Hello friends! I apologize for my hiatus over the past few months. Unfortunately all the uncertainty surrounding COVID did a number on my productivity. Not to mention, I haven’t purchased new skin care or hair care products lately; I’ve been sticking to my tried-and-true holy grails!

In a desperate bid to stop myself from using Wella’s T-18 on my hair to cancel out the brassiness, I picked up a few products from Hair Chemist. One of those products was their Brassiness Hair Mask, which despite a few drawbacks worked fantastically well. I also grabbed the pictured brassiness hair oil, that didn’t cost more than $3. There were rave reviews on Sally’s website for this product.

The product itself a standard oil with an incredibly enticing lavender smell. The oil isn’t too heavy or too light, so it’s easy to work with and work through the hair. One of the first things I noticed, though, was that the “lavender” color leans more to the blue side than the purple, which suggests it might be better for orange-brass rather than yellow-brass.

I’ve trial-and-errored this product a few different ways. The first was to apply a light layer over my brassiest spots of blonde after toweling my hair dry, and pulled it through all the way to the ends with a comb and let it dry. I’ve also tried sleeping with this product in overnight, and washing it out in the morning. Regardless of application, the end result was generally the same.

The orange spots were neutralized, but it didn’t really turn brown or dark-blonde as I would have expected — it turned… grey. I wasn’t a fan. As for the level 10 pieces of blonde, they turned light blue. Again, this means the yellow was also technically neutralized, and the light blue did eventually fade into white, but was dang hard to get it to wash out! It took several days before I stopped seeing the blue-tinted hues in my hair.

For me personally, the oil was a bit too heavy and I didn’t like how my hair felt after any of the applications. It didn’t feel moisturized or healthy — just greasy, and overly-dry at the spots where the oil didn’t absorb. I wonder if it would be a better product for more coarse or curly hair. It might work more effectively for level 8 or 9 hair as well, or anyone who is looking for their neutralized effect to skew more gray/silver/dark brown than bright white.

Though brassiness hair oil did not work for me, I would totally consider buying a lighter, colorless version of this oil just for the smell… ~A

Perceived efficacy: For bright white hair, 2/5. For neutralizing orange, 3.75/5

Longevity: 4/5

How much I actually like this product: 1.5/5