by friends and even random customers while I was at work. So nice, this stuff is so easy to use. I plan on getting other colors, as soon as I can afford it. I tend to color my hair fairly often, so price is a major factor.On a side note, I'm allergic to your standard hair dyes. I'm talking hives and blisters if it just barely touches my skin. Until now, the only hair dye I've been able to use was Manic Panic. Now I can Pravana to the "list" of dyes that don't irritate or damage my sensitive skin.I myself rely heavily on reviews when it comes to deciding whether or not I’m going to purchase something, so my reviews are completely honest. If my opinion of the quality of this product changes, I will update my review accordingly.Please let me know if my review was helpful to you by voting yes below, and let me know if you have any questions!