Colour B4 Extra on black dye - review

I've been dying my hair black for years with a Boots-branded semi-perm dye. I recently decided that I wanted to go back to my natural colour (light brown) with some blonde highlights, and when I saw Colour B4 advertised on the TV, it seemed the answer to my prayers.

After finding out more, my hopes sank a little when I realised that semi-perm is often harder to remove with CB4, and that my cuticles could be too stained for it to work. But I decided to give it a try anyway.

As most people report, CB4 stinks to high heaven of rotten eggs....urgh. I left it on for an hour, and did all the rinsing as instructed, using a kitchen timer to make sure I did it long enough. It is so incredibly boring to rinse for a total of almost 20 mins!

Once I dried my hair, I saw the black was somewhat faded about an inch or so from the roots, but the rest remained unchanged.

I did a second application two weeks later, this time using a hairdryer every few mins to keep the mixture warm, but with little success. The black faded maybe half a level to a slightly softer black, but really wasn't noticably different.

Verdict: although I didn't experience much success with CB4, probably because of build-up and/or staining, I think it's a good product. It didn’t damage my hair at all, so it seems there’s nothing to lose by giving it a try.

It definitely faded the black near my scalp where there hadn't been so many applications of colour, so if you don’t have heavy colour build-up, I think it has a good chance of removing at least some of it.

But if it doesn't do much the first time, my opinion is it's not worth trying it a second time. It probably won’t do enough to make it worth the hassle of all the rinsing and stinking your house out. It’s probably a better use of time and money to do a bleach bath.