Scott Cornwall Colour Restore: Deep Red (and a bit of Garnier Nutrisse 6.60 Fiery Red)

I adore red hair. Whether it's out of a box and enough to rival British telephone boxes or gorgeous hues seen in natural redheads (such as Karen Gillan, for example), it's lovely. I'm not a natural redhead, sadly, so for me it comes out of a box/salon if I'm being treated by my mum. I've always strayed towards the ruby/plum reds and was red permanently for a good couple of years before yearning for blonde again. Well, recently I took the plunge and went red again after 3 years of blonde. I started with a lovely golden copper blonde and it made my green eyes look stunning (shameless self-admiration). Sadly, almost all red tones washed out in a couple of weeks even though I was using a copper-adder-of-tones-shampoo-thing. So sod it! Back to extremely red it was.

The colour I chose, after pouring over the delicious red shades in Superdrug for slightly longer than is deemed sane, was Garnier Nutrisse 6.60 Fiery Red - a permanent colour. I didn't want to go any lower than a level 6 in case I changed my mind in the future and wanted to go light again. The shade on the box was perfect and I knew I'd get something like it as I had a pretty light level 8-ish kinda-blonde that I was about to plonk it on top of. 

This is was what it looked like straight after dyeing:

I loved it! It was the exact shade I was after. 

Two things to note about this particular dye. One, it smelled very pleasant unlike dyes I've used in the past. I hadn't used Garnier for a long time before this and have no idea if all of their dyes smell like this, but when I opened the box I got a kind of soft, fruity smell (likely the conditioner - avocado-ey!). And applying the dye was a nicer experience than usual because of the smell. Thumbs up, Garnier! Secondly, I noticed far, FAR less staining in the following weeks than I've had with other red dyes. I'd fully expected my pillows, towels and necks of my clothes to come out with pink/red stains but only experienced the smallest amount on a white shirt I'd slept in one night. My towels and pillows were absolutely fine. No idea why this was the case but I was pleasantly surprised and impressed.

The only bad thing was that I only just had enough dye for my shoulder-length, medium-thickness hair and had to stretch it as far as I possibly could. When I recently dyed my hair blonde again with a different brand I didn't have this issue at all and actually had excess.

Now, the problem with red dyes is the notorious, dreaded FADING. Using a colour-save shampoo and conditioner reduces the fading so the colour lasts a bit longer. Washing with cool/cold water ensures the colour is sealed in for longer. Avoiding shampoos with sulphates (even colour-save shampoos contain these) can help a lot, as sulphates strip the colour from hair. Four weeks down the line, this was my hair:

Sadly there was no natural light available as it was 10pm-ish at the time so apologies for that, but you can see there had been considerable fading!

I was determined to keep the red fresh for as long as possible as I didn't like the idea of dyeing my hair more often to keep the red looking good. I'm trying to grow it out and it's suffered some damage in the last few years so I'm avoiding putting it through dyeing as much. My unbelievably ash blonde (~level 7) roots were coming through but I figured I could live with those for a few more weeks.

Behold! This product here. Scott Cornwall's Colour Restore in Deep Red:

I'd seen this in stores and after a lengthy couple of evenings Googling it and reading reviews, I decided to buy. It's not that cheap (I got it for £12.99 in March 2015 at Boots) but you get a lot from the tube, especially with my length of hair.

It's a toner-type product. You can either shampoo it through like a normal shampoo, leave in for up to 5 minutes then rinse like normal, or plop it on for 25 minutes for a restorative job. As I'd had quite a bit of fading, I opted to leave it on for 25 (... 30) minutes. I washed my hair first with a clear shampoo, combed it and then applied the stuff to damp hair. 

A little goes a long way with this and I only needed a few blobs to saturate my hair. I combed it through with a wide-toothed comb to ensure I hadn't missed any bits. I didn't cover it with anything and didn't apply any heat, just sat and waited and fed my cat and made a cup of tea and despaired over the amount of revision I had to do for my upcoming exams. When the time was up I rinsed and conditioned. You don't actually need to condition with this as it leaves it in a soft condition (I could definitely feel this as I was washing it off) but I did anyway as my ends were a bit dry at the time.

The result! Again, no natural light for the first pic but took one in some poor, cloudy daylight (yay for Lancashire weather) for the second one:

I was pretty stunned about how NICE it was! The photos don't do it much justice at all. It had taken on a nice cherry colour which I hadn't expected as the pic on the front of the box showed more of an orange-red! 

Which leads me onto a point: this is PINK-BASED. It deposited pink tones along with the red and it was also very pink when I shampooed my hair in the next few weeks (the colour of the shampoo as it washed out was candy-floss! Very pretty colour though!). For me, this worked very well with the base I had and I adored it. BUT, A WARNING: to those with bleached hair who use this, it'll likely turn your hair pink. If you're after pink hair, great! If not, I wouldn't use this on a light base. I don't fully know how it would work on dark hair. It CANNOT LIFT COLOUR so dark bases will NOT be lifted to a red. It'll deposit red/pink tones so will add warmth but I don't know how much red would be visible amongst the dark tones.

It didn't really touch my natural roots very much. It DID blend them in ever so slightly for the first few days but my roots were very evident again after a couple of washes. Based on this, I'm not sure it'd be very effective on non-red natural hair.

It lasted for a surprising amount of time, too. I was seeing friends just over a week later so did the shampoo/rinse-through refresh a couple of weeks later. I didn't see a huge difference but it did look slightly brighter - which is the point! When I then went blonde again just under a week later, it still looked pretty good and hadn't faded nearly as much as it had prior to using it.

Overall: recommended for redheads seeking a refresh for plum/cherry tones, a little goes far so the price isn't too bad considering. Definitely wear gloves when applying it! Unfortunately my memory fails me so I can't remember if it comes with gloves or not (I have a feeling it does) but there are packs of gloves available in places such as Boots for only a couple of quid.

Bonus: a photo of our lovely cat, Toby. He was our first cat, sadly no longer with us but he was wonderful (and huge!):