DIY Warm Ombré Hair for Fall

“I don’t always color my hair at home, but when I do I use Clairol Nice ‘N Easy.”  And I’m not just saying that because I’ve partnered with them for this post.  I have seriously used Clairol since I was in high school and I’ve never had a bad experience, which is my reasoning for accepting the #ColorConfidently challenge this month.

Clairol has been empowering women to create the look they want in the comfort of their own home and their products don’t cost an arm and a leg for years.  Their color is salon-quality and doesn’t look like dye, even when your hair hits the sunlight.  They offer 45 different shades which range from light blonde to the deepest natural blue/black colors.

The ombré look is still very in right now, but I wanted to find a way to darken my existing blonde ombré for Fall.  I’m going to try to do my best to explain to you exactly what I did, which products I used and all the other little details that made my DIY Fall ombré hair a success.  I’m going to put this in number order to make it easy to read and follow:

1. I started with third-day-hair, meaning my hair was dry and dirty before I applied the color.  
2. I conducted the allergy test (as recommended by the instruction sheet in the Clairol box).
3. After brushing my hair, I began separating it.  Because I already had some lighter highlights in my hair, I wanted to pull out a few of the lighter pieces to keep a little bit of a contrast.  I wrapped the four strips of existing blond in foil to keep from getting the hair dye on them (see photo #2).
4. Using the gloves included in the dye box, I applied Clairol color 4W/120B (natural dark caramel brown) to the ends of my hair starting near the middle, at different heights.  My reasoning for doing this is to keep from having one solid line of color across the middle of my hair.  By starting some pieces higher and some pieces lower, it creates more of a natural blend in the end result. (see photo #2)
5. I let the dark caramel color sit on the ends of my hair for about 20 minutes, then followed the instructions for rinsing the color out.  I skipped the conditioning process because I was going to be applying one more color to my hair.
6. I dried my hair before applying the next color (see photo #3).
7. Once my hair was completely dry, I mixed and applied Clairol color 4/120 (natural dark brown) to the roots of my hair and combed them down slightly past where I started the natural dark caramel brown (the first color). I used a wide-toothed comb for this process (see photo #4).
8. I also applied the natural dark brown to the underneath portion of my hair.  
9. After 20-25 minutes of the second color setting, I followed the instructions for rinsing and conditioning using the Clairol nice’n easy CC+ Colorseal conditioner.  I’m obsessed with this conditioner because it leaves my hair so shiny and soft.
10. Style as normal.