This online store uses a personalized quiz to help you find the right shade of hair dye — and at a fraction of the cost compared to salons

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Madison Reed

• Cheap drugstore hair color products often contain harsh or harmful ingredients like ammonia, parabens, and phthalates.
• Madison Reed saves you an expensive trip to the salon and also focuses on ingredients that are actually good for your hair.
• The website gives you the confidence to color your own hair at home, even if you've never done it before.
• See also: The best at-home hair color kit

I've gone through my fair share of at-home hair treatments, from the blonde highlights trend of my elementary school years to my most recent foray into purple ombré. That's the fun of hair. You can manipulate and alter it in many ways and if you don't like it you can chop it off, let it grow out, or dye it back to its original color. Because of this fleeting nature, I preferred to drop as little money as possible on my hair color changes.

My glib attitude was always betrayed by a nagging feeling that I wasn't doing my hair health any favors. Anyone who has taken a whiff of the harsh, ammonia-filled dyes is probably also having second thoughts. "But I am cheap," I remind myself as I reach for a $10 box at the drugstore. My rationale is that I'm saving hundreds of dollars and hours spent in a salon chair.

The happy medium between these two extremes is Madison Reed, an online hair color brand that offers hair dye, root touch up, and other hair treatment products that are affordable and won't fry your hair.