As I mentioned in our Spring Fashion Wishlist, I’ve had my eye on the Rose Gold Temporary Tint from Kristin Ess for spring. What better way to celebrate sunshine and rosé season than with rose gold hair? As a preemptive strike (and in the name of journalism, obviously) I recently gave the hair tint a spin. So, here’s my Kristin Ess Rose Gold Temporary Tint review, complete with terrible bathroom selfies. Let’s get into it.

Let’s start with a before picture. My hair is naturally dark blonde/light brown, but I got the ends lightened almost a year ago. For the sake of this Kristin Ess Rose Gold Temporary Tint review, I decided to target the tint on my lightened ends.

My first go around, I followed the directions exactly: Shampoo hair, spray on tint, sit for a few minutes, then rinse and condition as usual. Spraying the tint onto soaking wet hair prevents a lot of the tint from absorbing, as you can see in my after picture below.

Look at that dramatic transformation! Just kidding, the color barely took. The directions suggest applying to towel-dried hair for a more intense tint, so I tried that a few days later.

First, I shampooed my hair as usual. Then I wrapped it up in a towel for about 15 minutes, which was the perfect time to do a face mask as well. Then I hopped back in the shower, sprayed on the tint, and waited a few minutes before rinsing it out. I didn’t condition this time. Here’s what the results looked like after the second attempt:

Not too bad! The color is definitely more prominent when applied to drier hair. It’s definitely a subtle color, but considering it’s designed to be temporary and wash out after a few shampoos, it’s about what I expected.

Kristin Ess Rose Gold Temporary Tint Review Thoughts

• I really like the idea of a fun, temporary color being somewhat easy to achieve. It’s certainly not as messy or time-consuming as an at-home dye job, but the fact that you need to dry your hair a bit before applying the tint makes it more complicated than I was hoping.
• It’s definitely still a messy process. Absolutely only apply the tint in your shower because it will go EVERYWHERE. My shower liner is slightly pink despite being rinsed immediately after the tint was applied.
• Because it’s an in-shower application, I found it hard to apply evenly. Without a mirror, it’s tough to figure out where color has been applied and where it hasn’t, leading to my slightly patchy finished product. I will say though that I think it might have been more even had I been going for an all-over color instead of just the ends, so the result could just be user error.
• It smells really good! Our girl Kristin knows what she’s doing when it comes to her hair products.

I’m excited to try this again throughout the spring and summer. I think practice will make perfect as far as application goes, and I’m looking forward to trying out different color intensities. If you’re looking to try out a fun hair color that’s still subtle and not much of a commitment, then I think this is a good product for you.

Have you tried Kristin Ess’ Rose Gold Temporary Tint? Or do you have another temporary hair color to recommend? Let me know what you’re trying out in the comments!