http://www.care2.com/greenliving/safer-ways-to-color-your-hair.html
Safer Ways to Color Your Hair
Adapted from Radiant Beauty, by Mary Beth Janssen.
Permanent hair colors are the harshest for hair, and pose the most potential health risk (see To Dye or Not to Dye?). Whenever possible, choose temporary, semi-permanent, demi-permanent, and natural dyes.
Glossary of Dye Types
- Permanent hair colors change the natural pigment found within your hair.
- Demi-permanent color enriches color, adds shine, and blends gray. With its lower levels of hydrogen peroxide and artificial color molecules, this service has less structural impact on your hair than permanent color, and it gradually fades over a period of four to six weeks.
- Semi-permanent color stains your hair shaft and covers gray but fades after six to eight shampoos.
Consider a natural color service or one that uses lower levels of hydrogen peroxide or developers, along with colors that have a lower dye lot.
Natural and Herbal Color Rinses
Certified organic henna and plant materials can also color your hair, but with a more gentle and natural approach, since they contain no synthetic chemicals, preservatives, or harsh oxidizing chemicals, such as ammonia. These pure vegetable products do not alter the structure or natural color of your hair and actually condition your hair while imparting color and sheen. No matter what you have heard, these products have come a long way.
You can create a wide variety of plant pigment color rinses yourself. These concoctions do not create radical hair color change, but instead accentuate your hair’s natural tone and shine. If your hair is less than 15 percent gray, some plants will disguise the gray. In these cases, the product actually stains your hair, although very subtly. Cumulative usage creates longer-lasting, slightly more intense results. You can repeat the application as often as desired, depending on the color level you prefer.
If You Do Color …
Remember this advice for keeping colored hair as healthy as possible:
- Protect and condition your hair and scalp regularly.
- Don’t stray far from your natural level and tone. Dramatic color changes require more upkeep, since outgrowth becomes very obvious very soon. (This also applies to texture services.)
- Follow your stylist’s recommendations for home-care regimen.
- Color-enhancing shampoos do work, helping you hold on to your desired color between salon or at-home color treatments, so do try them out.
- Be especially vigilant about protecting chemically treated and naturally colored hair from the sun.
- The less you chemically process your hair, the more healthy it remains.
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add your comment »My mom is constantly dying her hair but she only uses henna. You would think that it turns out orange, but no, its either red or purple. To get purple, she dries eggplant (aubergine) skins and then, when completely dry, she boiles then in water. She used this colored water to make the henna paste.
For the red she uses this maroon-dark-red type of flower (I don't know what its called). Its the same process as the purple colour.
Since she has dark brown hair, the purple and red look really good, and you can especially see it in the sun.
Hope this helps you.
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The tea rince sounds great! I have brown hair. I suppose I would go blonder as I got older. But what happens on the day you forget/can't use your rince. You go from golden on one day to white on the other and then back to golden on another day. Won't the look kinda strange?
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Traditionally, the natural henna is mixed with lemon and sugar to make the Indian designs on palms and feet. For some the color turns burnt sienna and for some, like me, it never did get any darker than medium orange on the palms. The reason I was told was because of the level of heat emitting through the skin. Henna is chalky green. The pure henna leaf used to be pureed and mixed with coconut oil and heated with other natural herbs to condition the hair, (my mother was particular). As with all commercial products, additives and camouflouge are part of the process. I think using absorbable products that are natural and acquired in the pure state are the best but one needs patience and time to deal with them.
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Hair dye for men[why not women] is called "Just a Touch of Grey'. Comb in but no need to touch scalp with product if you are careful.
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Regarding the tea rinse: I read that some women used to keep a comb in a cup of tea to use for quick touch ups (I could imagine that using a covered sugar server with a handled comb would work). It would work more as a mascara for hair, I would imagine.
For DIY types:
http://www.vegfamily.com/vegan-pregnancy/haircare2.htm
Henna: the only natural colour for henna is orange-red; with the addition of other natural (or un-natural) substances, shades are made. Indigo appears to be common in the darker shades, but may also account for the reddish-purple hair which looks good on few. As Lill mentioned, "Black Henna" may have PPD in it, and be just as bad as other chemical dyes (http://www.hennaforhair.com/indigo/)
I recently discovered my 5th and 6th silver hairs, and not terribly happy about it (to be honest, I flipped out). My husband thinks I'm ridiculous, as he's about 50% grey (he's 36, I'm 35), and couldn't care less.
I've joked about going blonde as I greyed, but don't know what will happen when there are more than I can pluck out. I am opposed to having to do anything for the rest of my life (aside from eating, sleeping, loving, travelling, bathing), and hair dying is up there.
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I don't know anything about this product, but did find the one described by other readers (Vegetal Bio Colour). http://www.amaherbal.com/vegetalbiocolour.html
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Sania, Like you I've stopped using the dangerous permanent hair colour, and tried henna but it just turned the roots orange. So, I'm very interested to know more about the Vegetable Bio Colour - do you or anybody else, have a product name please? I would appreciate any advice about switching methods - it seems really complicated. I'm a total coward and not ready to go grey!!
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I think Melissas tea color sounds great
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I use Surya henna. It comes premixed in a kit. I love it and it's not expensive. I buy it online and my hair looks great.
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I have been using chemical hair dye with PPD for long time till I came across a dermatologist (skin doctor) who told me the harms and risk involve in using chemical hair dyes with PPD. The possible result could be as dangrous as cancer if I continue using PPD based chemical hair dye. The discussion scared me and I totally stopped using hair dye. In few weeks my hair started getting gray and I noticed the percentage of gray hair had also increase to almost double since I started using hair dye . Now my worry was to hide those gray... I was really worried but not ready to use PPD base hair dyes... then one friend of mine from USA told me about Vegetal Bio Colour which is 100% Natural and free from all harmful chemicals like PPD, Ammonia, Peroxide, etc. I immediately purchased Vegetal Bio Colour and started using it. In 2 application the colour was perfect and looked much natural then what it use to be when I was using chemical hair dye. I also notices natural sheen and softness back to my hair after a long time... Its a great feeling of using pure natural herbal formultion which is safe and natural.
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