Garnier Olia Permanent Hair Dye, No Ammonia, Full Grey Coverage, Long-lasting Colour & Shine, Vegan Formula, Colour: 1.0 Deep Black, 230g

Brilliant, first ever time using a box dye, I’ve always gone to a salon and had bleach foils, felt like a wanted a break and a change. This has turned out perfect and very close to my natural colour. Also has left my hair feeling very healthy and soft

Such a bright, stunning colour - I'm often complimented on my hair colour when it's recently been dyed with Olia 7:40. One pack is not enough for my thick hair, even after I've just had it cut to shoulder length, so I always buy two. But at this price, it's still way cheaper than getting a hairdresser to dye it, so I have no complaints about the price at all. The colour is vibrant, the product is easy to use, and it works very quickly. I have not had any issues at all with skin staining - with other brands in the past I've had coloured patches on my neck, face and forehead for a couple of days after dyeing my hair, but that never happens with this brand. The colour lasts a long time - it is permanent, though the vibrancy decreases a tiny bit with each wash. My natural hair colour is 'mouse' but this dye is so permanent, even when it's long-faded you can see the difference between my mousey roots and the dyed lengths. It fades to a soft peachy 'strawberry blonde' which I can live with quite happily.

great hair dye,very easy to use,covered my hair perfect .i bought the black dye.no nasty chemical smell when useing.comes with gloves as well as a colour cream..arrived fast and well packaged thank you

I like the product, it was easy to apply. I'm out of practice with hair dyes, having not used a home kit for quite a while, so I was quite impressed that I didn't drip dye everywhere when I applied it. Also, it was fabulous not to have the eye watering ammonia on my head for half an hour. Plus, there was very little skin staining (although I did apply Vaseline to the hot spots on my ears and forehead/hairline. Less positive was that I wasn't aware that I would need two boxes for my mid length and average thickness hair on the first application The results were really patchy along the lengths of my hair with some areas where I'd clearly not applied enough. I had to buy a second box and reapply it. I'd like to think that now I have the "base colour", I wouldn't need to top up my colour with two packs in future, but I don't know about that one until I try it. Also, the resultant colour is a very reddish shade of purple and really quite dark on my mid brown hair. It's taken the shade of my hair to a much darker brown and the purple is not overly noticeable without having full light on it. It kind of just looks a very, very dark brown in dark lighting. I think I expected something a little more vivid on my hair based on the box images. It's a nice colour, don't get me wrong, but it's not very close to expectations and darker than I wanted. I might or might not choose this shade again, but I think the product itself is very good. I really don't know why manufacturers can't make our lives easier and produce a larger product size for first time applications or longer, thicker hair, instead of us needing to buy two boxes to get the results! Anyway, I've bought a different brand with a different purple to try once this colour fades; I don't doubt I'll be less impressed with the ammonia though!

used to dye my brown hair with highlights. had to use two boxes as i could slightly see the highlights still after one box but the colour is as shown. the quality is perfect and hair feels smooth.

This was the first time I dyed my hair and I made the brave decision to do it myself (as I was bored during Lockdown). It was really simple, easy to mix and apply on the hair. It comes with the instructions and you can just follow that. I actually wanted a subtle balayage finish and therefore didn’t use the bottle provided. I instead had a mixing bowl and a brush and cut up some foil to replicate what they do at salons. There’s a lot of YouTube videos that you can find that do just that. I watched a lot of different ones, and for my hair type before doing it myself. I definitely recommend checking them out if your not experienced in dying your hair. As for the result, I was quite happy. Firstly because I have very dark brown hair (almost looks black), it’s the darkest shade you can have, so I knew seeing any colour without bleach/lightning would be close to impossible. I therefore just wanted to experiment with a colour that was very bright and just on the ends of my hair. (So if it did look awful I could just chop the ends off). The first time I attempted it, the colour came out brown, and looked lighter in some shades of light but it was difficult to catch on camera. Sometimes there was shades of red and purple. It basically changed everyday, getting lighter. I wanted to see more result and therefore bought another box, and repeated the process. This time the result was noticeable in any light. I achieved a brown/ginger red tone to my ends. I was happy with this, the technique I used also made sure it was a gradual blend upwards so it didn’t look bad. I also have curly/wavy, hair so it’s easier to cover up mistakes then on straight hair. My hair is thick so I needed more product and bought more boxes. I used three in total, two in on go and one just by itself. The second time I left it longer than recommended and that worked on my hair a lot better. I think it’s best to just rinse and dry one piece of hair and see if the colours shows as you want it, if not then leave it for longer. I also wanted to really experiment with this colour and see what it would look like on my roots (I definitely don’t recommend anyone to try this), but I ended up with hot roots. (It’s not the fault of the product, but just something I wanted to try to see how the colour would look on me if I had lighter hair). I’ve bought this brought in 5.3 in golden brown too, to complete the balayage look. (It was the same price at Tesco). In all I’m very happy with the product and the experimenting was fun. Pros: - No smell of dye - Easy application - Quick results - Lots of colours to pick from - Good price - Decent size (unless u have long thick hair, you’ll need more). - Long lasting colour Cons: - My hair became very dry gradually. You have to keep on top of conditioning your hair and use hair serums and oils to keep the smoothness. I have frizzy hair and I needed to do more caring for my hair afterwards. Although the immediate result will give you very smooth shiny hair, after 5-6 washes it became dry. There is however enough conditioner to last you a while. Just don’t forget to use it. - ALERT: Does not cover greys ! (I have a couple greys it did not cover them, it did however colour my brown hair).

Tuis is normally my favourite home dye but disappointed with this colour. This is a lovely colour but it is definitely not permanent, nothing like. It fades with very wash, and after only 2 washes my hair is mainly blond (not my natural colour so it almost like is dye’s blond then red over it🤷🏻‍♀️). The copper dye sticks around on the roots the most, so it does look a bit strange pretty quickly. I used 3 times hoping to build the colour up but it’s not working so I’ll try a different brand.

My previous colour: Before I dyed it, my hair had a few inches of my natural dark brown colour and the rest, past my shoulders was a very light gingery brown with some of the ends so white they almost were see-through. Was there enough dye for even coverage? I got two boxes to be safe. I have very thick curly afro 3c/4a hair that is touching my shoulder blades when stretched and had to use one box per side of my head. It was only just enough to do my whole head but everyone is different. I recently used Garnier Olia in a red shade to dye my caucasian friend's straight hair which is way past her shoulders and one box was just enough for the entire head. If you aren't sure, always get an extra one at the ready otherwise you may end up with a patchy colour. The colour/result: Overall, I was very pleased. I was looking for a brown as dark as possible without going black because black looks very fake on my skin-tone. The colour did come out black like some reviewers on other sites like Boots pointed out, but I'm still happy because I knew what I was signing up for and know it will fade over time and I wanted it as dark as possible initially. Under bright lights it does look dark brown, otherwise it looks very black. But I'm happy because it is incredibly shiny and looks healthier than it did before. This was my main reason for attempting to go back to my natural colour, though my hair is healthy, the light colour was making my hair look thinner and drier than it was. Further comments: I highly recommend not using the bottle they give you. Other reviews have pointed out it is a very cute tear drop design but incredibly hard to hold. It wouldn't say it was that hard but it definitely doesn't help when you're trying to move quickly and not drop dye everywhere. Use the gloves and apply it by hand or with a tint brush after pouring it into a hair dye mixing bowl (or one you don't mind staining). This way you can get every last drop and it is very easy to apply. It did get on my shoulders and back but came right off when I had a shower, I got a tiny drop on one of my painted walls and it isn't coming off but I have done this before and it does fade completely over time if you wipe it off the minute you get it on there. Would I recommend it? In short, yes. It smells significantly nicer than any other dye I've used before which smell strongly of ammonia. If you're particularly sensitive to those scents I definitely recommend the dye for this. It took to my whole head, even though my colour was very uneven before I dyed it, the dye gave an even shade all over without looking fake or blocky. But I'd warn that if you're looking for something make your hair dark brown, you might want to go a shade lighter otherwise you're going to get black.