Doing root touch ups with ombre hair is simple and it’s something that you can easily do by yourself at home. In this post, I will go over the steps you need to take to refresh the roots of your ombre!

What You Will Need:

• 1 x Gloves
• 1 x Tail Comb
• Towels
• Plastic Bags
• Hair Clips
• Hairline Protector (Vaseline)
• 1x Mixing Bowl & Brush
• Hair Color
• Color Developer
• Hair Conditioner
• Large Mirror

1 – Prep Your Work Area

The first thing you want to do is set up your work area. Lay down a towel or plastic bag to prevent hair dye from getting onto your counters. If you are working over your sink,  cut a small hole in your bag to fit it around your sink nozzle while taping the corners to the edge of the counters. This will keep your bag in place. Put another bag on the ground to protect the floors.

2 – Section Your Hair

You need to section your hair into 4 sections for root touch-ups.  To achieve this, take your comb and part your hair down the middle. You should end up with two equal sides, a left side and a right side.

Beginning with your right side,  split your hair into 2 equal parts, a front, and a back. Take one of your hair clips and hold the portions in place. To finish, you’ll need to do the same thing on the left side.

3 – Protect Your Hairline and Ombre

Next, you need to protect your scalp from hair color with a hairline protector. Petroleum Jelly (a.k.a Vaseline) works great for this.

Dip your finger in your preferred hairline protector and run the ointment along your hairline. Try to keep it on your skin and not get any on your hair.

Do this all the way around your head, slathering the ointment from your front hairline, your sideburns, around your ears, and around the nape of your neck.

To protect your ombre, apply hair conditioner to sections that you do not want to be colored. The conditioner will act as a shield to the hair color and will rise off easily later when you rinse off the hair color.

4 – Mix The Hair Color

For hair color, you will need to mix the dye with a developer. The developer is an activating agent and without it, your color may not fully penetrate your hair.

Hair color and developer are always mixed at a 1:1 ratio. This means they get mixed in equal parts. For example, if you have 1 cup of hair color, you mix it with 1 cup of the developer.

For doing root touch-ups, you’re just doing roots so it will take a lot less hair color and developer than coloring all of your hair. I like to start off with 1/2 hair color and 1/2 developer. If this is your first time doing root touch-ups, it’s a good idea to use the entire package of hair color and developer. This ensures that you have enough color to work with.

Here’s What You Need To Do:

1. Measure half of your hair color and add it to a mixing bowl.
2. Measure the same amount of developer and add it to your mixing bowl.
3. Mix your hair color and developer thoroughly.

Pro Tip: To get the exact color to match your ombre, call your salon and ask your stylist what they used. They will be able to tell you the hair color name, brand, and the developer they used. Regardless of the number on your developer, whether it is 20, 30, or 40, you will always use a 1:1 mixing ratio.

5 – Apply, Wait and Rinse

The left-back and right-back sections are the hardest to do by yourself so I recommend doing those first. You will need to stand with your back facing a large mirror (like the one in your washroom). You will also need another mirror to help you see the reflection from the large mirror. I recommend hanging a small mirror in front of you.

If you do not have enough space to hang a mirror, you will need to use clips to hold your hair while you hold a mirror with one hand and apply color with the other.

Here’s What You Need To Do:

1. Starting with the left-back sections, pull your hair back to reveal a section of your roots, apply the hair color to your roots. Find where your root meets your hair color and use that as a guide of where to stop. The line doesn’t need to be exact, in fact, with ombre it’s better if it’s not! Use your comb to spread the color evenly if needed.
2. Using the tail of a tail comb, flip the sections of hair with hair color up and use hair clips to hold it in place. This will reveal another section of roots under the first layer. apply the hair color to this section as well. Repeat this process until you are satisfied that all the roots in the left-back section.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 with your right back section and both your left and right front sections.
4. Check that each section is complete and all your roots are fully covered. Usually, you’ll have to wait around 15-20 minutes for the color to fully process before you can go rinse it out.

Pro Tip: Before going straight for the shampoo, rinse your hair until the water runs completely clear. Then you can shampoo, conditioner and style as usual!