Just Cool It
Since moving to Ann Arbor, I’ve been in a constant battle with hair brassiness.
I wrote an initial post about my anti-orange regime here. And while I still stand by all those brass-busting products and strategies, I have an update: three new cooling strategies I’ve added to my repertoire.
The first two are dpHUE’s Cool Blonde Shampoo and Conditioner. dpHUE is a Minneapolis-based company that began six years ago as a “color bar” where you could go to have a pro create a batch of customized color that you then took home and applied yourself. Donna Pohlad, doHUE’s founder, came up with the concept because schlepping to the salon every three to four weeks for root touchups is both time-consuming and annoying. The concept was a hit (obviously), and she found that women were driving from all over the Midwest to get their custom color prescription—then they’d re-order it online.
What Donna found, however, was that rapid re-growth was only part of the problem. Women also complained about a change in tone in between salon visits (i.e. brassiness or fading reds and browns). So she set about developing a focused line of at-home products, like the Cool Blonde collection, designed to tackle tonality.
Having used a number of purple shampoos and conditioners over the years, I can tell you the Cool Blonde duo is potent. You will see a difference, which is satisfying. I would not, however, use it more than two to three times a week (or you’ll run the risk of turning light hair lavender). The benefits go beyond de-brassing though. I have been pleasantly surprised to find I really like the way the Cool Blonde products make my hair behave, leaving it both shiny-smooth and bouncy (and don't we usually have to settle for one or the other?)
My other anti-brass discovery is Madison Reed’s Color Reviving Gloss. I use Crema for light blondes. It too is purple-toned to counteract orange, and it is semi-permanent hair color (and smells like it), so you have to leave it on for a solid twenty minutes. After my first application, I noticed a pretty significant decrease in warm tones, though I liked the effect best about five days later, after I’d shampood twice. In addition to toning down yellow, the gloss initially left my hair with a subtle, dull beige tone—but within a week, things had brightened up. It's now been three weeks since that first dose, and the result is enduring (Madison Reed says their tinted gloss should last up to a month). And doubling the gloss with a once-a-week application of the dpHUE duo has kept me feeling plenty cool.
