Lifestyle Choices

There are three kinds of permanent hair colourants: vegetable dyes such as henna, metallic dyes such as those used to gradually cover grey hair, and the aniline dyes or oxidation tints, which include most of the colourants used professionally in salons.

The Vegetable Dyes

Henna is the best-known, since its use dates back thousands of years. Taken from the Lawsonia plant, which is indigenous to Africa and Asia, henna varies in colour depending on which country it comes from. It can be strong orange in colour, as Moroccan henna, or a deep red, as the henna that comes from Iran — the most sought-after in the world. The plant is harvested, dried in the sun, and then crushed into a greenish powder, which is what one puts on the hair. It coats the hair shaft’s cuticle a reddish colour. (more…)

THE METALLIC DYES

These you have no doubt heard about—they are supposed to be the magical cure for graying hair and are often called color restorers. They deposit metallic dyes and salts of various metals such as manganese, cobalt, silver, and copper on your hair shaft, which gradually darkens the hair. But hair dyed this way does not permanent-wave well, nor is itscondition very good, as this kind of dye tends to make the hair look a dull, flat color. Metallic dyes have to be removed completely, with the use of a special preparation, several days before waving or tinting with a permanent colorant. Because of their many disadvantages, I think they are best avoided.

BLEACHING

Hair bleaching is done with hydrogen peroxide, which affects the hair shaft both physically and chemically. Combined with an alkaline compound such as ammonia, it opens the imbrications of the cuticle so that it can penetrate the hair shaft, and then inside the cortex it chemically oxidizes the melanin pigments, fading their color, thus bleaching out the hair in the process. There are products on the market that are simple bleachers—they are called lighteners, and they consist of peroxide together with ammonia. Sometimes a “drabber” is added in order to remove the red highlights that come from bleaching darker hair. Bleaching forms an important part of the other permanent tints, which also rely on oxidation processes to work. (more…)

One of the simplest and most effective ways of changing your appearance is to change the color of your hair. As we get older, the color of hair tends either to fade or to go darker, so that a once shimmery golden mane or deep mahogany tresses can become lackluster and dull. One of the best ways of remedying the situation is with a color boost. Hair coloring these days is effective and reasonably priced and can look even better than most natural hair—provided, of course, it is done correctly. Otherwise it can end up looking like a burnished haystack.

There are two categories of hair colorants: permanent colorants, which enter the cortex and cannot be washed out, and the temporary and the semipermanent, which can be used to highlight and intensify your own hair color but won’t alter the cortex.

The Temporary Colorants

These are the easiest to use. They coat the cuticle of the hair with color that washes away with the next shampoo. You can get temporary highlighting shampoos and color rinses in a great variety of colors that don’t disturb the cuticle imbrications. Most of them have a shine- promoting pH, too. But what you can do with them is limited, for while they will darken the hair—say from blond to red or to black—they are really designed for minor color changes only. If you try to go too many shades away from your natural color, they tend to streak and give uneven coverage. They also cannot make your hair lighter than it is, because they have no action on the cortex, where the melanin granules are —they merely coat the outside of the hair shaft. (more…)

Each hair on your head is made beneath the surface of your skin in a little bulbous structure called a follicle. There, a clump of cells called the papilla, at the base of the follicle, produces the keratinous cells that become a strand of hair. The papillae get good supplies of food and oxygen, since they are well furnished with blood vessels, on which the growth and health of every hair depends. When, for any reason, circulation to your scalp is decreased or interfered with, the papillae get fewer nutrients and less oxygen than they need, and your hair suffers. The function of a follicle is to produce keratin, just as your pancreas produces insulin or your stomach hydrochloric acid. The follicle also contains an oil gland, which produces oil to coat each hair and to protect it from water loss. How efficiently and how well it does this depends on a number of things such as the level of androgenic and estrogenic hormones in your system, your genetic inheritance, and your general health. (more…)

The shine of your hair depends on the condition of the cuticle. Made up of transparent keratin, the cells of your hair’s cuticle should form a clear, flat surface that refracts light, making your hair look shiny. But in order for these fish-scale-like plates to lie flat, the cuticle has to be healthy and contracted. This means that the imbrications—the natural shingles of the cuticle—need to be closed. When they are closed, your hair is protected from much physical and chemical damage and light catches it beautifully. Many things can disrupt the cuticle and lead to the opening of the imbrications: very alkaline shampoos, for instance, which make the hair shaft swell. The swelling pushes out the scaly cells, making them stand away from the shaft. Very strong alkaline substances such as permanent wave solutions and bleaching agents can even dissolve some of the cuticle, leaving holes and tears in it, which makes your hair look permanently dull. (more…)