Toner Fail: A Cautionary Tale

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may well be aware of a teeny tiny hair disaster I had a couple of weekends ago. I'm a great fan of toning my hair at home in between bleaching sessions, and I've been doing so successfully for well over two years. My current toner of choice is L'Oreal Luocolor P01, which thanks to my Sally's Trade Card I get at a bargain price.

I was down at baby brother's this weekend and my mum had kindly offered to slap the toner on (I have a tendency to miss patches at the back when I'm doing it quickly) so I took her up on her offer. The only problem was I hadn’t realised that I was all out of Luocolour releaser - oops. As I didn’t know where the nearest Sally's was, I thought that I'd pop into the local boots to see what they were offering toner-wise. I spotted this Jerome Russell toner which came in two colours - champagne blonde and ice blonde and chucked the Ice Blonde version in my basket. If I remember rightly it was about £3.

THIS WAS A MASSIVE MISTAKE.

I toddled back to my brother's flat, changed into my PJs and got mummy bear to slap it on. I wasn’t too alarmed when it looked yellow on my hair as the Luocolour toner applies as creamy yellow colour and then gradually turns lilac once applied to the hair. I left it on for the recommended 20 minutes and shampooed it off as normal. When I left the bathroom my mum dissolved into giggles - I thought It was something to do with the mascara halfway down my face, but oh no it was my hair. I didn’t have the foresight to take a picture of it, but I looked very similar to this chap:

Yes, Big Bird. My hair was less ice blonde, and more sunflower yellow. After rolling on the floor with tears of laughter running down her face, my mum went off to locate a Sally’s to try and rectify the disaster. Luckily there was one less than two miles away (typical) and she came back with a bottle of releaser. Twenty five minutes later, my hair was back to its former glory (PHEW).

The moral of the story? Steer clear of dodgy 3 quid toners, unless you’re looking for a banana-coloured barnet!!

xxx