Saturday, July 28, 2012

Coffee to DYE for!

Coffee doesn't have to be just your morning savior, it can be your hair's hero too! As a brunette I have noticed my gray hairs are much more noticeable than my lighter haired friends'. I'm only 5 short months away from turning 30, but my hair tells a different story! To me, 30 seems a bit young to be this gray!!


Sure, I could go to the drugstore and pick up a box of hair color. I could go to the salon and spend a small fortune for a professional to color it. Trust me, with my hair's thickness and length it would be very expensive to do the latter. So why not the drugstore box? Well, my hair has been there and done it. 


I used to dye it on a regular basis. It's literally had every color of the rainbow in it at some point in time. Oh, and by the way, green is NOT a good color choice for hair! lol With dark hair, you have to bleach it to get those vibrant colors to show up!! That means a lot of damage, money, and time on touch ups. 


Last year, I made the choice to stop torturing my hair. I wanted to see what my hair would look like if it was "Au Natural". Since doing so my hair is healthier than ever!! No heat, no harsh styling products and NO damaging chemicals. My hair is shinier, bouncier and...more grey!


DAMN IT!!


Ok, so it feels better and looks better, but now I have a ton of grey!! Not a result of my new routine, just my new age! So what's a girl to do? Find a natural way to blend those greys away. So after much recearch I have come up with a method that I think works great. Coffee hair "dye". It's natural, smells better than boxed dye, cheaper and it actually conditions while it dyes.


So here's what I did! You will need the following:


-Freshly ground coffee, grind it as fine as you can!! You will need about 4Tbsp.
-1 cup of water
-1 cup of Thick conditioner. I used Garnier Triple nutrition. The thicker the conditioner, the better!
-1Tbsp Apple cider vinegar. This conditions the hair AND acts as a fixative for the coffee dye. Remember using vinegar to dye Easter eggs? Well, it's the same idea!




other things that help:
-gloves
-bowl
-shower cap
-towels


Here's what I did:


-In a small sauce pan I combined my coffee and water then brought it to a boil. Once it boiled for about 2 minutes I took it off the heat and let it cool to room temperature.


-Once it cooled I strained the strong brew and combined it with the conditioner and vinegar. I have long (top of my waist band when wet), thick hair so I used a whole cup of conditioner and coffee. If your hair is thinner or shorter just use half of that.


-I coated all of my hair with dark brown conditioner starting with the areas having the most grey. Once it was all applied and my hair was fully saturated I placed a plastic cap on my head, wrapped my shoulders with an old towel and waited.


-After 30-40 minutes I rinsed with cool water.


That's it!!


Here's a before and after. it's subtle, but noticeable. That means the gray is less noticeable and that's awesome! i know the lighting isn't great in either picture, but trust me, you can see a difference!!! I suppose that repeated applications would build the intensity so I intend to do this again in a few days!






The vinegar smell rinses out, and the conditioner/coffee combination has my hair feeling super soft!! If you try this, let me know what you think!