Product Review: Fudge Violet Toning Shampoo & Conditioner

I have had many hair colorists over the years and I always preface the event with one caveat: DO NOT TURN MY HAIR RED. Nothing against red hair, it’s lovely on natural redheads and certain skin tones…but I am/have neither of those things and on me it just looks BAD. Were you a 70s teen? Remember Sun-In?? Nuff said.

And yet…almost every trip to the colorist ends up with me still seeing red! It may not be immediately afterwards in the salon…it may be later in my car with the sunroof open and the sunlight shining down on my newly colored bangs…it may be a week or so later…but I am *always* disappointed.

Not long ago I had a conversation about this with a friend and she said yes, hair dye oxidizes and turns “brassy.” Oh. Oh? I’d heard the term before but never really connected it with my issue, but once I heard her say that I thought, brassy, that’s a good description. I have naturally dark blonde/light brown ashy hair. And that’s the color I WANT. I color to cover the greys…sooo many greys…and not a GOOD grey, some people can really pull that look off, but not me. ANYWAY. I want to color my hair to as close to its natural color as possible. Not Sun-In Yellowy Orangey Red.

Just a few weeks after that another friend colored her hair, bleached it to a much lighter blonde than it had previously been…and the shade was not quite right to her, so she went to Ulta to investigate…and a salesperson there told her that the water here on Long Island causes hair dyes to oxidize and that using a violet shampoo (because purple is the opposite of orange on the color spectrum) will help take out the…BRASSY tones. There was that word again. But she tried the violet shampoo…and it helped! I was encouraged. She had bought the last bottle of magic hair fixer at Ulta so I started doing research online for violet “brassiness fixing” shampoos…and found some YouTube videos with super fans of a product called “Fudge.” And EVERY good girl deserves fudge, so…I ordered a bottle of shampoo and conditioner and anxiously awaited its arrival from the UK.

In the meantime, my hair has gotten lighter and lighter as I’ve been in the sun…and has been turning a particularly unattractive shade of light yellowy greyish-brown (if I saw a paint this color I would probably call it “Diarrhea Brown”).

So, Today is the Day to test out the magic and see if it helps…I took a couple before pictures….and then headed to the shower…

This is the magic…

This is what’s inside the bottle, oooohhhh ahhhhhh…

This is what it looked like on my head for 5 minutes….

And this…is the Ta-Da! AFTER!!!

Okay, was it MAGIC? Uhm, no. Did it make a DIFFERENCE? I think yes. Granted, it was hard to show before and after pictures that were truly comparing apples to apples. In the before, my hair hadn’t been shampooed in two days and it always looks lighter the longer it goes without washing. Also, the light was a little different an hour later when we did the after pictures…AND I think more grey shows when I have my hair up cuz there’s more grey underneath. That said, I STILL think my hair looks closer to brown than yellow in the after pictures. And it might have some residual build-up over time, as well.

But aside from the color magic is this…you know when you color your hair at home out of a box? And you get that teeny tiny little trial size conditioner? And it’s like the best conditioner EVER? But you can only get it with hair color and it’s only enough for one hair washing?? THIS CONDITIONER FELT LIKE THAT!!!!! My hair felt like MERMAID hair in the shower as I was rinsing out the conditioner, it was lovely. And it’s SUPER soft now and smells really really good.

It was a little on the expensive side, but not horrendously so…I got it from Feel Unique  (also available here and here) it was $27 for the two bottles, plus $3 shipping. I got the package in about 10 days. To extend the supply, I think I’ll just use it once a week.

I do see similar products locally, Clairol makes one called Shimmer Lights, which is about $4 less per bottle and can probably be found here on Amazon.

But I definitely give this product, Fudge Clean Blonde Violet Toning Shampoo & Conditioner, a thumbs up.

And you know what kills me? All the years of me complaining to salon colorists about my reddish hair, and not one ever mentioned a product like this to me! It took a salesperson at Ulta (GO ULTA!) to spread the word.

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