As Meghan confesses her box hair dye mishap, here's how to get it right

Telegraph

27-04-2025

Her rainbow fruit plates and floral ice cubes may have plumbed a new nadir of unrelatability, but in one respect at least, Meghan Markle has proved she's just like us.
In conversation with hair salon owner Kadi Lee on the latest episode of her podcast, Confessions of a Female Founder, the Duchess of Sussex spoke of her dalliances with box dyes, those £5.99 bathroom cabinet staples with which every brunette with a root phobia is all too familiar. 'It was 2020 – it was very much 2020,' she recalled. 'My family had just moved to California. We were staying in our friend's home and, because it was the pandemic, I kept ordering boxed hair dye, and I thought 'I'm gonna look just like she does on the box'. And instead it was this very inky, almost Elvira-esque black hair.'
As many discovered during the pandemic, box dyes are not without their issues – and never more so than when you're a very dark brunette. When Meghan went on to detail how she eventually reached out to a local hairdresser to rectify her 'inky' home dye job, rare was the listener who didn't have flashbacks to 2020, a dark time in ways that extended far beyond the follicular.
Lockdown may be a distant memory, but for those on a budget, box dyes are still likely to be a part of life. As any brunette going grey will attest, the maintenance required to keep dark hair looking dark is not for the faint of heart or low of funds. For those lacking the time or money to visit the hairdresser every two to four weeks, DIY options are often the only way.
This is despite box dyes being a teenage rite of passage whose oft-catastrophic results most adults would likely rather forget. 'My towels!' my mother exclaimed at some point in the late 1980s, upon seeing her pristine peach pride and joys speckled with brown gunk. There came a time in every teenage girl's life when she grew out of Shaders and Toners (remember those? They're probably best forgotten) and graduated onto the hard stuff, aka permanent dye that didn't 'wash in, wash out' but darkened the hair indelibly – along with any surrounding areas.
While at-home dye kits have improved exponentially since the 1980s, most users' application techniques still leave a lot to be desired. According to the colourist Zoe Irwin, creative director at John Frieda, the problem isn't so much the quality of the box dye as its cack-handed execution. 'Put any woman in front of me, and I can tell you if she's used a box colour,' says Irwin. 'I do more colour correction on people who've used box dyes than anything else. The damage can be horrific. You might grab a box thinking you're dark brown, but you won't apply the product the way that a colourist does, meaning that when it grows out, you're left with a band in the hair. You're also likely to overlap your existing colour, which will end up making it up to two shades darker.'
Rather than using permanent colour, Irwin suggests using a semi-permanent correcting pen. 'A powder-based product such as Colour Wow (£23.60, Marks and Spencer) won't give you any long lasting damage.' Other semi-permanent options include L'Oreal's Magic Retouch spray (£6.99, Boots) and Josh Wood Colour's Blending Brush (£20, Josh Wood Colour).
More important than the product itself, however, is choosing the right shade of brunette in the first place – as the actor George Clooney recently found to his cost. After dyeing his trademark salt and pepper locks dark brown for his role as newsman Edward R Murrow in the Broadway production of Good Night And Good Luck, Clooney, 63, was mocked by internet trolls for his 'paint pot hair' that 'makes him look 20 years older'. 'I know it's not good,' he admitted in an interview on CBS Mornings, speaking to host Gayle King. 'And my wife, she thinks it's funny. I'm not used to it. You never get used to it. I started getting grey when I was 25 – I've been grey most of my life, so it's not my favourite look. Honestly, nothing makes you look older than being 63 and dyeing your hair.'
While men who are less practised in the noble art of DIY hair dye may be more prone to error than women, the hairdresser and colour expert Josh Wood counsels that age and skin tone are more important considerations than gender, with pale and olive complexions most likely to carry off very dark hair. 'In terms of age, it really depends on how grey you are,' he adds. 'If you're very grey and dye your hair very dark, it can start to look as though you're wearing a wig. The reason George looks weird is because the colour of his natural salt and pepper hair works incredibly well with his skin tone and eye colour, whereas his current dark hair looks completely false.'
Wood's foolproof 'Miracle System' at-home colour kit (£28.99, Josh Wood Colour) is one of the best on the market – Telegraph beauty contributor Lucia Ferrari delivers a masterclass in applying it here – but he would always advise anyone wanting a drastic colour change to seek expert care from a professional colourist. 'If you can't go to a salon, a digital consultation is the next best option. Another tip is to look back at old photographs of yourself with your natural colour. Quite often, people believe they were much darker than they really were.'
While ultra dark hair might be enjoying a moment, Irwin firmly believes there's a shade of brunette for everyone – even Clooney. For spring, it's all about what Irwin calls a 'starlet brunette' – a deeper, monochrome shade that recalls the classic Hollywood glamour of Elizabeth Taylor. 'It's very impactful – think Kaia Gerber, Camila Morrone, Zoe Saldana or Daisy Edgar-Jones.'
Given how vehemently she's turned her back on her acting career, it's perhaps a relief to Meghan that Irwin wouldn't describe her current colour as 'starlet'. 'It's very dark, but there's still a warmth to it. If you look closely, the colour is multi-dimensional. I'd say it's a permanent tint, with a semi permanent tint added through the mid lengths and ends, plus a gloss for extra shine. The result is an 'expensive brunette' that looks really natural.'
Sounds like the Duchess won't be flogging box dye on her Shop My page any time soon.