BEAUTY: Natural Instincts Malaysian Cherry

After (sorta) recently jumping back on the hair dye wagon, I've done some semi-permanent experimenting with Natural Instincts hair dye. I'm not totally ready to go back to the permanent dye game just yet, so I'm sticking with what appears to be the only drugstore options for those, like me, that are afraid of hair color commitment. I'm trying to avoid the long term grow-out phase that is inherent with permanent dyes, but the dismal selection of semi-permanent options is making the case for permanent color a pretty strong one. 

I'm all about red hair, high maintenance as it may be, and while there are a handful of red and reddish shades in the Natural Instincts family, very few (sometimes NONE) are sold in most of my local stores. What's up, Natural Instincts? Got a beef with (outrageously fake) redheads? It sure seems that way, but luckily these wilder shades can be found online. I purchased Malaysian Cherry (shade 20R) from drugstore.com after first letting my Raspberry Creme (which I loved!) fade out. You can see that color here, here and here if you want. 

Malaysian Cherry is much darker than Raspberry Creme, but I had a hard time finding reliable pictures of either color online when choosing dyes, so I'm making this post for others who are struggling the way I've struggled: being slightly unsure about the exact hue of a hair dye shade. This one's for us, guys.

Natural Instincts Malaysian Cherry in the Box:

Kinda brown, right? But it has CHERRY in the name so I persevered, knowing they would not call something brown "cherry". For example, if someone gave you a BROWN pie and called it a cherry pie would you eat it? NO! Okay, I might because I am so awkward with confrontation and they went to all that trouble just to make me a pie. Have a heart! 

Malaysian Cherry on My Hair:

Right after I dyed it and dried it. That phrase makes it sound like I did something really demeaning to my hair or, like, slept with it and never called it again. Dyed it and dried it, guys!

After two washings. So, like, a solid week. :)

So, it's a bit more red than the box but generally the same shade. I'd call it "Cherry Cola" if I was the kind of person who was paid to name beauty products after familiar food items.

Also, I always feel like somewhat of a geek/creep/neighborhood weirdo when I take large closeups of my hair or face to put on the internet. That's, like, a totally weird thing to do, right? I was SO close to wearing a pair of fake joke teeth just to break the tension while snapping these pictures, but couldn't find any of my fake teeth thought better of that because I'm not insane. So, to make us all a little more comfortable, please retroactively imagine these on my face while you scroll through. 

Ahhh, much better.

xoxo,
Michelle