Colour me....beautiful?

ColourB4, available from Boots and Superdrug RRP 10.20

Like most of us, I don't actually remember what my natural hair colour shade is. Since I decided to stripe my way to popularity with some horrendous home-styled highlights at the age of 16 I've dyed my hair regularly. I've been brunette, bottle bleach blonde, dark purple, plum and even red (although this was another DIY disaster and completely unintentionally) and have damaged it in the process. After several restoring keratin treatments and emergency trips to the hairdressers (I must not dye my own hair, I must not dye my own hair, I must not...) I finally reached a colour I was happy with although gone are the days of my natural dark blonde locks....or so I thought.

ColourB4, created by colour expert and stylist Scott Cornwall, promises to 'undo home hair colour mistakes' and after a few sceptical glances of the box in Boots last week (I found it hard to believe a product with NO ammonia or bleach would be able to successfully strip your hair of colour) I decided to give it a try. You apply all over the hair, much in the same way you would with hair dye kits at home, and leave on the hair for twenty minutes. The product aims to shrink the artificial dye molecules that are contained within the hair.

Although my hair was still darker than usual (I used my passport picture circa late 90s to gage what my natural shade was!) I noticed an immediate difference. My hair was stripped of the aggresive dark build up from my ends and the roots were visibily more lighter. It provides an ideal base to re-colour too so your next colour is even in shade and tone. I re-dyed my hair to a luscious plum colour the next day and was made up with the results - after years of damage and colouring fresh colour always looked uneven and there was a build up of dark colour on the ends but after using ColourB4 the new colour was even and glossy.

OVERALL CONCLUSION: Four stars out of five - I shall definitely be keeping a box of this in my ever-expanding beauty cupboard for those DIY colour disasters in the future, although it did dry my hair out a little so be sure to use a rich moisturiser afterwards to keep your hair silky soft!