Naturally... colouring your hair the healthier way

As a blonde and someone who prefers minimal upkeep, I was keen to try Natulique, a cruelty-free, eco-conscious brand from Denmark that offers salon permanent hair colour without the usual toxic cocktail of chemicals. I popped into Davey Davey hair salon on Dublin's Drury Street to try it out.

Davey Davey is high-end but not pretentious, pared-back but not stark, substance with just the right amount of style. And they give you sweets. I enjoyed a complimentary mini-cafetiere of coffee and delicious minty chocolates as senior stylist Kevin Murphy looked after my locks.

Following a lengthy discussion about the condition of my hair and the look I was going for, he got started on my balayage (€160 for balayage, €180 for full highlights).

The salon offers the kind of big-brand colour you would find in most salons, as well as Natulique, the more natural, and slightly pricier (by €20), alternative.

Its mostly natural formulation includes Ecocert-certified organic ingredients and excellent nourishing ingredients like sunflower seed extract and jojoba, grape seed and apricot seed oils.

Its 68 shades are free from parabens, artificial perfumes and hair-frying ammonia. Eight of these are completely free from PPD, while 10 are free from resorcinol, two controversial allergenic ingredients commonly found in hair dyes that you particularly want to look out for (some women develop strong allergic reactions even after years of problem-free colouring). The other shades contain a very low 0.01 per cent of these chemicals.

So it’s full of better-for-you ingredients, but does it work? I asked Kevin which he preferred in terms of overall performance. He chose Natulique.

“It’s not as harsh on the hair,” he tells me as I down my third chocolate. “It’s for people with dry hair who still want colour.”

And the colour? “It’s soft,” says Kevin, who loves how natural it looks. “You don’t get that blockiness.”

He explains that dark hair in particular can look like a block of colour with commercial dyes, but he finds that Natulique doesn’t create “that wiggy look”. And he’s had no problems covering greys 100 per cent.

A couple of hours later, I left the salon with a natural-looking blend of pearly and honey blonde highlights on top of my natural dark blonde. The colour was light, clean, soft – not bleachy, streaky or unbelievable. And the silky smooth condition of my hair afterwards truly surprised me.

Two months later, the colour hasn’t gone anywhere – it still looks vibrant and fresh. And Kevin’s choice of colours and expert application have ensured I don’t have a horrible colour bar creeping down my head.

With Natulique, you don’t have quite the range of colours to choose from compared with typical salon brands – reds are particularly limited – but surely 68 shades still leaves you spoiled for choice.

The brand also offers a great range of hair-care products through its Irish-owned distributor www.simplynatural.ie. Try the excellent Natulique Volume Hairwash (€13.95) and Volume Conditioner (€15.13) for silky smooth, full-bodied hair minus the problematic lathering agent sodium lauryl sulfate. Natulique gets it right in terms of both colour and condition. I left Davey Davey thinking that the days when taking a more natural approach to beauty meant settling for inferior performance and zero glamour are well and truly gone.

kharris@irishtimes.com