Soslychic - I got your PM and while I'm happy to give you personal attention
I get questions all the time that could by answered by a comprehensive answer to all of yours...
So I'll answer you here...
Is permanent color always damaging?
The answer to this question is an unequivocal yes - especially when you have a relaxer. Read on to see the exceptions and how you can mitigate as much of the damage as possible...
Is peroxide just the official name for bleach?
The real answer is not really. The peroxide used in permanent color is formulated differently than what is applied when you use straight bleach on the hair. Bleach is peroxide. But the peroxide that is included as part of the color formula often additives that help lessen the damage caused by the peroxide. For our purposes though, the answer is yes. Since few of us will ever mix developer (bleach) ourselves, we can conceptualize them as the same thing. They aren't, but they are used for the same purpose - to open the cuticle, REMOVE NATURAL PIGMENT, and force a new pigment under the cuticle layer, into the cortex layer of the hair.
Do you always have to bleach your hair to apply a lighter permanent color?
Essentially - yes. Hair color is described in levels from 10 (I think) to 1 - 10 being the darkest (black) and 1 being the lightest (white). All the other colors you see in people's hair fall somewhere in between. In order to "lift" (it's called lifting because you are moving up the color scale level-wise) your hair from say a dark brown (roughly about an 8 on the color scale) to a light blond (lets' say a 2 on the color scale) you must remove the natural pigment of the hair to a certain extent and THEN redeposit the color you want...this is called "lifting" your color. Bleach is basically the only chemical that will effectuate this process. No pigment can be removed without bleach of some kind. You can deposit color without bleaching, but what you get is the color you deposited as against your natural pigment - which, if your natural pigment is too dark, will sometimes barely show.
What is ammonia?
Ammonia is another chemical that is used in the coloring process and it aids the bleach in it's effort to lift the cuticle so that color can be removed and then a new color deposited.
What is it found in? How is it damaging?
Assuming you still only mean in the context of color, it's found in certain brands of permanent color. Because it does it's job so aggressively and there are several chemicals that can "help" the peroxide open the cuticle while being less aggressive, many manufacturers of haircolor are replacing ammonia with gentler chemicals that are not as aggressive, but still do the trick. Textures and Tones is one of them. A lack of ammonia in haircolor makes it MUCH safer and much less damaging to color relaxed hair. Relaxed hair that is lightened with a color that includes both bleach and ammonia can react very negatively -that reaction is particularly to the ammonia. Take out the ammonia, and you fare FAR better coloring relaxed hair.
Is there any way to get a lighter permanent color without ammonia or peroxide.
Ammonia, yes. Peroxide - Nope!
I'm so confused!
Well I hope this helped!
Now - you didn't ask this stuff but let me add - because the cuticle is opened and angered by permanent color, one of the ways I counteract that is by using rinses - not only to even out the actual visual of the color if that's necessary, but also to soothe the cuticle. As many here have heard me say, rinses have a low PH - around a PH of 2.5 - 3.5. The way as many of us know to keep our hair on our heads on many different fronts is to balance things - in color what you balance is alkaline vs. acid....color and relaxers are alkaline, so often, your hair needs a more acidic environment to look it's best....rinses are a good way to do this (Sebastian Colorshines, Adore, Jazzing).
NOW - what a rinse does is that it STAINS the cuticle. No lifting of that outer layer of the hair is necessary, it just stains it. In the process, it deposits a protective layer of polymers, silicones, and proteins on the surface of the hair to provide a cast of sorts (not a permanent one - all you lovelies who ask me what I call "the bank vault question", the conditioner WILL get in!
I promise...
) so the hair is not as readily exposed to all the crap we do to it. In the case where permanently colored AND relaxed hair is hanging out underneath that "cast", the acidic base of the rinse helps the hair maintain a normalized PH balance. Which we know is important.
Also - as far as keeping relaxed hair healthy when it's permanently colored - In addition to everything else, it is important to give it protein. Both relaxing AND coloring affect the protein bonds in the hair. Obliterate them completely, and the hair literally falls apart - it will look and feel like chewing gum....especially when wet(how do I know this? It happened to me. Now you know why I call myself a daredevil...
) . Here's an oversimplified version of what happens....
The relaxer chemicals push through and lift the cuticle and attack the protein in the cortex to change the shape of the hair - from curls to no curls.
THEN, the poor cuticle, as it's recovering, just a hot two weeks later, (this is why I wait 4 weeks between color and relaxer applications - relax, wait 4 weeks, color, wait 4 weeks, trelax...) is disturbed AGAIN by the color pushing through and hollering at the now screaming cortex
- where more protein is removed and destroyed in the form of pigment.
So what can you do if you are like me and want to wear sunny colored hair anyway - because you're just vain like that?
Give your hair back some protein. Often. More often than most. Combine that with a good rinse and you look like nothing ever happened to your hair and it was just born golden.
Limit both processes (relaxing and coloring) to 4 and 2 times a year respectively and people will swear you're a color guru!
What do you get at the end of all the hoops you jump through? Vanessa Williams hair.
Disclaimer: Now matter how much rinsing and proteining you do, SOME HAIR JUST WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS ABUSE. Ammonia Free color has certainly made it possible for more people who relax and therefore more women of color, but it's a LOT to put your hair through. You have to baby your hair and you have to KNOW what's happening when you undertake these processes. Now that you know, YOU can decide what YOUR hair can take (or not).
Another disclaimer: I am a lowly kitchen colorist. There are probably terms here that I may have used slightly in the wring context. If there are any cosmetologists on the board (and I know you're out there) PLEASE feel free to correct me. Since women of color DO color, whether we have this information or not, it is my personal dream and crusade that we KNOW what we are undertaking and what's involved. That way, should we decide we want a new look, we are armed with the information we need to make an educated decision.
