Madeleine's Twisted Pages

Colour wash

This is a gentle yet effective way to apply regular temporary dye (the kind that survives six to eight shampoos at the most).

My favourite temporary dye is Wella Color Fresh liquid. "Liquid" is important because they also have the same product as a cream and mousse. Since both of those contain SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) which I try to avoid and the liquid doesn't I stick with the liquid. A cream would probably work as well for the colour wash, a mousse might, but wouldn't be as economical. Most temporary dye liquids should do.

The cleansing power of those dyes is greatly underestimated. They foam and wash just as well as any shampoo, so shampooing beforehand is a waste of time and product and likely results in overstripping. The colour wash is almost as easy as simple shampooing:

wet down dirty hair
wearing gloves, lather up some dye between your hands and apply to the scalp and roots like shampoo. You're likely to need about twice as much as regular shampoo to obtain even coverage (but that's nothing compared with the amount of product you need when applying it unlathered straight from the bottle as the directions say).
take a little more dye, lather, and run your fingers through the length. Carefully comb through with a wide toothed comb for even distribution. Bun or clip hair out of the way.
lather up some more dye and apply all around the hair line with a dye brush.
let sit as long as directions say (usually 20 - 30 minutes)
add a little water and scalp massage to actually wash the hair
rinse and condition as usual.

You should be able to cover all of your hair evenly with significantly less than half the amount of dye you'd need if you applied it straight from the bottle. If you lather the liquid yourself this is much more economical than dye foam from the same company, which usually contains way less product and lots of "air". If you "wash" with it instead of just applying and rinsing it's faster and less drying because you can skip the shampoo.
You can also use temporary dye to perk up your natural or permanent shade by using it exactly like regular shampoo, just wash, rinse, condition - it won't change your colour, but intensify it and add shine. The "wash in - wash out" single sachet dyes are really nothing different, they're just more expensive.

I do a colour wash every couple of weeks, once or twice in between henna treatments. It's nice to be able to play around with different shades without causing any harm at all.

Important: On light blonde / bleached / gray / damaged hair, temporary dye might become hard to wash out or even permanent, no matter how you apply it. Be careful, especially with dark shades.