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The way hair dyes function and the ingredients that create the dyes do not differ between inexpensive products and those found in salon products. The major difference and this is fairly major, is that a professional colorist can custom blend a specific color and control the amount of peroxide used.
If there are ingredient differences, no on in the industry, and none of the ingredient manufacturers or cosmetics chemists, seem to know about it. The myth that salon products are better than the ones at drugstores is asserted as a fact by every hairdresser I've ever interviewed, despite the lack of evidence or sources. The same ingredients that change hair color are used repeatedly throughout the industry. In fact, all makers of the major drugstore color lines also make the hair-coloring products widely used by salons.
There are also many reasons to get your hair colored at a hair salon, including the mess (it's theirs and not yours), the skill of the technician, and, perhaps the most important of all, the benefit of your stylist's experience. It is great to just have the stylist make the decisions and do the work while you sit back and read a magazine. Professional hair coloring products can be blended in myriad of combinations and in multiple processes to create unique and attractive colors. Hairstylists can perform coloring techniques that would be impossible at home. For example, a talented technician can dye your hair a particular color and then put in a corresponding highlight with a foil. I would never in a million years suggest a woman try that at home herself.
Regardless of whether you dye your hair yourself or have it done at the salon, achieving exactly the color you want can be tricky, even with the most talented colorist. It is so easy to make a mistake. Even at the salon, all it takes is misjudging how porous or nonporous your hair is, under-processing or over-processing the hair, choosing the wrong color so your hair is too dark or not light enough, or adding the wrong tone to your hair is more orange than golden. And you can make all the same slip-ups as the salon experts.
You may be pleasantly surprised to learn that statistics indicate women who color their hair at home are as pleased (or displeased) with their results as women who have their hair dyed at a salon. A quick review of any chat room or web site bulletin board about hair care will find lots of people sharing salon horror stories. I have a few of my own! That isn't surprising given how very tricky dyeing hair is.
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