Head's Up!

By Annette Gunnels-Garkowski

Springtime seems to be the time of the year that we all want to do something different with our hair color and style. With summer around the corner, it really does make sense to start lightening our hair and checking out the new cuts. We seek a lighter, simpler style, something we can easily take care. If the style is simplistic, we want to go a bit bolder with the color and vice versa. Sometimes a shade or two lighter is all that is needed to get that look you are after. But beware: If you are doing your hair color at home with box hair color and a change is attempted, it usually results in a trip to a local salon for some Rx. Perhaps some tips can head off (pun intended) this excursion.

If you have been using a dark shade over your light to medium colored tresses, and want to lighten it a few shades, do not go and apply a lighter shade over your present color. Applying hair dye over an existing color will result in lighter roots and a darker shaft or ends. You will only be applying dye over existing dye, making it darker and harder to remove. When you go to the salon for a touch up, the colorist will apply a 20 volume peroxide developer to your new growth, and to refresh your previously colored ends, use the same color but mix it with a more gentle 10 volume peroxide and leave it on for a very short time.

The problem with boxed shades is you are getting 20-volume peroxide. Combing this product through to refresh your ends not only will darken them, it will also result in chemically damaged dry hair. If you dye your hair and there is not a huge difference in your ends, there is a simpler way to lighten your hair. Try using a high detergent shampoo like Prell Concentrate. Several shampoos at once or over a period of days will lighten your hair, especially your ends. Put it on dry unwashed hair, and leave for 15 minutes, wash, rinse and repeat. Employing a good conditioner now, like Clairol Condition, is wise to correct the dry, brittle ends that come as a result of chemical mistakes. If it is several shades you want to lighten, I cannot stress to you enough to leave it in the hands of a professional. A home color can leave your hair with unwanted shades of red and gold when you try to attempt this process yourself.

A hairdresser, or preferably a colorist, can see this coming from working with different combinations of tints over time and attempt to correct it either by suggesting a different shade and/or by the use of drabbers. Drabbers are a product added to the mixed color to eliminate signs of brassiness and other funky colors that crop up. These products can wreak havoc in the hands of an unskilled person. The professionals have all they need at their disposal at the salon to correct most color mistakes.

Doing a patch test is equally important. Just because you haven't shown an allergic reaction in the past, doesn't mean you can't develop one. Products are constantly changing and improving, and new ingredients are being added. It makes good sense to test yourself. Finally, by getting advice before changing the color yourself, you will be saving a lot grief and the condition of your hair. All the processes needed to correct that one 'great idea' will certainly change the structure of your hair.

Remember, on average, hair only grows about a half inch a month, if you have to cut your hair because of damaging chemical treatments, that is all you can expect, that little half inch a month. Go easy on yourself, you're really worth it!

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