L’Oreal has introduced their first re-usable mousse hair colour that can be used more than once. Whether you dye your hair at home or get it professionally done, you’ll still need to get a touch up or redo it again at least every 4-6 weeks depending on your speed of hair growth. This means an expensive trip to the hairdressers or purchasing another box of hair colour. And if you have longer hair, it can mean you’ll have to buy two boxes.

As I usually only want to touch up the roots, I often have wasted product that ends up in the bin. So I was really excited to see this new L’Oreal Preference Mousse Absolute which contains a ‘Re-Usable’ Permanent Hair Colour. This should hopefully cut down on the amount of hair colour you need to buy.

I’ve been colouring my hair at home for over 30 years (does that give my age away)? Well, I did start when I was quite young. Anyway, I’m sure I must have saved myself hundreds of pounds over the years in hairdresser fees. And why not? Home hair colourants have improved so much recently and with budgets stretched to the limit, more people are foregoing trips to the hairdresser and trying a bit of DIY tinting.


Because I’ve got a few greys now, I need to use a permanent colour. I purchased a box of Sun-Kissed Dark Blonde number 730 to cover the odd greys and new hair growth. I was particularly interested to find out how using a mousse would compare with the usual mixing of bottle contents.

The Mousse is described as an intense, multi-toned colour at the touch of a button. The unique two chamber system freshly-infuses your colour. It also says it’s as easy to use as a shampoo. Use the Precision Diffuser to perfectly target your roots or stray greys. The satin touch conditioner is enriched with UV filters. Hair feels satin-soft. Mirror shine for up to 6 weeks. It diffuses a rich, non-drip mousse; precise and easy application and allows up to two full applications.

How many applications you get from the contents depends on your hair length.

Short hair = 2 full applications, Medium hair = 1 full application + touch up, Long hair = 1 full application.

There is the usual hair colour guide on the box to show you the predicted results on your own hair colour after using your new mousse purchase. Inside the box is the bottle of preference mousse, a tube of conditioner and the obligatory plastic gloves.


Also included is the instruction manual with warnings about the 48 hour allergy test and that it should not be used by people under 16.

The instructions seem simple enough. Shake vigorously 20 times. Squeeze the mousse into your ‘gloved’ hand, and massage into your hairline – use on dry hair. Continue this process around the whole head then finish off with the length of your hair. Leave 30 minutes, rinse thoroughly then condition.

The bottle is actually two bottles with a combined lid. So when you push down on the lid, both bottles of product are squeezed out together into your hand. This way the contents stay separated and safe to use at a later date.

What was it like? 

Sadly, this product didn’t live up to my expectations at all. While the squeezing out was easy enough, putting it onto my hair with gloved hands was very difficult, mainly because I couldn’t get any feel for how wet my hair was. This is mainly because the mousse is so light.

I kept on dispensing with more mouse around my hair until it was all covered. However, I had to take a glove off to see how wet my hair was as I couldn't tell from looking at it.

Also annoying was the fact that it’s impossible to tell how much product you’ve used or how much is left in the bottles as you can’t see inside them. This means you could unexpectedly run out of mousse in the middle of a later application. Still, even with those niggles, if it managed to obliterate my stubborn greys, then I’d forgive those shortfalls.

Unfortunately, despite leaving it on for 10 minutes longer than recommended (my greys are obstinate), once rinsed out and dried, there they were in all their former glory. Not what I was after. The colour itself was good, but no more so than other hair colourants I’ve used. So, although I can tell there is some mousse left in the bottle, I won’t be wasting my time using up the rest and will return to my usual favourite.

To be fair, although the blurb on the box states ‘perfect grey coverage’, if you glance at the tiny text at the bottom of the box, it also says ‘If you have a lot of grey, this shade will provide perfect grey coverage on up to 70% of greys’.

If you’re happy with perfect grey coverage on 70% of your hair, this could be the one for you!