New Hair! Schwarzkopf Palette #872

I love colouring my hair! It's so much easier now it's short. When I do my hair, I tend to go for unnatural reds and purples. So when I spotted this on offer at Asda for less than £3.00, I couldn't resist.

We'll ignore the badly photoshopped hair on the front of the box.

You get the usual contents:


The gloves are in the instruction book and belong in the bin. I've not come across a pair that I've never split. You can buy a pack of 10 latex-free gloves from Boots for less than £2.00.

The instructions were pretty clear, plenty of pictures which is always helpful. When the two components were mixed, it resulted in a thick cream which was a nice surprise. There's nothing worse than runny dye trickling down your neck. I didn't even need a towel around my shoulders. I got no dripping (yes, I cleaned off my ears after I did this picture).


This dye does contain Ammonia, but it's not obnoxiously stinky. I've done some that were really awful, but this was barely noticeable after a couple of minutes. I just smelt enough to know there was Ammonia in it.

The box comes with a moisturising hair mask in a sachet. I do think a squeezy tube would have been easier to use as I had to go and hunt down some scissors as I'd managed to not rip open the sachet.

In the end, I left the dye on for closer to 45 minutes, rather than the 30 minutes in the instructions. My laptop got attacked my malware last night and I went through the fix this morning while my hair was developing. Of course, they both needed my attention at the same time and my computer won. You may have noticed me venting some frustration over Twitter last night.

I'm quite pleased with the colour, it probably needs another wash or two for the colour to settle down.


I probably won't bother reviewing the lasting power of this dye. For me, red isn't a long term colour. If it lasts a couple of weeks, then that's fine. I don't maintain a red colour on my hair. I have bought some colour protection shampoo & conditioner and that's about all I do. I'm one of those annoying people who wash their hair nearly every day. I'm sure at least someone is going to tell me off for that, but being a scientist can involve some less than savoury smells and I don't appreciate them lingering in my hair.

Right now my hair feels lovely and soft, not at all like it's just gone through chemical dying. It feels in better shape than after my henna fail last year.