Root Touch Up Colours Made Easy With Express Retouch By Garnier

We all know there are seven colours in a rainbow and most of us remember from art lessons at school that there are three primary colours.

So far, so simple, but have you ever deliberated for months about which colour to paint your living room? You know the scenario; you go to the DIY shop and pick up a colour chart with crazy, whimsical names like ‘Elephant's Graveyard’, ‘Reclining Flamingo’, ‘Suffolk Sludge’, ‘Egg White’... and your confusion begins. 

To solve the riddle, you buy a collection of little tester pots and you paint a few patches on your perfectly acceptable 'magnolia' walls, leaving them to dry while you think about it ...for the next three years. Friends pop by and are only too happy to offer their opinion, which confuses you even more; it might even spark a domestic dispute. 

If only the paint manufacturers would just make our lives simpler and say, "Here, these are our five colours, there are only five colours – pick one". It would save an awful lot of time. Which brings us to Express Retouch by Garnier, an amazing new root touch up product that helps conceal your roots. How?

• It ends the horror of tell-tale grey roots appearing between salon visits or home colouring sessions.
• There are five different shades.

“Only five shades!” you exclaim. Surely, hair comes in a million different colours! 

You're right, it does, but the art of colouring hair and retouching grey roots is one of deception, of tricking the eye. When we buy permanent or semi-permanent hair colour, perhaps to disguise those first greys, we rarely find an exact match for our natural colour. Most people, if they're not going for a complete change of colour, simply choose the closest shade. If you're adding colour as highlights, likewise, you choose a shade that's complementary. Because hair is not one single flat colour, it can be a whole range of tones and they vary according to the length of your hair. Even those of us with very dark hair will notice a difference between colours at the ends and close to the scalp.

Hair colour varies constantly as the light changes too; think of those sample patches of wall paint. In natural sunlight or under electric light, a white can look 'hard' or 'soft', creamy or milky, blueish or yellowy. Equally, black can often look blue or grey. Interestingly, grey hair is usually pigment-free; it's simply the light reflecting off and refracting through the hair shaft that makes it look that grey. 

The fact that there is so much colour variation plays to your advantage because your roots are close to your scalp where the light plays very differently; a close but not necessarily exact match will deceive the eye very well indeed. That's why, with just five root touch up colours, we hope that you'll be able to find the right root retouch shade for you.

Which colour should I use?

Choose the one that is closest to your existing shade, even if that shade is the result of colouring your hair. The shades available are: Black, Dark Brown, Brown to Light Brown, Dark Blonde and Light Blonde. The most important factor to consider is, “How light or dark is my hair?” So, for example, if you have red hair, is it dark auburn or veering towards strawberry blonde? If it's the former, you might have more natural- looking results with one of the browns. Whereas with the latter, one of the blonde shades will work best. 

You'll probably know instinctively which of our root touch up colours is right for you, but if you're not sure, ask for advice when you're in-store. 

Above all, enjoy your new look and the liberating sense of freedom from not having to book in to see your colourist every few weeks. Express Retouch is a root touch up pen that is instant, with immediate results that dry in minutes; it gives up to 100% grey root coverage and it's very easy to use on the go thanks to the clever cushion applicator (which also gives you precise control and the handy size means it pops easily into a handbag). So, go on, pick your shade, maybe it'll inspire you to finally finish painting the living room!