Haircolor 101

By lissa

Greetings Masters,
Greetings Mistresses,
Hello slaves,

Due to the astounding number of emails related to the last column on hair, lissa thought she would do a follow up on it. Last time, she talked about caring for long hair, this time she wants to talk about “improving nature”: Haircolor.

She is hoping to shed a little light on the costs of coloring your hair at home. While it is true that you will spend a lot more going to a salon to get your color, rather than picking up a box at the local grocery store, there are some very specific reasons why you should be very careful when attempting it at home. The color bought at a grocery store can be very damaging to your hair. Most of the colors, excluding the ones that are semi-permanent, have a high ammonia content to them. What that means is that the developer, the stuff you mix to activate the color, is generally the highest volume of peroxide. Which is almost the same thing as putting bleach on your hair. If you MUST use a box color to maintain your haircolor between visits to your salon, use something that is a semi-permanent, such as castings or natural instincts.

lissa does not recommend drastic color changes at home. Drastic changes means going from blonde to black, or brown to blonde. One shade lighter or darker should be fairly easily done. One wrong box of color can lead you to a $200 price tag for a salon fixing it. Anyone who has colored their hair at home and come out with a beautiful shade of moss green or howdy doody orange will attest to that. The prices for corrective color within a salon are expensive because of the sheer amount of time it will take to fix what you have done at home. The reasons for this are because hair will have to be stripped completely of its color, and then a couple of different colors reapplied so that you can get back to some natural looking hair. Not to mention the number of spots missed by you doing it at home. Which can take up to 5 hours to correct in a salon, and chances are, you hair will no longer be healthy. It will be extremely damaged and no amount of that 99 cent bottle of suave shampoo and conditioner will help it. Professional products will be reccommended as well as periodic trips to the salon for conditioning treatments.

As licensed cosmetologists, we are trained to understand the effects of color on the hair, to detect the correct color of your hair, to understand underlying pigments of your hair and the color you want it to become once it’s done and dried. We are also trained to know what kind of shape your hair is in and how to deal with that so that your color will be even and beautiful. In a salon we have every color imaginable in our back room, and we are trained to mix them according to what you want. Although you may show us a beautiful brown color that you wish to have, it does not mean we go into the back and mix up that beautiful brown color from one tube of color. Chances are that we are customizing and mixing various colors to counteract all that we have seen in your hair. For instance, if you have 50% of gray within your hair, color must be formulated to adhere to that gray, as well as the other color(s) within your hair. It is not a simple process and can result in a few hours spent at the salon. For instance: ever walked down the street and seen a woman with the same color hair? Every hair on her head the same, flat color and it looked like it had no “life” to it? That is what box color is. The same flat color for everyone. Where as in a salon you hair will have different hues and highlights to keep it as natural looking as possible.

So please, if you must do it at home, do it to maintain color between visits to the salon. Always consult your hairstylist for alternatives and helpful home maintainence. Thats what you pay her for. And if she is unwilling to help you maintain your color at home, or give you helpful advice to keep your color lasting longer, get another hairstylist. Don’t be afraid to shop around. Because as we say in the business. You get what you pay for. Let’s just hope you are not paying to have your haircolor the same as your Owner’s caste color.

always,

lissa

Please direct any comments, questions, or topic suggestions to: simply_lissa@yahoo.com