Clairol Natural Instincts Demi-Permanent Hair Dye, 5C Brass Free Medium Brown Hair Color, Pack of 3

Covers my solid white
Covers solid white nicely. You can see in one photo very gray wild hair, and the other photo white hair frames my “do-you-need-a-butt-whoopin” face. The other photos were taken a week and a half post-coloring. Two boxes every 3 weeks and the job is done. The color I use most often is Brown #5 and does a great job covering the white if the color solution is left on long enough… I have a lot of hair and one box just wasn’t cutting it.Gray came early for me and white soon followed… at 53 years old I just got tired of the white and needed a change. Sooooo… 35 minutes on the roots for box 1 and then the second box on the remainder of my hair for another 15 minutes. Done. When I followed the advised time on the box, my hair ended up very red… that’s always been how my hair holds color… red first. So I leave in much longer and it works perfectly ending up with a rich brown.The color does take a couple of washes before it looks just right to me but I get a lot of compliments from those who know me and also from those who don’t know my hair is actually white.Aside from adding extra time, the directions are simple. Put the gloves on and mix one bottle into the other bottle, give it a shake apply it to the roots first. Set your timer. It can be messy so watch out for that. Be sure to have towels at the ready for cleanup. Sometimes I use a Q-tip and put color on my eyebrows but I don’t love the results.What I do love is that overall the process is easy and straightforward. The color treatment and conditioner give me shiny healthy hair and it smells nice. I like that it fades a little over the 3 weeks and doesn’t have a hard line where the new growth is. The color never fades all the way on the full length of my hair it just lightens.This option is much better than my friends and colleagues who pay a ton of money to get their “hair did” at the salon and have a white skunk stripe down their part while waiting for next appointment… waaaaay cheaper, better coverage, and more available, as in Amazon delivers and it’s easy peasy salon hour at my kitchen sink.Note that the color still saturates differently throughout the hair because of the different shades of gray and white that is applied to. So there’s still a natural depth in the color.Lessons learned: if you’re experimenting with leaving the color on longer, the main thing is each time write down or keep track of how long you leave the color on the roots plus then the extra time on the rest of your hair… It has never harmed my hair to leave it on longer, but since I want the roots to be darker than the rest of my hair I just experiment a little bit. So try until you get the time right.When you’re doing a touchup on your roots, you definitely still want to put some through your hair at the very end of the time…don’t skip that even if it is just 5 min. If you don’t, the rest of your hair will be dull and lackluster. And during root touch-ups you definitely also do not want to leave the color on alllll of your hair the whole time that you have it on the roots. It will get super super dark, and the roots will be lighter where the color has only been once… unless that’s what you want.Update: 14-Dec-2024 the orange sweatshirt photos show day 1 of hair color. I’m not sure how it’s possible with two boxes of color, but I always find a way to miss a few random strands of silver. Also, I used a q-tip and colored my eyebrows… I did a better job this time by keeping the color exactly to the shape I wanted.Watch the forehead and temple hairline color also and it will help the results look more natural.TIMING: 30 minutes on the “new growth only aka roots” and then an additional 10 minutes for the “roots plus rest of hair”… Eyebrows 25 minutes. I keep experimenting/adjusting the time (mostly because I’m impatient) and am very very happy with the color every time.

Works for what I needed, BUT…
I have very fine, silky staticky hair that I always dyed to give some texture. I had been doing highlights for years that was showing the damage and my hair was thinning a lot. So I decided to go back to as close as my natural brown and give my hair a break from bleach. It did not seem to do more damage which is a major plus for me and the color is natural looking. However, if you have a lot of grays, you must have to leave it on a lot longer than the directions say. I just have a few right now which I don’t care to cover but it made the gray a brassy color until it faded out completely after some washes. Overall I like using this but for gray coverage it might not be what you’re looking for

Lasts a long time
This seems to last longer than the permanent hair color I was using and does not turn my hair brassy like the permanent hair color did.

Awesome toner
I purchased medium brown 5C to get rid of the orange in my diy highlights. I have dark brown Asian straight hair. I would say this medium brown is on the darker side. I did 45 minutes applied on stubborn roots only, added more onto shaft for 20 minutes, and combed through to ends for 5 minutes. Came out perfect. I should have done less time on shaft because it is a little darker than expected, but still looks good. I had been using permanent color for a long time but hate the root demarcation so after reading an article on Demi-permanent allowing the color to fade instead of the harsh line, I’m trying this for awhile to see how I like it.

herbatint was drying out my hair and going brassyi have severe Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and can use thisi like that it slowly washed out, no roots, way less brassy, i do wish it lasted a little longer though

I really liked this hair color – lasts long and covers all your greys in one application. It’s softer than most other colors I’ve used. Although the hair felt hard/ thick after 2 weeks, they gave a special conditioner in the box for that. I’m happy it fully covered all my greys in one box, and I had a lot of greys to cover. I left it on a bit longer than 45 minutes and it stained the top of my forehead. So if you have fewer greys, avoid keeping it for more than 30 minutes.

Good quality, less ammonia smell than other home dyes.