If you’re lucky enough to be a single-process kind of gal and are looking for a little pickmeup in between salon visits, Clairol’s Perfect 10 by Nice ‘n Easy is the way to go.

It’s a high gloss color that covers grays and protects hair in just ten minutes. Why have I been holding out on you and waiting so long to tell you about this little jewel? Well, it’s because I haven’t tried this out myself–and I’ve never specifically recommended something for which I haven’t been a guinea pig. I’m thorough like that. The reason is that I’m a highlights kind of girl and while I recommend doing a lot of beauty treatments chez toi (manis, pedis, etc.) , at-home highlights isn’t one of them. And that’s only because of a highly unfortunate instance a highly uncoordinated 18-year old Amber had in high school when she did her own highlights and wound up looking like a… giraffe. My highlights came out in SPOTS as opposed to streaks. Not a good look.

But! I’ve witnessed firsthand the phenom results Perfect 10 afforded my beauty blogging besties Daneen and Marina with their single process color treatments. I saw both gals post-dye and was stunned (stunned!) by how shiny and rich their respective colors looked. In fact, Andrea Pomerantz Lustig reported in her beauty column in the May issue of Glamour that even celebrity colorist at Ted Gibson Salon in NYC Jason Backe (a total doll and one of my “mane” men) allows his own mother to buy it. Okay? That says it all, my friends. It can be yours for only $14 at drugstores.

Yours in this economic apocalypse,

Amber