New Box Dye Could Melt Your Hair Off — Consider Yourself Warned

Love the pastel hair that's SO trendy right now? Then colorists want you to know — do NOT try to get it yourself by using do-it-yourself hair dye. The drugstore brand being singled out as bad news? L'Oreal Feria Smokey Pastels.

Two weeks ago, colorist Sydniiee Oliveira of Visalia, California, posted a little PSA about the popular hair dye on Instagram. It was pretty to the point:

�ATTENTION� This is to all you ladies even THINKING about trying one of these devil boxes on your hair. DONT YOU F***ING DARE!!! Your hair will melt right off your damn head if you even try to fix whatever it is this might do to you, and I will for damn sure not touch your hair if you even try it. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE!!! Thank you.�� #behindthechair #behindthechairpics #modernsalon #americansalon #hairbrained #unicorntribe #hotonbeauty #1minutehair

A photo posted by Sydniiee O (@sydniiee) on Jan 4, 2016 at 7:16pm PST

Naturally, social media blew up. In a follow-up post, Oliveira explained her vehement warning with a teensy bit more vivid detail.

So I made this PSA 2 days ago and it blew up all over social media!!! I'm kicking myself now because I didn't put my name on it cause apparently it's everywhere without credit to me for making itð���ð��� but oh well! Here's the "WHY" Box dyes(particularly this brand) contain chemicals that don't mix well with other salon chemicals. I NEVER said THIS will melt your hair off. I said whatever you try to do to FIX what this does after you use it, will melt your hair off. I have seen it with my own eyes many times before! Literal heating, smoking, and melting of the hair because this was on it before a color correction had to be done. You know when you go to a doctor and they tell you not to smoke and they tell you what's going to happen if you do, and then you choose to smoke anyway…..That's pretty much the same thing as a hair dresser telling you not to use box dye and you doing it anyway because you just want to, and then all the bad stuff happens just like we said. It might not be immediate, but it will happen. So use at your own risk and don't be mad when we say "I told you so" ¯\_(ã��)_/¯ ð��� #wella #wellahair #wellalife #wellalove #wellaeducation #calooks #salon #visalia #559 #modernsalon #americansalon #hairbrained #behindthechairpics #behindthechair #hotonbeauty #unicorntribe #1minutehair #braidsbalayageandbolds #brazilianbondbuilder #b3 #colorcorrection

A photo posted by Sydniiee O (@sydniiee) on Jan 6, 2016 at 8:57am PST

And Oliveira isn't the only colorist warning clients — or well, actually, EVERYONE — off using this hair dye. Stephanie Johnson, a licensed beauty professional, trained cosmetology educator, certified Pravana master colorist, and color correction specialist at Deep Ellum Hair Studio in Dallas, Texas, shared Oliveira's post, too.

"Why? Because it's a bad idea," Johnson tells The Stir.

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Let's start with the inherent risk of using any OTC hair dye. "Box color caters to the masses," Johnson explains. "They have to make something that can, hopefully, take care of the law of averages. The problem is, you can't do that with hair color, because everyone has different hair and different previous color and different lifting ratio and needs."

Know what a "chemical haircut" is? Johnson does, all too well. "It's hairdresser slang for someone whose hair was melted or burned off by overprocessing," she says. "They're not pretty."

Those adorable Easter-egg pastels are "NOT something to try to achieve without a professional," warns Johnson. "That particular shade of blonde needed to make pastels happen is riding the cusp of when hair is still great to when it's going to have to be cut off. Professionals who work in color regularly know this line — and [it's] different for everyone."

True, it's soooo much cheaper to buy a box of L'Oreal vs. paying a LOT more for a professional to pastel your hair. "But when you're paying someone like me, you're paying for my thousands of hours of education and experience to know that line and how to dance on it to give you what you need along with something you want," Johnson says.

She's not kidding, BTW. Check out some of Johnson's pretty spectacular pastel work.

Johnson has plenty of color correction horror stories — including a recent client who drove nearly FIVE hours to have Johnson fix her hair.

"We thankfully did, but I have to often have talks with people about what happened," Johnson says. "Those box dyes have disaster written all over them."

 Images via iStock.com/kot2626; Stephanie Johnson