Hair Color FAQs #101 - Be Your Own Colorist
Posted: Monday, May 22, 2006
by Mickhael Cannon
Best Beauty Products Supply Stores
Learn More About Coloring Your Own Hair!
Hair color is a formula of dyes and pigments to stain the hair, ammonia to prepare the hair to take the color, and peroxide to lighten your natural pigment. Often the process will include a neutralizer to stop the process and a conditioner to help soften and strengthen your hair.
- Restore gray hair to a natural color
- Change natural color
- Restore natural color
- Create fashion effects
- Enhance or create highlights
- Level 10: lightest blonde
- Level 9: very light blonde
- Level 8: light blonde
- Level 7: medium blonde
- Level 6: dark blonde
- Level 5: lightest brown
- Level 4: light brown
- Level 3: medium brown
- Level 2: dark brown
- Level 1: black
Hair goes through seven stages of lightening: black to dark-brown, to brown, to red, to red-gold, to yellow, to pale yellow. Changing your hair more than two shades will damage it and look unnatural, whether you do it at home or have it done in a salon. Two-step coloring (also known as double processing) is for radical changes in your hair color. Be prepared for an unnatural look and dry, brittle hair, even when it's done professionally. Most experts recommend any radical change of color be done professionally.
Color Me Beautiful
Your first step is to choose the type of coloring product you want to use, depending on how long you want your color to last.
- Temporary: available in shampoos, conditioners, mousses, paint, crayons, sprays, and sticks. The color of the dye is the color that it will be on your hair. These are considered a fun, fashionable way to color your hair without making any commitment to the change they stay on until the first shampoo.
- Semi-permanent: formulated to stay on the hair for six to 12 washings, generally used to cover up to 20% gray or to lighten or darken hair. These coat and stain hair, but do not penetrate the cuticle.
- Mid/intermediate (also called longer-lasting semi-permanent, shorter-lasting permanent, or in-between color): use ammonia to swell the hair shaft and hydrogen peroxide for penetration and oxidation, so more dye gets into the hair and stays there. Can cover 25% to 50% gray, these dyes remain in the hair, then fade and grow out, but do not wash out. They are best used to match gray to your natural color, highlight or tint, or lengthen the time between more permanent coloring.
- Permanent: contain hydrogen peroxide up to 30% by volume, which means the hair is exposed to strong chemical action. Color is established inside the hair shaft and although it may fade, it doesn't go away until it grows out or is cut away.
- Men's hair color products: generally a mid/intermediate formula. Beware products with lead acetate, which is a known carcinogen. Experts recommend finding a good "women's" product instead.
- Vegetable dyes (henna): just as hard to use and just as unpredictable as permanent chemical dyes.
Take It Step By Step
- Follow all directions carefully.
- Do a strand test before coloring your hair. It's the only way to be sure how it will turn out. A good trick: collect a few days' worth of hair from your hairbrush, then bond one end with tape and test it.
- It's worth testing for allergic reaction prior to using a coloring product. Dab a little color behind your ears or on the inside of your forearm and wait 48 hours to see if your skin breaks out.
- Do roots first, then the length.
- If your hair is damaged, porous, or chemically treated, your hair will take color faster if it's healthy or thicker than normal, it will take more time to absorb color.
- Do not put color on previously treated hair (colored, permed, relaxed, or damaged by chlorine or sunlight).
- Do not use heavy conditioners or styling products a couple of days prior to coloring.
- The gloves that come with home use products are often fragile. It's worth investing in a pair of good rubber or disposable latex gloves.
Appropriate Types
Lightener
Bleaches your natural hair color to a light blond color.
Temporary dye
Changes your hair color temporarily until you shampoo. Can be used for decorative effects or highlights in specific areas of your hair.
Semi-permanent dye
Changes your hair color temporarily, for six to 12 washings. Can be used to enhance or subtly change your hair color or cover gray.
Mid/intermediate dye
Changes your hair color permanently until the hair grows out or is cut off. Can be used to highlight your hair, change your hair color a few shades, or cover gray.
Permanent dye
Changes your hair color permanently until the hair grows out or is cut off. Can be used to change your hair color drastically or cover gray.
Appropriate Uses
Temporary coloring
Temporary dyes are big molecules that do not penetrate the cuticle very well. They coat the outside of the cuticle to give it a different shade of color and cannot give hair a lighter color. Since temporary dyes only coat the outside of your hair, they shampoo out.
Semi-permanent coloring
Semi-permanent dyes are medium-sized particles and can partially penetrate the hair shaft. They last between three to five weeks. They cause the hair cuticle to swell and allow for better penetration of color. They cannot lighten hair and are slowly removed by shampooing.
Permanent coloring
Permanent dyes are the smallest sized particles for Best penetration of the hair shaft. They are combined in a basic solution to open up the cuticle and allow the dyes to be fully absorbed. When the dye solution is washed out, the hair's pH returns to normal and the cuticle contracts, trapping the dye.
Dye removers
Dye removers are used to remove color from dyed hair. They are often used to try to fix mistakes in coloring or to change from one dye color to the next.
Lightening
Lightening hair requires the opening of the cuticle and the destruction of melanin. Melanin is the pigment in your hair and skin that gives it color.
Ingredients
| Temporary Coloring | ||
|
Ingredient |
Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Color rinses | You may need to mix the rinse with water, but some can be used straight from the bottle. They are usually applied to hair for five to 10 minutes before being washed out. | |
| Highlighting color shampoos | Contain a temporary dye. When you shampoo, the color coats your hair. The results are only temporary. | |
| Crayons | Waxy sticks that are used to color hair, especially moustache hair in men. | |
| Hair color sprays | Consist of hair spray and temporary color. | |
| Hair color mousse | Mousse with a temporary color. | |
| Semi-Permanent Coloring | ||
|
Ingredient |
Description | |
| Self-penetrating dyes | Can open the cuticle without needing additional base. | |
| Permanent Coloring | ||
|
Ingredient |
Description | |
| Oxidating dyes | Contain aniline or aniline derivatives and must be mixed with hydrogen peroxide. | |
| Vegetable dyes | Derived from plants, they penetrate and bind to hair to impart color. | |
| Metallic (mineral) dyes | Made up of chemicals including lead acetate and silver nitrate. They chemically react with hair proteins to coat the hair and gradually add color. Lead acetate has been suspected to cause cancer. | |
| Compound dyes | Contain both vegetable and metallic dyes. | |
| Dye Removers | ||
|
Ingredient |
Description | |
| Oil-based remover | Removes hair color that coats the outside of the hair shaft. Is not intended for permanent color changes. | |
| Dye solvent | Can penetrate deep into the hair shaft to dissolve permanent dyes. | |
| Lightening | ||
|
Ingredient |
Description | |
| Hydrogen peroxide | A very powerful oxidizing agent that penetrates the cuticle easily to destroy melanin. | |
- Do a strand test to make sure you like the color on your hair.
- If henna or metallic dyes have been previously applied to your hair, wash it several times before applying hair color dye.
- Use protective gloves when applying color.
- Don't mix ingredients until immediately prior to use.
- Immediately discard empty bottles take partially filled bottles or unused mixed ingredients to an appropriate waste disposal facility. Do not pour down the drain.
- Semi-permanent color comes in creams, gels, shampoos, or mousse solutions and is usually left in the hair for up to 20 minutes. It will last for six to eight shampoos.
- Mid/intermediate color is shampooed in and can stay in the hair for up to 45 minutes.
- Permanent colors allow for drastic color change. Leave the cream, lotion, gel, or shampoo in for up to 45 minutes.
- Depending on the formulation of the coloring (temporary, semi-permanent, or permanent), hair color could fade or turn out brassy or uneven.
- You may not always get the exact color you want.
- Roots will begin to show two to six weeks after using permanent color.
- Hair coloring tends to dry out and damage hair.
- Henna buildup can dry hair and cause it to be heavy and hard to manage.
- Do not use if you are allergic to any ingredient in the product.
- If any chemicals or rinse water gets in your eyes, rinse thoroughly with warm water and direct the stream of water away from the scalp rather than toward it.
- Use protective gloves when applying color.
- Avoid contact with eyes, nose, and mouth.
- Hair color should not be applied if the scalp is already irritated.
- Increasing the concentration of color beyond the manufacturer's recommended directions may cause excessive damage to the hair and chemical burns to the skin and scalp.
- Never mix products from two different manufacturers.
- Aniline derivative tints must never be used on the eyelashes or eyebrows. Doing so may cause blindness.
Permanent colors contain some peroxide and an alkaline base that causes damage to the hair shaft.
Mid/Intermediate Colors
Mid/intermediate colors contain some peroxide and an alkaline base that causes damage to the hair shaft.
Henna Dyes
Do not use henna products for at least two weeks before using a different hair color product or perming hair.
Color Restorers
The metallic dyes contained in these damage the hair and can react with other styling products.
In your Service -
Best Beauty Supply Store Cosmetology Staff
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Getting decent hair advice is like extracting a tooth from a hairdresser, all the secrecy, mystery and conflicting advice is all too much for the ordinary civilian. Thank you for saving women from the bitchy, smelly, overpriced dungeons they call salons.Ummm...You are most welcome! Proper education and information brings about awareness of products and services that can save so many people from countless hair disasters and wasted monet spent. Have a great day! ;)WOW! I am sorry that so feel that way about salons! Wherever you go, must be a nightmare. If your lucky, you may be able to find a friend who has a comfortable setting for his or her clients. I am a male stylist, and I have a select few clients on my list that either come to my comfortable home, or I go to their home, depending on whether or not they have a proper set up. For most of my clients they love this! Unfortunately they only feel comfotable with me doing anything to their hair! ˁ(͠ ˽͠ )ˀ
Nice overview of hair color options. Thanks, Mickhael!
can i color and hilight the same day?Warmest greetings,
I would not recommend this as I feel that the color pigments one imparts into the inner cortical layer of the hairshaft need 24 to 48 hours to finally set by expanding fully & attaching/adhereing themselves to other color pigments and the hair shaft itself to ensure long-lasting color fastness that prevents fading overtime. Even after a permanent wave service I recommend that one's color be refreshed with a non-damaging, semi-permanent version of the permanent color they use to brighten back the color hue and replenish the color pigments that were lost to fading & strengthen the color bonds between the color molecules weakened by the perm process.
In your kind service,
MickhaelMy hairdresser puts my highlights in foils and then colors the remainder of my hair, thus avoiding double process
Hi Mickhael,
I went to a salon in a different town since I would be away from home for awhile to have my new growth touched up. I told the styist that my salon usually uses foil alternating brown and blonde (bleach and color) and she replied, "I'm not much on alternating." I tried to explain that everywhere I had went they had done it that way and she just seemed confused so I said, "Do you mean that your don't feel comfortable using foils? Well, she ended up putting color all over my hair except in the crown and then put color on the new growth only. Then went in and put bleach on top of the color and pulled it to the ends using foils (weaving like you would with highlights). Well my hair was not even brown on the bottom, it was black with a few slight highlights that looked awful! So, I tried to highlight with a box from the store just to try to make it look better and ended up with a mess! Please help!!!
Jeannie
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