Hair appointments are pricey and time consuming. With the cost of living rising, DIY approaches are becoming more popular than before (hello recession-core). While major changes are best left to professionals (to minimise damage and regret), touch-ups, regrowth and refreshing your colour can be relatively easy to manage on your own – with the right products and tools, that is.
Moving away from conventional box dyes sold in supermarkets, Canberra-born brand Miiroko offers professional-grade home colour products, with personalised instructions and support from experts.
“There was nothing out there that I felt comfortable recommending to clients to use at home,” says hairdresser and co-founder Claire Saito, who launched the brand with her husband in 2021. “They were either too strong and damaging or didn’t come with the right tools, which would result in an average home hair colour job.”
Saito spent three years developing Miiroko. Its dye formula is vegan, non-drip and fragrance-free. It’s also free from harsh chemicals like ammonia, resorcinol and PPD (paraphenylenediamine), commonly known to cause irritation, staining and itchiness on the scalp. Made in Italy, the range offers six colours, spanning dark brown to blonde, and is infused with eight active care ingredients including green tea, almond oil, aloe extract and jojoba oil to help nourish and strengthen your hair.
“In an industry that hasn't really changed its formulations in a long time, it took me a long time to find some replacements and manufacturers that were happy to test out different formulas,” Saito says.
Priced at $60, kits come complete with a tube of colour, developer and salon-quality tools including application brushes, a bowl, gloves, cape and hair clips – all reusable and made out of recycled materials. After ordering the colour kit once, you can buy colour refills on a one-off or subscription basis.
Still, mastering the art of hair dyeing at home can be seem daunting. To help make results stress-free, mess-free and actually look good, take a detailed online quiz to help you not only pick the right colour, but provide you with tailored instructions from a hairdresser, outlining how much colour to mix up, where to apply it and how long to keep it on.
There’s also a library of step-by-step video instructions on everything from how to blend grey hairs to creating a balayage look. You don’t even need to be a customer to access this information – it’s free for anyone to use.
And if you’re wondering how to make your colour last longer? Saito says working on your hair health is the best way. “Move away from colours that use harsh chemicals and damage the hair. This will only exacerbate the problem. The healthier your hair is, the longer colour will stay in the hair shaft … and give you lovely shiny locks.”
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