"With so many people turning to at-home hair color during the shutdown, we wanted to ensure they had somewhere to turn for help. We utilized our social channels to share tutorial content as well as details of Garnier’s various educational tools, such as our Virtual Shade Selector. We want to continue to be a resource and provide info wherever someone may be searching for it," says Greg Hui, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Garnier USA.

Stressful moments

According to research, the average American woman feels that she has aged almost four years over the course of 2020 due to stress from the pandemic. This added stress manifested itself in many ways, including the appearance of new gray hair.

– Nearly half of the women polled (42%) reported discovering new gray hair during quarantine.
– With more than half of women (52.32%) agreeing that they have gone gray faster during quarantine than they would have otherwise.
Half of the women surveyed (50.37%) reported that they dyed their hair during quarantine to cover up grays.

Various reasons

Why and how women chose to color their hair at home during quarantine varied.

– Respondents reported various reasons for coloring their hair at home during quarantine, including grown out roots (17.86%) and color fade (15.36%), One in five women also reported that they colored their hair during quarantine for some needed change.
– Four out of five women dyed their hair themselves for the first-time during quarantine (80%).
– Women turned to various sources to learn how to color their hair at home for the first time, including Instagram (30.49%), online websites (29.2%), and YouTube (23.5%).

Multiple occasions

With quarantine lasting longer than many expected, women had to do their best to determine when and how often to color their hair at home.
– Since the start of quarantine, more than half (88%) of women say they have dyed their hair at home multiple times (more than once).
– Women were eager to maintain their color early into quarantine, with one in three women (31%) first dying their hair at home between 3 and 4 weeks at home, about a quarter (25.04%) first dying at 5 to 6 weeks in, and one-fifth (19.08%) of women holding out until 7 and 8 weeks.

Opportunity to test new products

Oftentimes, the most difficult part of coloring hair at home is determining the right product.

– Women used their time at home to try new products and shades they might not have otherwise. Nearly half of respondents (42.7%) reported trying a new brand of at-home hair dye than they have used before, and about a third of women (37.2%) reported that they tried a color that they might not have otherwise because they were at home.
– Various factors are considered when deciding on what brand of hair color to use at home. First and foremost, nearly half of women considered the price and value of the brand (48.9%) followed by how long the color would last (44.5%). Next, about a third of women looked for brands with a large range in color options (39.5%), brands that would not damage their hair (36.4%), how available and easy it would be to get the product (34.6%) and the level of chemicals found in the formula (33.7%).
– Women shared concerns about coloring hair at home for the first time. Nearly half of women shared concerns about if the end results would be as desired (47.8%) and if they were selecting the right shade (42.7%), while a third of women (33.6%) were concerned about damaging their hair.

Time of experimentation

Quarantine has proven to be a time for experimentation among women as well, especially when it came to their hair color.
– During quarantine, a quarter of women (25.54%) reported using a color care mask, and another quarter of women (24.44%) tried at-home hair color for the first time. About one-third of women reported dying their hair with bleach or going blonde.
– Some experimented a bit more with daring shades. More than half (54.55%) of women who dyed their hair during quarantine decided to try a new, bold shade for the first time.
– Respondents found inspiration from a number of people and places, including social media (30.4%) and celebrities (40.83%), while others (42.18%) reported utilizing the opportunity to try something new since they did not need to leave the house.
– This unexpected opportunity to go bold may have even inspired some women to stick to their new, bold shades, with two-thirds (62.45%) of respondents reporting they would be likely to turn to a bold color again next year.

Lasting habit

With many women coloring their hair for the first time or reaching for shades outside of their typical choices during quarantine, it will be interesting to see how hair color behavior continues to shift once life returns to "normal" after quarantine.
– Most respondents plan to keep their hair color more traditional shades, such as brown (25.27%), black (20.65%), blonde (10.98%), and red (8.76%).
– More than two-thirds (66.75%) of women plan to continue to dye their hair at home, with one in three (31.99%) planning to exclusively color their hair at home.