Arctic Fox Hair Dye Reviews – Buy or Bye?

This post was most recently updated on March 7th, 2023

It’s great to have fun with your hair. You can always cut it short, style it curly, or change the color if you grow tired of it. Whether you want to go bold or try balayage, Arctic Fox gives you at-home hair dyes that looks just as good as you’d get at the salon, if you follow the instructions carefully. But if you’re not sure if it’s right for you, this Arctic Fox hair dye reviews have all you need to know about the brand.

And then there are so many hues in Arctic Fox hair dyes to try. Every shade imaginable satisfies the darkest to lightest blond. Dying your hair at home to get the vibrant you want has never been so easy. So, before we go deeper into the reviews, here we will tell you things to consider before dyeing your hair.

Things to Consider Investing in Arctic Fox Hair Dyes

In this section we cover several things to consider before investing in Arctic Fox hair dye. Especially if you’re going to dye your hair every few months.

Hidden Costs – Bleach, Bowl, Toner, and More

Arctic Fox hair dye is not as expensive as other brands, but there’s always a hidden cost if you want to color your hair at home.

• If you want to get those pastel colors, the first thing you need is to bleach your hair. Those who already bleached their hair or have natural blond hair may skip this step. But for someone with level 2-7 hair color, you must perform this step to get the bright color. You can buy Bleach, Please by Arctic Fox to lighten your hair and lift it to level 8.
• After bleaching, you may need to remove those brassy-yellow or warm tones. Toner or yellow shampoo will help you to neutralize those unwanted colors.
• Not to mention tools for DIY colorings, such as gloves, color mixing bowl, shower cap, and melamine sponge.
• Last, you need to switch your hair care products, specially designed for colored hair like purple shampoo, blue shampoo or sulfate-free shampoo.

However, DIY hair coloring is still much more budget-friendly than going to a salon, which can cost hundreds of dollars. You can get all of those products on Amazon since they give you many affordable options.

Cleaning Process – Take Precautions to Avoid Mess

If it’s the first time coloring your hair, it might get messy. Pretty sure you don’t want stains of color on your floor or bathroom. The best thing you can do is cover the surface with a trash bag, old towel, or any clothing you don’t mind staining for safe application and cleaning. The coloring process can be messy, you need to consider the place you’ll choose to perform the hair coloring, such as the shower.

Afterward, when you go to your bedroom, make sure the color doesn’t stain your pillowcase. Protect your pillowcase with plastic wrap, old towel, or any clothing you won’t mind staining to avoid this. And make sure you also don’t sleep when your hair is wet because it’s very vulnerable leaving stains on your pillowcase or sheets. So consider whether you have the time and energy to do this. If you don’t take any precautions, it will be difficult for you to clean up after the coloring process is complete.

How Your Type of Hair Affects Coloring – Thick, Long, Short and Thin Hair

Your hair type also greatly affects the coloring process. If you have long hair, you will need more bottles rather than short ones, maybe around 2 bottles. It is to ensure that the color completely covers your hair and absorbs well so that the color comes out.

Is your hair thick or fine? Thick hair takes more time for the color to absorb, but the color will stay longer if you do it right. Fine hair means color penetrates the cuticle more easily but will also bleed more quickly. Best results may be seen on moderately damaged hair and/ or picking the right color for your hair base.

For bleached hair, you might need to use toner or shampoo to get rid of the brassiness or unwanted color after bleaching. Remember, don’t color your hair the same day you bleach it. Let your hair rest for a moment, especially if you went light blonde from a very dark color base.

Setting Expectations – It’s Short Term

Arctic Fox offers a semi-permanent hair dye meaning it’s more suitable for short-term use. The ingredients contained in it are more natural than chemical products. You could say it won’t be as aggressive as peroxide or ammonia, meaning the color will fade more quickly. Arctic Fox Semi-Permanent is ideal for those who are:

• looking to do a bleaching/staining that needs an extra push after a few weeks,
• want a color for an event like Halloween, costume party, Comic-Con cosplay, etc,
• want to try a semi-permanent hair color before trying on a permanent color to see if they like the look of the color,
• like to change hair color every few weeks.

For those who have basic dark hair, you need to keep the color longer before rinsing it. You may need to do some retouching in between. By using more products, you will get the best results, maybe just like you see in front of the bottle or box.

Importance of Doing Patch and Strand Tests

It is the most important step. Even if you have colored your hair before, you still need to do this before full application, as the formula for each product is different. Especially for those of you who have sensitive skin. Everyone should do patch and strand tests. This is to determine whether you have certain allergies to certain ingredients, so kindly check the ingredients first before buying the product.

Dab a small amount of hair dye on your skin, see how it reacts for 48 hours, and check every 12-24 hours to see if anything has changed where you applied the dye. Test strands, by applying a little dye to your hair strands. This is necessary to find out how light the color is in your hair, and how long the color will last. To also set color expectations on your hair color base. This includes determining whether you need to bleach your hair or mix colors to get the result you want.

What Makes Arctic Fox Special

Arctic Fox is a cruelty-free, newer company founded in 2014 by Kristen Leanne. To create the best semi-permanent hair dye, Arctic Fox formed a research team that dedicated two years of research before launching a beautiful line of shades. All of the products are formulated vegan with all-natural ingredients and zero harsh chemicals (free of peroxide, ammonia, and PPD).

What’s so special about Arctic Fox, anyways?

• 15% of their profits are donated to help prevent animal abuse and promote animal welfare. Some recipients include Second Chance Animal Services, Animal Hope and Wellness Foundation, IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare), Animal Hope & Wellness Foundation, and San Diego Humane Society.
• All Arctic Fox hair dyes are 100% vegan, 100% cruelty-free, and zero harsh chemicals, such as peroxide, ammonia, and PPD.
• If it’s applied to unbleached hair, you may expect it to fade after 2-3 weeks. As for pre-lightening hair, it will last up to 4-8 weeks.

Arctic Fox is designed to give your hair a beautiful, vibrant, and healthy-looking color. With a highly pigmented formula, it’s not guaranteed to prevent stains on your clothes or pillowcases. It depends on your hair type. For thicker hair, the color may be more difficult to absorb, so it will wear off easily. It’s the same if you have damaged hair.

The best results will probably be seen on moderately damaged hair so the dye doesn’t wash off onto stuff, but nothing bleach can get rid of though. Eventually, all colors will fade, but with Arctic Fox, not all fade equally. It’s exclusively formulated to fade within the initial color scope, so as the color lightens, the hues will remain stunning. Now, let’s take a closer look at Arctic Fox hair dye and how to choose the best shade for you.

Arctic Fox Semi-Permanent Hair Color

After you heard the good news about their exclusive formula, here’s another one you may want to know. Arctic Fox offers up to 23 different shades for their semi-permanent hair dyes. Honestly, that’s a lot! The colors offered are pastels of red, green, purple, yellow, and blue variants. If you are a lover of festive pastels, it looks like you have found your Holy Grail here.

If you like to play with your hair and like to try a new color every month in your free time, you can mix two or more shades to get your exclusive color. For example, if you want a pink with peachy/orange undertones, you can use a mix of Sunset Orange, Virgin Pink, and Arctic Mist. Or, mixing the shades Ritual and Arctic Mist Diluter makes a lovely Dusty Rose color. If it’s your first time coloring your hair, we’ll give you some recommendations for choosing the right color for you.

Best Shades for Unbleached Hair

“Do I have to bleach my hair to use the color?” The answer is yes and no.

We get it, you may not want to let your hair get damaged by peroxide in every hair bleach product. Some colors allow you to bleach first, especially blonde and bright pastel. Various shades are more suitable or specially designed for unbleached hair, e.g. True Tones by Ion Color Brilliance. However, some Arctic Fox hair colors can be used on unbleached hair. Here’s a collection of colors best suited to unbleached hair:

• Sunset Orange
• Aquamarine
• Ritual
• Wrath
• Virgin Pink
• Phantom Green
• Poison
• Purple AF

If your hair is more of a light brown or dark blonde color, most colors will give you at least a tinge. Unbleached hair may differ in how well it takes color, so remember that your results may vary. You’ll have the best opportunity in a dark and highly pigmented color. However, if you really want to get a vibrant, soft pastel result, then pre-lightening is the first step to do.

For those who have a dark color base, then getting into a lighter color is a lengthy procedure that requires patience. Lightening your hair gradually is the safest way and will minimize the risk of damage. We recommend bleaching your hair one or two shades lighter in one session. Avoid over-processing as it is not good for the health of your hair.

Best Shades According to Your Hair Color Base

The first thing you need to learn before coloring your hair is your hair level. Natural hair color is in the range of levels 1-10, where level 1 is the darkest color, and level 10 being the lightest. The easiest way to determine what level your hair is at is to see how close it is to black or blonde. See the visualization below for more clarity.

• All colors will not be visible when applied to the hair at level 1. You really need to bleach your hair at least up to 2 levels or more.
• On unbleached hair, the color will be at least visible at level 3.
• You have to reach at least levels 6-7 to be able to use the deeper and highly pigmented colors from Arctic Fox hair dye.
• To get a light pastel color, you need to have hair at level 8 or higher.
• If your hair is level 10 or lighter, you can use all colors.

Here’s the recommendation for picking the Arctic Fox hair color.

While some colors can be used at other levels, the results will still vary depending on your hair color level. For example, Periwinkle, a pastel blue with lavender undertones. Although it can also be used from level 6, the resulting color is not as bright as that at level 10. Likewise with all the other colors.

Pro Tips Using Arctic Fox Hair Dye

It’s generally safe to dye your hair at home as long as you follow the directions. Always do the strand and patch test before you take a full application. To gain the best results, you may need to bleach your hair first. Now it’s time to color your hair.

1. Wear an old robe or other clothing that you don’t mind getting stained with dye because the process can be messy.
2. Cover the surface with a trash bag, an old towel, or a cloth you don’t mind staining.
3. Protect your skin from dyes to avoid skin staining. Apply coconut oil or petroleum jelly around the hairline, forehead, ears, and neck.
4. Always wear gloves because the dye will stain your hand. It’s better to do it in the shower to avoid staining your tiles and bathroom fittings.
5. Once the coloring is done, put on a shower cap and let the color sit for at least 30 minutes or more for level 9-10 hair. If you have virgin or thick hair, you need to keep the color on for at least 2-3 hours.
6. Rinse hair thoroughly with cold water until the water runs clear. It’s best to do this in your kitchen sink.
7. Immediately do the cleaning after the coloring process is complete because the color will be difficult to remove if left for a long time.
8. Make sure your hair is completely dry before going to bed and protect your pillow with an old towel or clothes you don’t mind staining.

For routine care, use sulfate-free shampoo when washing your hair. Make sure you wash your hair every other day with cold water to keep your hair color longer.

Arctic Fox Hair Dye Reviews – What do Customers Think?

Looking for reviews from real customers is another important thing to do before you make a final decision. We have compiled several reviews from Amazon along with the before and after pictures. Overall, currently, Arctic Fox sits at 4.4 out of 5 stars from 79,805+ ratings with 73% being 5 stars. Here’s the rating by feature:

• Scent: 4.5 / 5
• Easy to use: 4.4 / 5
• Easy to spread: 4.2 / 5
• Drying power: 3.8 / 5
• Longevity: 3.4 / 5

Check the real-life user experiences below to see it for yourself.

The Takeaways

Arctic Fox is very easy to use and the colors really pop, including the dark base color which gets a subtle tint. Make sure you keep the color long before rinsing and use a dryer so the color easily penetrates your hair and is vibrant. The coloring process can be messy so you will need to cover the surface and wear gloves to avoid stubborn stains. When coloring is finished, you should immediately do the cleaning because the color will be difficult to clean up if you leave it for a long time. The color also often transfers to towels, pillowcases, sheets, and bathroom curtains.

Where to Buy Arctic Fox Hair Dyes

You can easily purchase Arctic Fox from several retailers, either offline or online, on their official website or on Amazon. However, we suggest you buy on Amazon.com since they sometimes offer discount coupons. Amazon also has an international network of logistics for around-the-world delivery. If you’re outside the U.S., you can get them delivered to your doorstep.

Arctic Fox Hair Dyes are available in two sizes: the 4 Fl Oz and the 8 Fl Oz. The price is ranging from $12.99 to $18.49. Check here to find the price for your desired shade. As for the subscription option, you only pay $16.64 for the first delivery. Then, you can unlock the 15% discount when you receive 5 or more products. Amazon also has multiple payment options, so it gives more flexibility in purchasing.

Arctic Fox Possible Side Effects

There is no perfect hair color. Even though the brand claims it is 100% safe or made of natural ingredients, possible side effects can still occur to some people. The important thing to learn about side effects from the ingredients themselves. In this section, we will break down possible side effects that may probably occur due to certain ingredients. Now, let’s take a look.

• Fragrance (parfume) is in Arctic Fox. Some people find this annoying.  If you have sensitive skin, contact allergies can occur. So you may want to consider this before buying hair dye.
• Arctic Fox hair dye contains methylchloroisothiazolinone and methylisothiazolinone, preservatives with both antibacterial and antifungal agents. You may experience flaky skin, breakouts, redness, and itching due to its nature, to sensitize your skin or scalp easily. We recommend you perform patch and strand tests before the full application. 

If you experience any of these side effects, please consider stopping using it and talking to your doctor for immediate treatment. You should check the full ingredients before taking any hair dye to prevent possible side effects. Check the next section to find an alternative for yourself.

Arctic Fox Alternatives

If you haven’t your heart set on Arctic Fox, you always have the option to pick other hair dyes from different brands. Here we give three other brands that may suit your hairstyle needs.

• Manic Panic
• Pulp Riot
• oVertone

Let’s see each of them one by one.

Manic Panic

Founded in 1977, Manic Panic is a line of cosmetic hair coloring owned by sister musicians Patrice and Eileen Bellomo. Just like Arctic Fox, the brand also provides vegan and cruelty-free products. Its hair dyes are also paraben-free, gluten-free, ammonia-free, resorcinol-free, PPD-free, and phthalate-free. The High Voltage Classic Colors range was the first from the Manic Panic brand that has over 40 shades. The longevity of the colors may vary from 2 to 8 weeks depending on how well you take care of them.

If you’re looking for a stronger and bold color, The Amplified hair color is your option. The formula has 30% more pigment than High Voltage Classic hair dye. These ranges are also free from harmful chemicals, vegan, and never tasted to animals. The Amplified hair colors are available in 34 hues with the same name and color as the High Voltage. It will stay brighter longer, which is up to 8 weeks. The High Voltage costs $13.99, while The Amplified is $17.99, and both come in 4 Fl Oz per jar.

Pulp Riot

Pulp Riot was founded in 2016 by David and Alexis Thurston in their California Salon, Butterfly Loft. The company also offers vegan and cruelty-free products, which makes many people love the brand. Pulp Riot semi-permanent hair dyes provide 16 pastel shades. Not only that, but Pulp Riot also has 30 hues of demi-permanent hair color, toner, color remover, lightener, and more. The semi-permanent hair color is a conditioner base color, which means it only sits outside of your hair shaft.

Pulp Riot hair dyes are also known for their long-lasting results. The time it takes for the color to fade varies, depending on the type of shades. Neon shades will last up to 25-30 shampoos, while pastel shades last up to 25 washes. It can take 42 shampoos before deeper shades start to fade. So, if you prefer a long-lasting semi-permanent hair color, Pulp Riot is your best choice. The price ranges from $16.50 to $27.99 per pack (4 Fl Oz), which is a bit more expensive than Arctic Fox and Manic Panic. But if you don’t mind the price, then Pulp Riot is your choice.

oVertone

oVertone was founded in 2014 by Maegan Scarlett and Liora Dudar. Same as the three brands above, oVertone Coloring Conditioner is also vegan, cruelty-free, sulfate-free, ammonia-free, and paraben-free. Their products are also suitable for all hair types, especially if you have very damaged and dry hair, oVertone is the best option for you. oVertone has a staggering 43 shades for you to pick from including a special palette for brown hair that doesn’t require bleaching.

Because it’s a hair coloring conditioner, oVertone is the best for those who are looking for a simple application. Apply it in the shower and leave for 15 minutes before rinsing it. Then, you’ll get the color you’ve always wanted. This is why the hair color is safe for damaged hair because its formula can help soften your hair. oVertone Coloring Conditioners cost $32 for 8 oz, which is a bit pricey. The color will last up to 22 washes.

To conclude, Manic Panic offers more shades in their product lines, which is in total of 74 shades. Their hair dyes are also more affordable than others, and oVertone is the most expensive one. Pulp Riot is also more expensive than Arctic Fox and Manic Panic, but the color stays longer than oVertone. However, oVertone gives you a simpler application due to its conditioner form that can be used in the shower. You can also consider Pravana as an alternative to Arctic Fox since many have mentioned that they liked how this hair dye performed on their hair. It also comes at a more affordable option.

The Bottom Line

To sum up, we’d like to point out that Arctic Fox hair dye is worth buying. It’s vegan, cruelty-free, and with zero harmful chemicals. The important thing is 15% of the profits are donated to help prevent animal cruelty. Arctic Fox offers 23 hues in their hair color range. The colors will last for 2 to 8+ weeks, which is longer than other brands.

Arctic Fox is the best option for you if you’re looking for a light, bold color. Their hair dyes are also recommended for those who have porous hair because the formula won’t damage your hair. However, if you’re on a budget, Arctic Fox may not be your option since it is a bit more costly than its competitors. But, if you don’t mind the price, picking Arctic Fox shouldn’t be a problem then. See the highlights below and decide for yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions

In this section, we answer some of the frequently asked questions about Arctic Fox Hair Dyes.

Is Manic Panic or Arctic Fox better?

It depends on what your hair needs. If you prefer to have hair colors for a shorter period while also having more color options, Manic Panic is the best one. But, if you’re looking for lighter results, Arctic Fox is your best choice then. The Vibrant will also show up even if you don’t bleach your hair.

How long does Arctic Fox last in your hair?

Their dyes will last from 2 to 6 weeks on unbleached hair, and 4 to 8 weeks on pre-lightening hair. It seems like the color doesn’t last very long, like the other three brands above. But, these ranges are a little longer than usual semi-permanent hair dyes.

Does Arctic Fox damage curly hair?

No. Arctic Fox hair colors will not pose risk to your curl pattern or overall hair health. No worries, only pigments are added to your hair.

Why doesn’t Arctic Fox stay on my hair?

The first thing you need to consider is to pre-lighten your hair. For better results, you need a great, light base, especially if you have dark hair. Read our detailed guide in the Arctic Fox Colors section.

Will Arctic Fox stick to dirty hair?

If you’re going to use an Arctic Fox semi-permanent hair color, you’ll need to clean your hair first. Remember, only use shampoo in this process, don’t put your conditioner on. Dry your hair thoroughly before application.