Gatsby Bubble Type Bleach & Color in Coconut Beige

The most popular bubble hair dye now is Liese. Other brands that I know have the same bubble type hair dyes are Schwarzkopf and Gatsby. My experience with Liese wasn't the best, because I chose the wrong color (Antique Rose is a dark tone), and I left the color on for too short a time for the dye to actually penetrate my then-virgin hair. (sounds a bit wrong, doesn't it?)

Gatsby Bubble Type Bleach & Color in Coconut Beige

And from what I've heard from other people, red color comes best from a salon, and is quite high maintenance. So I thought why not jump on the bandwagon and go BEIGE?

Bought two boxes in case there wasn't enough for even coverage.

A rough estimation of the prices of all three bubble hair dye brands that I know, as well as for comparison's sake (excluding discounts, etc):

• Schwarzkopf - RM34
• Liese - RM32
• Gatsby - RM28

The price was the only reason I got Gatsby, and I'm not really confident in using the regular dyes from Revlon, Schwarzkopf or L'Oreal Professional (even if Ronnie had offered to do it for me).

The box says:

Bleaches and colors hair at the same time - beautifully uniform coloring thanks to foam

Basically, the hair dye is a closely adhering gel, which easily adheres to the root of the hair and permeates every strand. After massaging, the gel transforms into a thick foam, much like Liese's formula. And the aqua fruity fragrance strongly masks the unpleasant sharp odor of bleach.

It contains four hair treatment ingredients:

• Moisturizing factor - collagen
• Gross factor - pearl extract
• Smoothing factor - silk extract
• Hair protection factor - camellia oil

The estimated final result of the Bleach & Color. The top of my head is somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd color; the middle to the ends are around the 2nd one.

The color payoff will depend on many different factors, such as the current state of your hair (previously lightened hair provides better color payoff), how long you leave the hair dye in your hair (I had a friend who left the dye on 15 minutes more, and the color was much more vibrant), humidity, the evenness of your application, etc.


Ingredients:

Solution 1 - 35ml

Water, propylene glycol, ammonium bicarbonate, ethanolamine, ammonium hydroxide, lauryl hydroxysultaine, polyquaternium-22, lauramidopropyl betaine, resorcinol, tea-cocoyl glutamate, polyquaternium-10, octyldodeceth-25, sodium sulfite, fragrance, sodium ascorbate, disodium EDTA, toluene-2, 5-diamine sulfate, 2,4-diaminophenoxyethanol HCI, camellia japonica seed oil, butylene glycol, hydrolyzed silk, hydrolyzed conchiolin protein, soluble collagen

Solution 2 - 70ml

Water, hydrogen peroxide, lauramidopropyl betaine, sodium laureth sulfate, acrylates/steareth-20 methacrylate copolymer, sodium phosphate, etidronic acid, phosphoric acid, sodium hydroxide

1. Solution 2; 2. Solution 1 (main dye solution); 3. English instruction sheet; 4. triple nozzle applicator cap (for easier application); 5. Japanese instruction sheet + rubber gloves

As usual, look through the entire sheet of instructions before proceeding (there are two of them, rather large pieces of paper, all folded up, available in English and Japanese). The instructions come with ample illustrations, as well as illustrations on the box itself, so you get the rough idea on how to use it.


Make sure you have enough time on your hands before commencing, remove all earrings or items that might stain, and if possible, get naked, get out of anywhere with many easily stained items, and drag your electronics into the bathroom for about an hour or so (just a suggestion). =D


And be sure to do this in a reasonable ventilated place - the odors could knock you out.

***

I got too excited and forgot to remove my earrings (8 of them). By the time I remembered that I still had my earrings on, I was already halfway through the application process. Oh, well. And the "aqua fruity fragrance"? Yeah, I'd have to disagree with you on that. There's still the sharp odor of ammonia (which usually comes with hair dye), but is not as strong.

Photo from Google. I'm a natural paranoid parrot.

I left it on for 45-55 minutes, as opposed to the suggested 30 minutes (in Hokkien, we call this "kiasu" - scared of losing). I'm too bloody paranoid to just leave it in for 30 minutes, and then get less color payoff than I expected.


After a while the bubbles faded, and what's left was just a my hair, sodden in dye solution, piled on top of my head. Instead of the "massage gently" instructions, I rubbed it in as I would with regular shampoo, just with a little more attention to the little hairs than usual.

Original hair color - natural daylight.

Original hair color - indirect daylight.

My original hair color (plus a little bit of Antique Rose left from my previous failed DIY dye job) is what you could call a rich, deep mahogany brown with subtle tones of, well, Antique Rose that kind of gives my hair the "highlighted" effect when light shines on it from certain angles.

After dyeing - natural daylight.

After dyeing - indirect daylight.

I only used one box, as opposed to my original plan of using two boxes to get better coverage. Actually, I'm quite happy with the final result - for me it's not much of a difference, since it's still another brown, but it's a different brown. Which is more than enough!


The final effect was more of a coconut-y brown, and according to my mother, significantly lighter than the original color. As in the husk of a coconut, which is dark brown, but lighten it a few shades. The color doesn't show up much in photos, but in person, it's quite light, especially when it catches light.


All in all, pretty lovin' this color. I think I left it on for a tad too long, though, 'cause my hair now feels pretty dry, and gets tangled pretty easily. (Duh, I left it on almost twice as long as recommended, and this is a bleach-and-dye product).


And again, the ends ended up darker than the top. I have to do some research to figure out WHY this is happening. Anyhow, this product gets pretty good reviews from me. Liese left a rather strong ammonia scent on my hair after the dye job; Gatsby too, but the fruity scent was strong enough to mask most of the ammonia.


Repurchase? Perhaps. Maybe a different color the next time~