I've been coloring my hair for over 25 years. I've done the box color and I've done the salon thing. I didn't feel the salon color was worth the money, nor the time it took to take care of my gray issue when I could do it myself and save a lot of money and time, especially when I was paying for a complete color and she was only doing a root touch-up.
My personal preference is Perfect 10 -- love it! It's so easy to use and really does only take 10 minutes once you have it applied.
Let me share my personal tips for coloring your own hair. I color mine in my smallest bathroom with the exhaust fan on. I cover the entire bathroom, sink, toilet, and floor with newspapers because no matter how carefuul you are, you are probably going to drip some of the hair color and once it's dripped on something, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to remove. Then when I'm done coloring, I wrap up everything in the newspapers and then it all goes into the trash. Do not keep any leftover hair color you may not have used. For the price, you can afford to dispose of it. Plus, it always says on the box to not keep it -- never have tried it, so don't know the consequences.
I have what I call hair coloring clothes -- old pair of shorts and an old tank top and a towel I could care less about and either a binder clip or a clothes pin. I wrap the towel around my shoulders and use either the clothes pin or binder clip to hold the towel around my neck -- I hope that makes sense.
Be very careful to not get the hair color in your eyes -- It can be very painful and you end up wasting time trying to flush your eyes with cold water, hoping and praying you don't over-process your hair. Obviously, I speak from experience on this tip.
I rinse my hair color out in the kitchen sink and use a clean towel on my hair once I've rinsed the color out and applied the conditioner that is usually in the box.
Then I dry and style as usual.
Hope this helps.
