Permanent Hair Color: What You Need to Know & Why

With so many hair color trends popping up lately, a lot of you may be wondering how you can achieve those same looks on your own hair. While it’s perfectly okay to jazz up your look and be adventurous, it’s important to know the proper products and techniques that need to be used when coloring natural hair.

Been Dyeing Your Hair For Years? Then You Need This

If you’re new to the whole coloring process, it may be confusing trying to figure out the difference between permanent and semi-permanent, not to mention the fact that your color could turn out disastrous if you apply it incorrectly. Before making the decision to go out a limb with that light gray or purple hair color, here’s what you need to know about permanent hair dye…

What are Permanent Hair Color Dyes?

Permanent dyes are permanent hair colors that don’t need to be reapplied as often as its semi-permanent and temporary counterparts. This is due to the fact that permanent hair dyes are applied through what is known as oxidation where an oxidizer, such as hydrogen peroxide, is mixed with ammonia and applied to the hair before the dye.

 One of the great things about permanent hair dye is the color selection, offering a wide range of colors from daring and bold to natural–looking. However, since permanent dye is stronger it is more damaging to the hair, causing dryness and breakage if the hair is not properly cared for.

How The Dyeing Process Works (if bleaching)

Before applying your new hair color, the hair will need to be lightened so that you’re starting with a blank state, which is especially important if you’re trying out a color that is lighter than your natural hair. Oxidation lifts the cuticle of the hair shaft, revealing the cortex and allowing the bleach to penetrate the shaft. After all of the color is removed from the hair, the actual hair dye is applied.

How Permanent Dye is absorbed by the Hair

What a lot of people don’t realize is that the texture of the hair doesn’t determine how well the color is absorbed by the hair; the porosity of the hair is what matters the most. The higher your porosity, the more color will be absorbed, but it is important that the cuticle is healthy enough to close back in order to retain moisture.

 If you have low porosity, the coloring process will increase your porosity level once the chemicals force the cuticles open, but the dyeing process may need to be prolonged a couple of minutes longer in order for the color to take properly.

Hair Color Aftercare

No matter what your porosity is, you need to make sure you deep condition you hair regularly after coloring. Since coloring increases porosity, it makes the hair become dry very fast. In addition to dryness, high porosity also means little-to-no elasticity which causes breakage and damage to the hair.  Immediately following up your coloring process with a deep conditioner will not only help begin the reconstructing process for your strands, but it will also ensure that the hair will not dry out as bad.

How to Fix a Permanent Hair Dye Disaster

At least 2 weeks after your dye job, you’ll want to provide your hair with a protein treatment in order to rebuild the cuticle and increase elasticity. Maintaining a consistent regimen of deep conditioning and protein treatments will nurse the hair back to health and reduce the amount of breakage and shedding that many women tend to experience after coloring their hair.

What color are you trying this spring Naturals?

Sabrina