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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51 comments
add your comment »I would recommend not dying you hair darker than your eyebrows. It would look stupid. I would look like you dyed your hair blonde and bleached your eyebrows and the hair dye came out and the eyebrow stuff didn't. It would be okay if you were dying like a random color (purple, bright red, green, black, pink, etc.) but don't get brown hair of your really a blonde
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If you use ANY color on your hair, natural or not, be sure to tell your stylist before having any chemical processes done. Also know that if you don't like the results you get from "natural" dyes, that "regular" color cannot be used to correct it. Hair has to grow out and only the new growth can be colored with traditional dyes.
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I had heard about a natural herbal hair rince that supposedly restored your natural hair colour with frequent use. I think I've found it and decided to share. Check it out at http://www.pioneerthinking.com/graydye.html.
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Oops, I forgot to mention that this rince is supposed to restore your GREY to it's original (natural) color.
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I cannot seem to find a product that i need!!! I'm a mixed 17 year old looking for jet black organic (free of harmful chemicals, animal products and possibly vegan) hair dye. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!!!!
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There is a company that produces a line of hair colors that is completely free of harmful chemicals like PPD, ammonia, resorcinol. pthalates, coal tar dyes, amines, etc. The company is called Advanced Cosmetic Technologies and you can find them at www.actnaturals.com
They are salon quality and actually leave your hair beautifully conditioned!
Take a look and color away!!
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I am a student doing a Research Project to inform my classmates about hair dyeing. If you would leave a comment about the tips you use, The type of Hair Product, Do you use your own homemade Hair Dye such as henna, Some pro's and Con's or even some personal experiences of your own would be greatly appreciated....
You can email me at taj148908@yahoo.com
Thank you in advance... :)
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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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