Organic & Natural Dark Brown Beard Dye

I gave it a good value for the money because it worked for me & didn't cause any skin irritation. My wife is quite a bit younger than me & my beard was mostly grey (quite white actually), with a bit of dark brown still in the mustached and a little bit between the chin & lower lip. My hair is still a dark brown, but about an inch of grey at the temples. I've had a beard since I was 18, with only relatively brief periods of time where it was shaved off.I tried Just For Men, but it caused my face to turn red, itch & get little pussy blisters under the beard that would not heal for days. Totally gross. Tried & tried doing different things to try avoiding that (less time, putting aloe on it right after cleaning it off, cleaning it off with & without soap, etc. At some point I tried powered walnut husks, which seemed to add more color to my skin than to my beard, so I stopped that quick. I also looked into henna, but based on what I'd read, I passed.Eventually saw an article that suggested alternatives for more sensitive skin, so I tried "Clairol Naturals" which actually caused the lower half of my face to swell up bizarrely. Fortunately, the wife is a nurse, so she ran out right away for Benadryl & kept an eye on me to see if we'd have to run to the emergency room. After that experience, I went all natural grey/white, but would temporary cover it with some sort of root coverup thing from Sally Beauty supply whenever I went out with the wife, but was always worried about winding up pulling a Giuliani & having it run down my face. In any event, my wife kept bugging me to shave the beard because I'd leave it white at home.Finally, I told her give me some time to try some other stuff and if it doesn't work, I'll shave it. Looked around a bit more & found this mentioned along with the Just For Men shampoo stuff (which I was leery of trying given my experience with the regular stuff). Was going to order both, along with a box of baking soda $0.77, just to reach free shipping at $25, but accidentally wound up accepting the "free" month of prime, so I removed the baking soda & the shampoo because I figured I could get free shipping on the shampoo if I order in a month if this didn't work out. Naturally, they were out of "dark brown" by the time I decided to order, so I heck with it & ordered the regular "brown" & figured if that seemed to work, I could always go darker (my hair is a dark brown).In any event, I received it on Thursday (3 days ago) and today is 3 days later (Sunday) when the picture was taken.FIRST SESSION: On Friday, at about 9 pm, I did just the dye for the full 30 mins (perhaps 35) and started watching a "free" movie on my "free" Prime while waiting the 30 mins, then cleaned it off in the sink. It smells "earthy", to me a bit like spinach or perhaps a compost pile, but that really isn't a horrid smell or anything. Reminded me of creamed spinach as I was washing it off. I did notice a bit of a greenish tint, with a little brown/light yellow added in, but it was very, very light, not a heck of a lot of color added. Finished the movie & thought it looked a bit darker by the time I went to bed. Woke up 7:30 am Saturday & thought it looked a darker than when I went to bed, but it still pretty darn light & the greenish tint remained.SECOND SESSION: Saturday (around 1:30 pm), I said heck with this, I'll try another dose. This time I did the base for 30 mins, or so. Looks & smells the same as the dye & watched another free Prime video to pass the time. Cleaned up & noticed that already it was a bit darker after applying the base, but still a light green tint. Did the dye right after for another 30 mins & watched some more of the free Prime movie. Like before, it did appear to get darker after some time passed. But, I had church to go to the next morning, so ...THIRD SESSION Saturday night (around 8pm) did another 30 min base treatment, followed by another 30 min dye treatment, including more free Prime watching. After rinsing it off, I was already impressed & figured it would be fine in the morning. When I was young, my beard was always a bit lighter than my hair and ranged from a bit lighter brown than my hair, to parts that had a bit of a reddish tone to the brown, to a bit that was almost a dirty blond color. So, in the end, I thought the regular brown worked pretty darn good. I'm happy with it & the wife likes it too, now just have to what the girlfriend thinks (just kidding).FWIW- I used it up at my temples & the little portion above my ears that is white & that wound up getting darker quicker than my beard & looks really natural with my hair. I also used a bit on my eyebrows because I have a tiny bit of grey in those. I don't know if I'll try the dark brown at another time, or just keep with this.I seem to recall reading one review where the guy just mixed the two packets of powders together and just used them as a single treatment. I might give that a whirl, although I've seen others say that they didn't need the base after a while.PS, I just rinsed the sink off & cleaned up what I slopped on the counter & saw no staining, like someone suggested. I also saw no staining of my skin and I wound up slopping it on pretty good (with the last application going up the sides to about my nose because I was debating on letting the stubble grow (instead of chopping the beard down between the sideburns & the mustache like I usually do).

When I was a little boy, there used to be this commercial for something that ended with some obnoxious kid saying: “…and it really really works!”. It was one of those catch phrases, that you couldn’t get out of your mind, and became part of our cultural lexicon for a little while, sort of like: “Where’s the beef?”, and “I fell and I can’t get up!” (both of which, by the way have been trademarked!). Anyway, ever since then, in the rare moments when I purchase something and it really does what it says it’s going to do… I find myself repeating that line. And yes, when it came to this herbal beard dye, I found myself shouting it in my bathroom mirror more than once. I have always hated shaving but having fast growth on my face, it was a morning ritual. I also have sensitive skin so went through dozens of different creams, lotions, razors, etc., trying not to deal with an itchy face all day. So recently when I got an assignment that would take me “into the wilds” as they say, I finally was able to live a life-long dream of becoming, at least for a while, the mountain man, Jeremiah Johnson. And what’s a mountain man without a beard? I had one in my youth, ironically since I looked so young I wanted to age myself… and in those days, even though I have brown hair, the beard came out red. There’s lots of red hair folks in my family. It was really kind of cool. So, forgetting that many, many years have gone by since then, I started to let it grow again, and soon discovered that instead of red, I was growing a white Christmas. So, I was less Robert Redford and more Grizzly Adams! I never thought of using hair dye on a beard. There’s just too many horror stories about what those chemicals can do to you. And worse yet are the chemical over-the-counter dyes for beards. Being that the chemicals are in much more contact with your skin, they do much more damage, including many cancer scares. But an old friend, who is a herpetologist and naturalist, told me that there were actually some natural herbs that mixed together can create a harmless oxidation of your hair follicles without any harm to skin or health. She recommend this product. Of course I was dubious, but the price was right, and she assured me that the worst thing that could happen is that it will not work at all, or perhaps give my beard a green tinge, which I could easily shave off. Yes, as other reviewers have said, once you mix the green powder, it does smell a lot like day-old asparagus, or wet lawn clippings that you still have not raked up in your backyard, but hey, that’s a natural smell after all. Not like the toxic smell you get from the other hair dyes, that make you think that any moment a group of Hazmat workers in full helmeted white uniforms will be crashing through your door to “clean up” the “spill” then scrub you within an inch of your life like Karen Silkwood. The instructions are well written, and very simple actually. As the instructions say, since this is a natural herb mixture and not a chemical dye, you don’t see results right away. You leave the stuff on your face to dry for about fifteen minutes, and then wash it off in the shower. No stinging, or any other side effects. The instructions say that it will slowly oxidize and in about a day or so, you will start to see a natural darkening. You can get either brown or black (I got brown). And yes, overnight, I did see that my beard went from “winter wonderland”, to “amber waves of grain”. And as the instructions said, it does continue to darken. But the best part is somehow it doesn’t come off as a Ronald Reagan dye job. It looks totally natural. The coloration is slightly shaded around the beard, and there’s even a slight hit of the natural gray, but it all works to make it look like this is the real beard, and yes, it does shed years off your appearance. You need to redo it every month or so, but again, you’re dealing with lawn shavings here, so what harm is there? Now, here is another bit of news. And again, this may not work for everyone, so be careful. I'm not recommending it, just letting you know my own personal experience... however, I wrote to the company with what I thought was a “silly” question. I have some gray on my head-hair as well, and wondered since this works on a beard, is there any way I could use it on my head-hair as well? I do see there are other “natural” products for that out there, but I just like this stuff, and feel safe with it. They wrote back right away and said, no, it wasn’t a silly question at all, and yes, it will work and is safe to use on your head-hair as well. So, I tried it. Now the mixture for the beard was done thicker, about the consistency of ketchup, but that is too thick to spread evenly and deeply on my head-hair, so I added more water, and made it more the consistence of whole milk. I then wet my hair, and rubbed it through my hair, and then combed it in with a brush as well, to get down to the roots. I kept that in for fifteen minutes, and washed it out in the shower. Again, you may want to test this on a little part of your hair before trying it, since everyone’s hair has different reactions to anything… but in my case, it worked beautifully. I have to admit that I have used the over-the-counter chemical stuff a few times, and I found that it was damaging my hair, but this worked like a conditioner. My hair actually looks and feels thicker, and like the beard, it gives it a very natural darkening, and the gray does disappear. So, okay, men… if you are not brave enough to walk into the outside world with a gray beard… and still want to try and capture a few more years of less-than-middle-age appearance, and also not use the chemical dyes that make you look like someone who wears socks with their sandals, and still carries a fanny-pack… try this. Yes, again: “it really, really works!”