Palty Hair Bleach and Dye Review!

Cross-posted from my Tumblr--excuse the mismatched watermarks.

As promised, I finally sat down and made a review for Palty products. I've always admired them from afar, but never trusted myself to be able to dye my own hair, so I continued to spend tonnes of money having my hair dyed at a salon. To cut corners I went to a Hair Institute, where students work on your hair, and was able to have my hair done for significantly cheaper. Sadly, the last time I went, I got someone very unfamiliar with my hair, and he ended up dying my hair back to its miserable black when I tried to have it re-toned. After getting a few quotes from hair salons that it would be nearly $300 to have it bleached and re-dyed again, I decided to just take the plunge and purchase the dyes and recruit my boyfriend to help me. I picked up Palty "Sparkling Blonde" Hair Bleach, and Palty "Milk Tea Brown" Hair Dye.




Keep in mind that the following photos have NOT been color corrected in any way. I tried to take the photos in the best and most natural lighting possible. Keep in mind I have very long hair, and a lot of it to boot. It goes down to about my butt, so I purchased three boxes of bleach and three boxes of dye. The bleach was $12.99 each and the dye was $15.99 at Mitsuwa, which is extremely pricey. After taxes though, it cost me about $80 for everything, which is significantly cheaper than what the salon was going to charge. I just was desperate to get my hair done soon, and didn't want to wait to have the dye shipped to me. Definitely go online and purchase your dye though.



Just some background info about my hair; I have pitch black, fine, 1A-type hair. Basically typical "Asian" hair. For this reason, when I bleach it, the red and orangey tones REALLY come out in my hair. Salons had a hard time dealing with this and tended to really struggle with toning the orange out of my hair, because my only request was to have cooler Ash-brown hair. My hair is definitely not virgin. I bleached it for the first time last October and have been retouching the roots ever since. After my last salon fuck-up in April, my hair was back to a dark brown or black. Never. Again.



A bit of my hair before I dyed it near the tips. As you can see it is a really deep chocolate brown, and this is only after nearly two months of frantic washing. My roots are pitch black.



After bleaching. This angle doesn't really showcase just how light it became, but the next picture definitely does. Most salons normally use a "colour remover" before bleaching your hair if you've dyed it before, which costs a LOT of money, so I was really happy with the results when I was able to use the bleach directly onto my fake-black hair.



It's absolutely orange, but I wasn't freaked out. This is what usually happens when I bleach my hair. For those of you who are naturally very dark-haired and are Asian, this is probably going to happen to you, so definitely purchase your dye. I left it in for a good 20 minutes (supposedly to go "blonde" you need to leave it in for 30, but I doubt you'd only go blonde if you had virgin hair--I was blonde at my roots though). Usually bleaches and dyes don't irritate my scalp, but I did feel a bit of irritation when I used Palty. Beware if you have more sensitive skin, you may want to find a different dye. In terms of quantity, I had a hard time stretching the bleach in the three boxes to cover all my hair. Some parts of the underside of my head are not fully bleached because I was trying so hard to cover everything.



After dying! Palty's instructions recommend that you do not colour your hair after bleaching--but rather, to wait a week. I definitely recommend this if you felt your hair after letting the bleached hair dry and it felt really weak and brittle in your hands. I make absolutely sure to condition my hair with every wash though (of course, don't condition your hair soon before bleaching or dying because then it won't colour properly. Make sure you wash the bleach out with shampoo), so I felt like my hair could handle it. I left the dye in for 30 minutes because I felt like my roots were still looking really orange, and it came out a beautiful colour! Versus the bleach, I actually felt like I had more than enough hair dye to cover my hair, which was strange... I was actually having a hard time finding places to put the extra dye!



This is not taken in the best lighting, I will admit, but this is actually pretty true to colour. Its a beautiful golden brown, pretty much like the cover of the box!! In the sunlight it looks a bit more golden and definitely lighter, but Palty dyes are formulated to really counteract the orange tones that come out of Asian hair, so I highly recommend it for people who know their hair bleaches orange. Palty also comes with this amazing Tsubaki Oil conditioner, and sadly its barely a tablespoon of the stuff. Since I had six boxes of Palty total, I now have six of the conditioner, and I basically apply one packet every other day to nourish my hair and make sure it remains soft and smooth. My hair feels and looks amazing. I obviously can't vouch for how long the dye lasts just yet though because its only been a few days, but I will definitely do a follow-up review later.

I also was really impressed because I am at best, a very very amateur dyer. My bleached hair was not even at all because I had a hard time reaching some areas of my hair, but the dye did a great job evening it all out! Just always make sure that you bleach your roots last, because not even the dye can cover up how light they get compared to the rest of your hair. I actually will probably wait even longer before I bleach my roots, last time I just finished the rest of my hair and went straight there, but this time I may give the rest of my hair a 5 minute head-start.

Bleach: 3/5 (Irritated my scalp quite a bit, and you can't really go blonde with Palty bleach, but it's a great precursor to their hair dyes. If you're dark-haired and want to go blonde, you may want to use a more hard-core bleach multiple times.)
Dye: 5/5 (Did a great job evening out my tone, and I got just what I wanted!)
Price: 4/5 (I know it's cheaper online, so I'm forgiving it this time, haha!)
Overall: 4/5 (I wish the bleach actually contained more of it... No idea why I had so much more dye than bleach...)

Hope you enjoyed the review! If anyone is interested in hearing about the hair care routine I go through to keep such long, bleached, hair healthy, let me know!

EDIT: I have posted an update on the results of the dye here!