Zuvi ColorBox Review: A Hair Dye Printer That Struggles

I will say that I think this product could be neat in some scenarios. If you prefer to dye your own extensions, or you constantly change the color of a streak and don’t need to buy full-sized dye containers, or you’re a parent of kids who are always dip-dying their bleached ends, this might make sense. And the resulting product smells good. I also like the included container that lets you store leftover dye. If you’re specifically looking for washed out, pastel tones, I still think you should just… take some hair dye and dilute it with conditioner.

Ultimately, based on my assessment, the product fails to do its job. And even if it improves — even if eventually, you can get a black pigment to help deepen the colors, or Zuvi moves from using primary colors to using cyan, magenta, and yellow, or the company starts making the process of bleaching your hair at home easier, or the use of generative AI takes off and Zuvi starts actually standing behind its results… at the end of the day, you still have. One proprietary machine remains that uses proprietary cartridges, all of which would become paperweights if the company folded.

I have studied every single result I got from other reviews on the internet. I’m not a licensed cosmetologist, but I’ve been coloring my hair for almost 20 years, and I have yet to find any results that are more impressive than what a user can get for less money at their local beauty supply. Semipermanent fashion colors are available in hundreds and hundreds of shades, all of which can be mixed together. It may take some trial and error to dial in your perfect pink or blue or red color, but it can be done without a machine. Your local beauty supply store probably has an associate who has been coloring their hair for decades and will be happy to point you in the right direction. And respectfully, if you can’t figure out color theory or apply a little bit of conditioner to dilute your own dye, you should probably go to a professional and save yourself the trouble of doing it wrong. Zuvi Colorbox adds more guesswork instead of taking it away.

Although I like the low initial price, getting a color touch-up from a professional is very expensive, and Zuvi’s refill cartridges (about $22 each) can easily cost the same as coloring your hair with products from a local beauty supply, especially if your hair is long, thick, and/or curly. And I like the idea of ​​reducing leftover dye waste, but again, you don’t have to buy any gadgets for this.