eSalon, The At-Home Hair Color Brand, Just Got a Major Overhaul

Hair color from a box is infamous for yielding less than salon-worthy results, which is a large part of the reason why customized color brand eSalon was so groundbreaking when it first launched in 2010. The personalized hair dye kit — a four-time Allure Best of Beauty winner (no big deal) — is tailored specifically to meet all of your hair color wants and needs. Now, six million orders later, the brand is taking it one step further, with not only a complete overhaul of the entire line, but with a new high-tech component, too.

The basic premise of eSalon remains the same: Fill out a questionnaire, upload a photo of yourself, and receive a box of customized hair dye. While the initial formulation is based on an algorithm, a team of hair colorists tweaks and finalizes each shade and listens to all your questions and requests, ensuring pro-level end results.

Once that part is finalized, the technology kicks in. A robotic assistant, 'Polly,' is in charge of dispensing exact amounts of each ingredient for a perfectly precise final formula: "Our colorists empower you to do your own color, but we're using technology [in the factory] to automate the production, plus precisely and efficiently mix that color," explains eSalon CEO and co-founder Francisco Gimenez of this new process. (A similar type of technology will also be available at in-store eSalon color studios, via mini versions of the full-scale production line.) Couple that with the fact that Polly can dispense a bottle of color in less than a minute, and that the whole operation is now taking place in a much larger headquarters with the capacity to produce over 40,000 orders per day, and you've got yourself a whole lot of crazy good custom color.

Expect an upgrade to the general look and feel of the brand — including a redesigned logo and new pretty, Instagram-friendly pastel packaging — as well as more straightforward product names and revamped formulas of the line's shampoos, conditioners, and styling products. "By adding natural ingredients, such as quinoa, to our most popular products, we're helping to further maintain and extend the life of your color," says Gimenez. Keep an eye out for even more customized touches to come, all of which will continue to make every aspect of the at-home hair coloring process as personalized as possible; we're talking even being able to choose the size of gloves that come in the kit, people.

eSalon's new website — and its fresh new look — debuts today at 1p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST. Check it out discover this award-winning formula (which now got even better) for yourself.

Keep reading to brush up on your at-home hair color skill:

1. 11 At-Home Hair Color Tricks and Hacks to Nail Your DIY Dye Job
2. How to Get Perfect Highlights at Home
3. At-Home Hair Color by the Numbers: 13 Secrets You Never Knew

Look back at the surprising history of hair dye (like we're talking 100 years back):