Have SFX changed their colours?

Thank you xxRaaxx 🙂

It sounds like undiluted Blue Velvet is the perfect colour for me, I want the darkest blue possible. It's a shame I still need to go through bleaching for such a dark colour, but I guess that's the necessary evil with blue shades. On the bright side, I won't be force fading or bleach bathing, or colour removing, I'll just be bleaching the roots, since my midnight blue/plum combo is similar enough.

Just as a lil update...I scrubbed my hair with sulphate shampoo and it seems to have done the trick for transfer! I can actually wash it properly stood up in the shower now wahooooo haha! I don't know if it's fully the sfx though, I changed shampoos about a week after and my hair just didn't feel 100% clean. I always buy new stupidly expensive shampoos then go straight back to osmo!!

I fear it has changed its formula. I missed out on getting Atomic Pink from Beeunique but managed to get a bottle directly from the US as I was beyond desperate. My hair hadn't been done for 3 months and I had a bit of regrowth as well that needed bleaching. I got it done at the hairdressers as normal towards the end of March and within a week the bits that had been bleached had faded considerably as had most of the rest.

Fast forward to today and this morning you could see actual patches of blonde running through - all of the main areas of pink were faded horribly. It looked like it hadn't been dyed in weeks/months (I've used Atomic Pink several times now and can usually go a while without having to top the colour up). My hairdresser used about a third of the bottle so on that basis I thought I would try and eek out what I could from my last, older bottle as opposed to using the new one. I just had enough but needed a smidge of the new one and the difference in colour straight from the bottle in the tint bowl was ridiculous. Whereas the older one looked almost blood red, the new bottle of AP was scarlet. I tried to get a photo but my camera phone wouldn't pick it up too well.

I've managed to take a pic of the bottles side by side and you can notice the contrast (N.b: it's far more discernible than the picture shows). Have they completely changed it or is it just one batch? I really hope it's the latter as I adore AP but if it's not going to last or have the same vibrancy as before then I may have to try something else. Also, it's still transferring even though previous applications did not. 🙁

PS I've not done anything differently this time - I still use the same shampoos etc and wash my hair as frequently as before. The only difference is the product itself.

That's really weird darkangel - as my blue velvet seems to be lasting far longer than it did previously? And AP is meant to have the best staying power of all of the dyes? Things have obviously been changed.

Yummysweets what colour is your hair naturally? If you want a really dark result and your hair is anything from light brown onwards you may not have to bleach first? SFX takes pretty well on unprocessed hair, although it doesn't stick as well as the cuticle will lie smoother on un bleached hair. But if you do want to bleach for staying power you definitely won't need to do a full bleach - a short bleach bath using 20 vol should be enough.

Thanks for the reply xxRaaxx! Indeed, usually AP has lasted for ages. Before I could sometimes get away without having to top it up between visits to the hairdressers to bleach roots/regrowth and re-apply the black but this was looking a mess after just a week or two. Really disheartened. I hope it's just a bad batch :/

I'll chase SFX up on this again as they have not got back to me with a response.

Re Atomic Pink - I know originally the dye was fairly pink in the bottles and around 18-24 months ago it changed to a more red shade in the bottle.  Several people complained about this so I think SFX may have deliberately made this new batch with less red this time.  I will however double check this with them and about the other colour changes 🙂

I did think about doing it that way xxRaaxx, my natural hair is on the dark side of brown, when I originally dyed my hair dark puprle 19 years ago without bleaching I remember it being really subtle and showing up under certain lights, and not lasting very long, whereas right now with bleached base colour lasts quite some time. Plus now I have the addition of stubborn greys as well!

I've thought about a quick bleach bath, with my hair though I'm concerned I'll end up with a very dark orange base, that would concern me when it fades. I've been doing a regular bleach with the addition of a couple of tablespoons of shampoo, leaving on for the full time. This takes me to a lightest orange/bright yellow colour, with this base dark blues fade quite nice when I get too lazy to touch up. Hmmm, it's worth thinking about though.

I'll chase SFX up on this again as they have not got back to me with a response.

Re Atomic Pink - I know originally the dye was fairly pink in the bottles and around 18-24 months ago it changed to a more red shade in the bottle.  Several people complained about this so I think SFX may have deliberately made this new batch with less red this time.  I will however double check this with them and about the other colour changes 🙂

I'd be really grateful if you could get any information from them! 🙂 I appreciate that they may have toned down the redness but the dye itself didn't last or look anything like it usually does. I couldn't believe how quickly it faded and not even nicely; you could see the blonde from the latest bleaching within a week or so. Really hope it was just one from a bad batch because I don't want to have to try and find an alternative :/

Update - still waiting on a reply from them about these colour changes (and also shipment of new delivery).  Tried again today, they said they will call back but nothing received so far.  I will update on here as soon as I manage to get  some answers from them x

I've had that atomic pink issue, i could see the difference in the bottles straight away - my darker on was from the US out of desperation - BUT - I am pretty sure it was old stock and not the new batch(i ordered at xmas). I dont use either of them neat so in the end i had no issues with the result.

I have spoken to SFX today and they have confirmed there are always slight changes with each batch but the colours should essentially be the same result on the hair as they were before.  They also spoke about the noticeable Blue Velvet differences in the pic above and said they have not made any Blue velvet for around 12-18 months so this would have to be an older bottle and that the dyes do change colour the longer they are left.  SFX say they check dyes from each batch before shipping to make sure the results are within the boundaries they have for each colour and so far each batch has been within this range.

The next batch of colours should be shipping this week so we will have a look at those too before we add them to the website.

Thank you nickki!

I've had that atomic pink issue, i could see the difference in the bottles straight away - my darker on was from the US out of desperation - BUT - I am pretty sure it was old stock and not the new batch(i ordered at xmas). I dont use either of them neat so in the end i had no issues with the result.

Yeah I'm guessing the new one I got from the US is from the newer batch but time will tell I guess! I've only ever used the dye neat so could notice the difference.

I have spoken to SFX today and they have confirmed there are always slight changes with each batch but the colours should essentially be the same result on the hair as they were before.  They also spoke about the noticeable Blue Velvet differences in the pic above and said they have not made any Blue velvet for around 12-18 months so this would have to be an older bottle and that the dyes do change colour the longer they are left.  SFX say they check dyes from each batch before shipping to make sure the results are within the boundaries they have for each colour and so far each batch has been within this range.

The next batch of colours should be shipping this week so we will have a look at those too before we add them to the website.

Thanks for looking into this! Hopefully all will be ok with this next lot. 🙂