Purple Semi Permanent Hair Dye Range

Purple and lilac semi-permanent hair dye: which to pick

Purple covers a lot of ground here, from an ink-dark violet to a lilac so soft it barely registers on anything but bleached hair. Four are buyable right now.

Violet: dark purple hair dye, open to pre-order

Violet has been relaunched in a new 100ml tube with new photography. Same formula, bigger tube. You can pre-order it now and it ships in late October. It's the darkest purple we make, closer to violet ink than to a lilac, and it's the one to choose if you want purple that still reads as purple on a mid-brown base instead of sinking into the hair. On pre-lightened hair it comes out saturated and leans slightly blue.

Bright purple, pastel purple and lilac hair dye, in stock now

Purple is the bright one, an unapologetic mid-purple that ships today. Soft Violet is lighter and still strong, and it's what people buy when they want pastel purple. Heather is our lilac, a pale pink-lilac with only a trace of purple in it when you look closely. All three are in stock and go out straight away in the boxed 70ml size with gloves.

Why pastel purple and lilac need a bleached base

Soft Violet and Heather only do what the photograph shows on hair lightened to a pale blonde. On unbleached brown they'll give you a faint tint at best, and that's worth knowing before you buy rather than after. Violet and bright Purple are more forgiving and will show something on mid-brown, though not the shade on the tube. If you need to lighten first, the hair bleach kits are ours and come with everything in the box. To be clear about the question we get most: none of our semi-permanent dyes will cover white or grey hair.

How long purple hair dye lasts and how it fades

Five to seven washes on unbleached hair, up to about fifteen on pre-lightened hair. Purple fades in a way most people are happy with, losing the blue side first and drifting towards a warmer pink-mauve rather than going muddy. Heather and Soft Violet go faster because there's less pigment in them to start with. Wash cool, use a sulphate-free shampoo, and leave as long as you can between washes.

Mixing your own purple

Every Stargazer colour apart from the silver and white toners blends with the others, so if none of the four is exactly right you can make what you want. Violet with a little Magenta leans plum. Violet cut with Soft Violet gives you a mid purple you can control the depth of. There's no ammonia, no peroxide and no PPDs in any of them. Wear gloves, and strand test, always.

If you're after something cooler, the blue semi-permanent hair dye range is the next stop, and the pink hair dye range is where the warmer end lives. The full semi-permanent hair dye range has everything we currently stock, and if lightening comes first, start with the hair bleach range.