Found! A Dark-Root Eraser That Works
Tinted sprays or gels, such as Rita Hazan Root Concealer ($25; sephora.com) or Oribe Airbrush Root Touchup Spray ($29; net-a-porter.com), are adept at temporarily camouflaging incoming greys. But when your roots are darker than the rest of your hair, regrowth is trickier to conceal. For a blonde, applying temporary gold color to dark roots is like using a yellow crayon to color on a brown piece of paper. Futile. Also, most sprays and gels leave the hair a bit damp and tacky, and wet hair equals darker hair...the exact opposite of what you want. For years, I relied on two imperfect solutions to hide regrowth until I could get to the salon: baseball hats—or a generous dose of Klorane Dry Shampoo ($20; sephora.com), a white-ish spray powder that (sort of) diminished my ashy incomings. Then, I discovered Color Wow’s Root Cover Up in Platinum ($35; ulta.com).
It is a surprisingly opaque, cool, pale-blonde-colored pressed powder. Using a small brush, you dust the sunny shade over your roots...and they disappear. Like Whispering Angel Rosé on a summer night. Why does it work so well? Applying any powder (even baby powder) will soften the look of dark roots. So this product provides a one-two punch: First the powder formula diminishes the darkness, then the pale blonde color tints the regrowth to better match the rest of your hair. The effect is temporary (as in, until the next shampoo), but it’s unequivocally the best root-concealer I’ve seen for dark regrowth.
“Note: For warmer, more honey-hued blondes, there is a deeper Color Wow shade called Blonde, as well as a rich red called, well, Red, for faux gingers.”
