I recently underwent a major hair transformation that I can’t wait to share (don’t worry you’ll find out soon enough) and it was insanely satisfying. I’m such a routine-based person that stepping outside of my comfort zone was a scary yet gratifying experience.
That being said, I’ve always had a fascination with changing my hair colour, but considering my hair to be one of my most important assets, I’ve typically refrained from cutting and dyeing it.
Would it surprise you to know that I had purple hair for quite a few years back in high school? For years I wanted to change up my colour to no avail because my parents refused to let me do so. In a fit of rebellion, I died my hair red one night and I was obsessed. I couldn’t stop changing the colour from varying hues for the next 2 years. It went from rich auburns, all the way to eggplant purple.
Looking back on the photos, I can’t fathom how I didn’t notice how horrendous the colour was against my skintone. I’ve since then learned that cool tones work best with my skintone and that warm colours are out. But hey, what’s done is done.
Being a skeptic for permanence, I used to photoshop my hair colour to help envision how the aftermath would look. But let’s face it, changing your hair colour strand by strand with rudimentary Photoshopping skills was not the most efficient thing to do.
When I heard about the new Matrix Color Lounge app that does exactly that and more without me having to spend hours masking each and every strand of hair on my head, I was dumbfounded. Where was this app 10 years ago when pseudo hair-colourist me wanted to experiment with colour? It would definitely have saved me the humiliation and time spent both on damaging my locks while achieving an unflattering colour. Want to find out how this magical app works? Read on:
1. Locate, download, and open up the Matrix Color Lounge app.
This app means business. There’s no fancy trailer video showing you all of it’s hidden options. The first thing that it prompts you to do once you open it up is to determine whether or not you’re a consumer or a stylist. Being the self-professed box-dye professional that I am, it was super tempting to pick the option of stylist. Sadly, I admittedly to myself that I’m more a consumer than a stylist.
I did satiate my curiousity by selecting the stylist option on another run just to see how it would differ from the consumer version. It’s actually quite handy! Note to stylists, the app helps you to create formulas as well as saving your colours for you to refer back to in the future.
2. Select “Virtual Makeover” and upload/take a photo.
You’ll then be given the option of giving yourself a Virtual Makeover or browse through Haircare. Let’s peruse the first and obviously more fun option. The next major decision you’ll be required to make is to decide whether to use an existing photo or to take a brand new selfie. If you’re chillin’ on the app with bed head then uploading a photo is probably the winning choice.
The app has an algorithm to pre-determine where your hair is in the photo, but as technology goes, things aren’t always accurate. You’ll want to select and remove the highlighted area in order to make sure that only your hair is highlighted.
Hint: Pinching the photo with 2 fingers and then spreading them out will allow you to zoom in and highlight the area with more accuracy!
3. Colour your hair!
Before you start changing up the colour of your hair, it’s important to determine whether or not you want permanent or non-permanent colour. Colours outside of the normal colour range are most likely going to be in the non-permanent family since those colours don’t typically reside in your hair – making them difficult to stay in for long.
To show you guys how my hair looked about 10 years ago, I decided to go purple with a side-by-side comparison of the red as well. See just how poorly this shade goes with my skin tone? Too bad I wasn’t able to visualize this before I went ahead with the dyeing job.
4. Have fun with different techniques and colours.
But the fun doesn’t stop there! The Matrix Color Lounge app is actually pretty amazing because it’s up-to-date with all of the latest colouring techniques as well.
So if you’re not sure if ombré or colour blocking would work well for you but you’re dyeing (pun completely intended here) to get it done, give the app a whirl to find out for yourself before you make a mistake!
The app also gives you the feasibility of controlling the intensity and placement of colour so the entire process is completely controlled by you. Being an avid Photoshop user (my editing capabilities have majorly improved since my foray into changing hair colour 10 years ago), having a multi-facetted control over my hair colour in an app is refreshing.
I loved the ability of being able to put thought to screen should the idea of blue or pink hair pop into my head without having to worry about forgetting about it since my computer is tucked away neatly on my desk at home.
My favourite part about the app was that it was realistic and would give me warnings as to how close to reality the colour would look in the app in case I got crazy ideas in my head that silver hair would look exactly like that.
5. Haircare maintenance.
The next obvious step once you get your hair done is to make sure that the amazing colour stays amazing. It’s a given that the colour will fade after awhile, but if you’re taking good care of it, it should last you quite awhile before it requires a touch up.
Amazingly, the app goes beyond the fun of just changing up your colour and provides tips and recommends products on how to maintain that colour as well.
Now that I’ve taken the plunge and have had the chance to get my hair properly coloured at the salon, I’ve become addicted to this app. It makes it so easy for me to bring my ideas to life and I have to admit that I’m a little bit obssessed with the idea of dyeing my hair again into other fun colours.
What colours would you dye your hair but you’ve never had the guts to do? I’d love to see all your colourful looks!
