I have been wanting to color my hair something FUN for years. My hair naturally dark, dark brown (okay, and some gray, silver, GLITTER), most people mistake it for black. When I started getting more glittery strands, and it got to be too much for me I started just dying it dark brown only to cover them up. But I coveted all of those gorgeous colors I'd see. I've been considering it, but I'm so afraid of bleaching my hair and to be honest with as fast as my hair grows, I'm just not sure I'm up for the never ending, far too frequent, upkeep. It's all I can do to keep up with my glitter.
Enter, SECRET COLOR. I wasn't ready for the commitment of dying my hair pink, but adding a pop of color with Demi Lovato's Secret Color? I can do that! Plus, I can switch out my color anytime I want in seconds. It's SO easy! You can choose from pink, red, purple, and blue. You can wear them on their own, or even layer multiple colors. They say to only layer two, but hey, be a rule breaker if you want. I don't see why you couldn't do more other than the bands being more noticeable.
I forgot to take a picture of the hair itself before I excitedly put it in my hair. So, I will have to come back and edit this later with one of those. :D It was interesting to unbox though. It comes in a protective hair net, but it was a little hard to get it out of the netting and it kept getting all tangled together. Also, it kinda looks like a beard. Like a crazy colored Santa Beard. It made me laugh.
There are no clips or pins or picks to worry about placing correctly in your hair. I don't know about you all but, clip in extensions have never worked for me. My hair will just not hold a random pin on the underside where you can't see it. I could use them in a ponytail or something like that, but not just with my hair down. Secret Color is very brightly colored, and I feel like it's pretty natural feeling and looking, for fake hair anyway...the hair is attached to a thin, clear headband.
You simply place the headband on the top of your head, and then pull your hair through so the color peeks out from underneath. You can vary how much hair you pull through (all of it, half of it, etc) to control how much color you see peek through, and whether you see most of it when you're looking at your face, and almost none from behind, or if you see quite a bit from behind/all around. You can brush your hair with it in place to help mix it in as well.
The band is clear elastic, which does blend in but I think it blends better with lighter colored hair. It also depends on the lighting. In a very bright light, early morning sun in the picture below, there can be some reflection going on because it's shiny and that definitely makes it more noticeable. I'm actually tempted to color mine to match my natural hair color except for a small bit at the top where my hair parts, but I will get to how I did manage to cover it up mostly in a minute.
I do wish they offered different size headbands, as my 9 year old daughter was very excited to see this come in the mail, but was disappointed that it was a tad too big for her head. We could have pinned it down and made it work but she wasn't comfortable with it feeling loose and didn't want to try. Perhaps another time she'll let me, because as I was playing with it in my own hair, and figuring out how best to keep the clear band from showing, I decided to loop my own hair around the band. I've seen this done with other headbands before to create a beautiful look on it's own, but I didn't go to much trouble to do more than camouflage the band. I imagine you could really create a stunning hairstyle though if you play around with it. Anyway, I looped my own hair through it and not only did that mostly hide the band, but it anchors the band in place. It's not moving from my head unless I want it to. I didn't notice any slipping or moving around anyway, but it does feel more secure this way. A couple of criss crossed bobby pins are another option to secure it and keep hair covering where you want it to.
Another option if you simply do not want the band showing at all, is to just place another headband over it. I love using hair scarves! Another option would be to just put it under your bangs. I didn't try that yet, but I will. I imagine placing it under my bangs, and just pinning the sides up a little would make it nearly invisible.
The extensions are 14" long, so if your hair is very long these obviously won't reach to the bottom of your hair. My hair is about 3-4" longer than the Secret Color but I still think it looks just fine. You can cut these as well if your hair is shorter. I barely feel them at all once I've got them in, they're not bulky or heavy and a plus to the headband being the size that it is, it has stretch to it if needed, but at least on my head, it's not at all tight so I don't think I'll have to ever worry about the dreaded "headband headache."
You CAN and should wash these, the packaging says every 5-7 times to wear them. Just put them in a silk or basin full of lukewarm water and a bit of shampoo. I'd probably use baby shampoo since it's more gentle. You should also make sure to brush them out, but only when they are dry.
It is SO fast and easy to make a change! You can even curl these or flat iron them (just don't exceed 300f), work them into a ponytail, or braid them into your hairstyles. You could even ponytail or braid it before you put it in and then keep it to one side for just a chunky streak. It will take some trail and error to get styling with these right so the headband isn't glaringly obvious. I haven't tried curling them yet, but I almost never curl my hair anyway so I like them straight. I received a free sample of these to facilitate this review, but I'm SOLD. I will be purchasing the other colors. Hopefully in the future they'll expand the line, because I'd love an aqua/turquoise, or a lilac, maybe a pastel pink... Or SILVER, ahhh I could totally do a Lily Munster thing with a silver!
My daughter said with the pink, I look like Draculaura!
If you think you might like to try these, you can get them directly from Secret Color for $19.99 plus $5.99 s&h (no matter how many you buy), they are sold at Walmart, and you can get them at Amazon (where, as Amazon goes, the price varies but seems to be lower than anywhere else, right now most are priced around $13, with Prime shipping!).
