I have naturally dark brown hair, and this hair dye is dark enough that without good lighting it tends to blend in with the rest of my hair due to its reddish tones. The smell doesn't bother me. Even after bleaching my hair and dying my hair mixed with the developer, my hair is still in very good shape (note that my hair is virgin/previously unbleached, you can see how much it lifted in the photos). Basically this is good if you want a dark reddish purple which shows up stronger in better lighting and more subtle in darker lighting, but I was personally looking for something more dramatic. Note about the photos: boxes only come with one bottle, I just wanted to show what it looked like used and unused. The blonde is what my hair lifted to before I dyed my hair, and you can see the color of the hair in comparison to my natural hair color in the other photos.